"In response to the global financial crisis, government-led measures have helped countries in East Asia reap some rewards. Packages varied across East Asia. Indonesia and the Philippines injected $7.1 billion and $7 billion, respectively, followed by Malaysia with $12.1 billion, Thailand with $39 billion and Korea with $53.4 billion.

Yet such a recovery has also given rise to a worrying question: When should governments turn off the stimulus package taps? The labor market will feel the heat of such an early end to the financial packages. At the same time, governments will come under pressure from growing public discontent about the expanding public debt and that constant spending by governments is crowding out the private sector."

"India is ramping up its road infrastructure, -- quadrupling highway construction in six months -- in a bid to accelerate economic growth in Asia's third largest economy. Roads minister Kamal Nath has promised to add 28,000 kilometers of road to the existing 70,500 kilometre network of highways by 2014 besides thousands of kilometers of district and village roads.

Even as trade minister, Nath was involved in planning large infrastructure projects -- a case in point being the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, an Indo-Japanese collaboration. The project envisages clusters of special economic zones and ports, on a slender road corridor over the 1,160 kilometres connecting India's political and financial capitals."

"There are currently 480 million people in China without access to formal credit. According to the World Bank, poverty in China is an almost exclusively rural phenomenon with 90% of the poor population residing in rural areas. As poverty declines, the dispersion throughout villages makes it irrelevant for the government to target entire areas for poverty reduction. The need is for an approach that targets poverty at the rural household level, such as microfinance.

Currently, there are about 100 microfinance NGOs in China. None have sufficient and regular access to capital and few have adequate cash flow to cover financing and operating expenses. The most universal challenges faced by microfinance programs in China include insufficient funding, lack of management experience and slow evolving government regulations."

"One of the Millennium Development Goals of the UN is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger by 2015, which would mean halving the proportion of children, who are underweight for their age. According to a UNICEF report, half of the world's undernourished children live in South Asia. Every year, 2 million children die in India, accounting for one in five child deaths in the world. Prevention of many such deaths is possible if efforts towards better nourishment of our children are taken seriously.

Under-nutrition level is serious in rural areas, especially in lower wealth areas and among families with no educated adult. The percentage of undernourished children is far higher than the income poverty rate. Only 33 percent of age-eligible children have received any service from the Integrated Child Development Services program. This shows that only about 650,000 children received some minimal attention of the government, leaving the rest of them to their fate."

"Science can help design strategies to tackle malnutrition. The challenge is turning this knowledge into action. There is growing evidence that poor nutrition in early life can also cause irreversible damage to brain development, adversely affecting an individual's productivity in later life, translating into significant losses of earnings. Malnutrition in all its forms is entirely preventable. And our increased understanding of how malnutrition interacts with disease offers a wealth of information on how, and when, to tackle the problem most effectively.

However, there are no quick fixes. No matter how effective nutritional interventions such as food aid or vitamin drops may be, they do not address the driving forces behind malnutrition, which often boil down to poverty -- and the lack of education, healthcare, hygiene and sanitation that come with it."

"The Philippines will see economic growth accelerate to as high as 3.6 percent this year following an encouraging pick-up in the final quarter of 2009, the government said Thursday. The global financial crisis and a series of deadly storms dragged gross domestic product growth in 2009 to an 11-year low of 0.9 percent. The impacts of the global financial crisis caused industry to contract by 2.0 percent.

However the economy turned around in the final quarter. Amid cautious optimism, the government said there were a wide range of factors that could impact on the mild economic recovery. These included a projected dry spell early in the year that would hurt the farming sector while the Indian drought could lead to higher global food prices."

"Recent financial coordination has resulted in a global economic recovery, but continued policy coordination is needed to sustain growth and avert future crises, a recent gathering of economists from around the globe heard. Large capital inflows into Asia, betting on a strong recovery in the region, have become a pressing issue and concerned many parties. The inflows have already caused asset bubbles and could trigger asset price crashes later

There are growing calls for some kind of tax on capital flows, to rein in excessive speculation. The International Monetary Fund and many economists support the idea. If policy-makers can reach an agreement, it is likely that such a tax will be imposed in many countries, particularly in Asia -- if not across the globe."

"Indonesia and neighboring Timor Leste have formed a Joint Coordination Committee responsible for development of cooperatives, small and medium enterprises in the two countries. The Joint Coordination Committee's function is discussing and developing cooperation possibilities in the cooperatives, small and medium enterprises sector that can lead to the conclusion of pertinent accords.

The cooperation would among other things cover information exchange on development policy program, national and international trade promotion, special exhibitions, trade cooperation, and creation of business partnership. It also covers various opportunities to participate in trainings on managerial skills in technical field, and formal education on cooperative management field."

"China is facing a major transition period after decades' of development, said Michael Spence, the 2001 Nobel Laureate in Economics. The world's most populous country, which is widely expected to surpass Japan to become the second largest economy in the world, has successfully survived the global financial and economic crisis, but will still face a tough future.

The important parts of China's economy are already, or are entering, middle-income status with a per capita income of around $4,000, a watershed during which many countries have lost momentum as structural transformations stall. To facilitate the transition, the Noble Laureate urged the Chinese government to take measure to increase household income and decrease precautionary savings by improving the social security net."

"While private players in India are deliberating on investing in infrastructure projects in the aftermath of the global slowdown, nearly half of the projects for capacity expansion at ports are likely to spill over into the coming financial year. The Ministry of Shipping has considered awarding 30 projects in 2009-10 at an estimated cost of over Rs 20,000 crore through public-private partnership.

These projects are expected to enhance capacity at the centrally-regulated 12 ports by 46 percent. Of these, only 10 projects worth Rs 2,000 crore have been cleared, which constitutes one-tenth of the investment target. However, the government hopes to clear six more projects worth Rs 5,000 crore by the end of the March deadline. Even with that, only 35 percent of the investment target set out by the ministry for clearing PPP projects would have been met."

"Science innovation's potential to boost international development has never been greater. Biotechnology, for example, has already delivered improved crops and new vaccines for the rich. And because it harnesses fundamental genetic and molecular processes, it is also easily directed towards the crops and diseases of the poor.

And new nano-, energy, information and communication technologies are much more flexible than earlier engineering technologies, because they rely less on established infrastructures and big industry. Rapid growth in information and communication technology is also making it easier for all countries to participate in science innovation -- and to engage stakeholders and beneficiaries in this process, across historical boundaries of developed and developing countries."

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