ADBI E-Newsline

"The critical lack of protein and micronutrients is evident in the worsening mortality indicators among Afghan women and young people. The country now claims the highest rate of maternal mortality in the world and the second highest mortality rate among children under five years old (now around 25% of children die before their fifth birthdays).

Current food rations distributed by the World Food Program are barely enough to help the population meet the minimum required daily intake of calories, vitamins, and minerals -- even with humanitarian workers' use of nutrient-enhanced foods such as 'Plumpy Nut,' a high calorie peanut-butter made for children. Afghanistan continues to stand in great need of improved access to vaccinations, breast-feeding education for new mothers, and oral-rehydration therapy awareness."

"For the Philippines, deepening unemployment is the worst consequence of the world economic crisis. As the number of people joining the labor force grew, domestic job options have narrowed, while foreign job opportunities have dried up. But it is insensitive to treat rising unemployment as another worsening statistic. For many, it means deep frustrations and shattered dreams; for some, it means instant poverty and occasional hunger.

The quality of jobs lost and jobs created is another issue. Even without the crisis, the Philippine job market was already at its critical state. Emergency employment isn't the permanent cure. It can't be sustained, given the deteriorating fiscal position of the government. What the government ought to do is to revisit its development strategy. Clearly, the present pattern of economic growth is not good enough as it fails to create sufficient decent jobs for its growing work force."

"Teenagers below the lawful age for marriage in Fiji are often 'sold' or given away as wives in rural areas as a result of poverty. It was hoped new laws banning such marriages would put an end to such practices. The new laws made it illegal for any girl, with or without parental consent, to be married. A girl, in this case, is considered to be a female under 18 years.

There have been cases, mostly in Vanua Levu, where parents out of extreme poverty have forced their daughters to marry older men, a social worker said. Some of these girls are forced and some do it willingly to get out of the cycle of poverty."

"The city of Bhopal and in some ways the entire state of Madhya Pradesh in central India got stigmatized after the gas leak 25 years ago. It is this stigma that has not allowed the city and the state to grow economically. While the rest of India has been enjoying an economic boom, Bhopal and Madhya Pradesh have been left behind in the economic race.

To this day, many of the survivors live in crowded shacks in the slums that line the old factory walls. Bhopal has failed to create enough jobs for poor people who have flocked in from the countryside to look for work. Six in 10 children in the state are undernourished, and more people suffer from hunger here than in Ethiopia or Sudan. The wealth gap between Madhya Pradesh and other states in India is also widening by the day, with the rest of India's economy growing at about twice the rate."

"A debilitating handicap can mean a lifetime sentence of frustration in the Kyrgyz Republic as the country does not have the resources to create the appropriate educational infrastructure for handicapped students. Thus, many young people with disabilities cannot attend school on a regular basis. Disabled children cannot go to primary and secondary schools or colleges due to certain barriers like high staircases, the lack of entrance ramps, and a lack of programs to train teachers to work with such children.

To provide education to disabled children, large investments are needed to construct new schools and renovate existing facilities. Transportation infrastructure must also be modernized for handicapped people. These appear to be low priorities for the government, given the current economic circumstances, observers say."

"For Kabul's estimated population of 4-5 million there are only 35 public toilets, according to municipal authorities. 'We need at least 65 extra public latrines in Kabul immediately,' said Nesar Ahmad Habibi, head of Kabul's waste management authority, adding that the lack of government action and limited resources had prevented the construction of sufficient public toilets in the city.

People who use the latrines have to pay a small fee to cover maintenance and cleaning -- 5-10 Afghanis (10-20 US cents), a sum that the large number of extremely poor people in the city would prefer to avoid paying. A rapidly growing population, lack of modern sewage systems, significant waste management problems and the lack of public toilets in Kabul are causing environmental and health risks, according to experts."

