ABSTRACT
Background to the welfare-to-work programme Ten years after the Asian financial crisis (1997), its adverse impacts are still haunting many governments. They still are uncertain whether the “good old days” (i.e. economic prosperity) will return to stay, and there is growing intolerance of poverty and income inequality in the region. The issues of poverty and economic growth now top the policy agendas of many Asian governments. A clear indication of the region’s concerns was the annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in early May 2008, where the question of poverty captured centre stage (ADB, 2008a). The severity of the problem was underlined by the fact that the Asia-Pacific region is still home to two-thirds of the world’s poor, with 1.5 billion people – three times the population of Europe – living on less than US$2 a day. The ADB acknowledged in its Strategy 2020 that despite rapid economic development, it is becoming more and more difficult to “reach those who remain excluded from its benefits” (Executive Summary, ADB, 2008b). In the words of Mr Haruhiko Kuroda (2006), the Chairman of the ADB, “the need to eliminate systemic poverty remains the single most urgent challenge for many East Asian developing countries”. Even for the more developed economies, the problem of poverty has not gone unnoticed.
