Don't just help the poor - eradicate inequality first

THE Asian continental "economic tiger" - after more than a quarter-century of sustained economic growth - is now confronting a defining challenge of inequality.

Many Asian countries have prospered and created new wealth. However this wealth, and the prosperity and opportunities that it promises, are not being equally shared. Asian inequality has risen by as much as 18 per cent between the mid-1990s till now. Around 1.6 billion people continue to live in Asian countries on less than US$2 a day. The Gini co-efficient - a common measure of inequality - has worsened in the past two decades in countries where more than 80 per cent of the Asian population live.

Last year, Oxfam revealed that 240 million people in Asia could have escaped poverty had inequality not increased from 1990 levels. Millions of Asian workers and farmers are being left behind the economic curve, trapped in poverty, despite being part of the engine that is driving the very growth f…