"No visitor to Altyn Kazyk, a shantytown on the outskirts of the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, can ignore the stinking smoke rising from piles of smoldering waste. Residents say it floats over the settlement day and night, and it only takes half-an-hour here to induce a strong headache. This is not the only health hazard threatening the collection of small, unpainted clay houses. There is a gas pipeline running along the edge of the waste dump, a burial site for sick livestock and some of the homes are even built on top of human graves.

But despite the harsh living conditions in Altyn Kazyk, locals are frightened that municipal plans to tear down the shanty town will leave them worse off than before. Residents are campaigning for their homes to be given legal status before they are demolished, thus guaranteeing them compensation or a plot of land. The majority of the 1,000 settlers came from the impoverished south of Kyrgyzstan to seek work in the capital, located in the more economically-developed north of the country."

"More than 6,000 poverty-stricken farmers in Central China's Hubei province are selling their blood on a routine basis to make extra money, with some saying it's the only way they can earn enough money to pay bills. Presently, nearly 6,400 local farmers sell their blood -- 600 cc at a time -- every two weeks at the blood plasma collection station authorized by the local health bureau in Yunxian county. The farmers earn 168 yuan ($25) each time.

Gao Congfen and her husband from nearby Zhengjiahe village have sold their blood there since 2000 in order to pay middle school and university tuition fees for their son. Zhou Wenfen, 53, from Yangjiagou village, started to sell her blood regularly in 2007 when her 3-year-old grandson was diagnosed with aplastic anemia. Each time she sells her blood, she wakes up at 4 am, spends more than an hour to climb a mountain, travels down the Han River by boat for hours, and then arrives at the station around noon, the report said."

"In parts of rural India, women have a new demand for matrimony: a toilet. 'No toilet, no bride,' has become a rallying cry for women raising a stink about the lack of a basic amenity. They see it as a human rights issue, especially in villages where plumbing can be nonexistent. The problem is so big in India that the country would need to construct 112,000 toilets every day if it wants to meet its sanitation goal by 2012, according to the Ministry of Rural Development.

The government estimates that less than 30 percent of villagers have access to latrines, which poses serious health risks and increases the threat of deadly diseases like typhoid and malaria. To help overcome the enormity of the sanitation challenge, the government is offering incentives to encourage villagers to build bathrooms. The poorest of the poor in Haryana stands to receive Rs. 2,200 ($48) for each toilet they install."

"Among the recession's more unlikely victims have been the Indian surrogate mother business. Despite the recession, some wealthy foreigners still travel thousands of miles for the chance of a baby -- finding no shortage of poor, local women prepared to allow them to use their wombs.

One woman explained that she had no option, as her husband died and she had no money to feed her own children. Surrogacy is not illegal in India, but there are moves to tighten laws to define the responsibilities and duties of a surrogate mother and those seeking her services, as well as implement tighter regulation of medical facilities."

"Hundreds of children living in a rough downtown Ho Chi Minh City neighborhood are forced to take up the dual gauntlet of drug addiction and crime every day. Mired in poverty and lack of education, they are also deprived of any semblance of a normal family life, born as many of them are to parents involved in drug-related crimes, including some serving long jail terms or even life sentences.

Ma Lang, which means deserted graves in Vietnamese, is an old quarter that used to be a cemetery before being turned into a residential area decades ago. On the exterior streets, it looks like a normal city neighborhood. But Ma Lang's tiny alleys that snake through the blocks of dense housing hide another world. The area had become a drug and crime center after homeless city-dwellers were put up in low-income houses there in the 1980s."

"Doi Moi - 'economic renovation' - has brought thousands of factories to Vietnam where production lines run two and three shifts, churning out goods for the world. What's it like to be one of the millions of young women who work in these IZ (industrial zone) factories? All workers are under great pressure to sustain high productivity. They are paid full salary only if they meet their quota. If they do not, their pay will be docked. Worst of all is the constant pressure they feel from team leaders and supervisors to meet the company's standards and deadlines.

Many workers cannot stand the interminable overtime hours so they quit to seek new jobs. That's why Xuan, 19, a young woman from the central province of Quang Ngai, left Dai Phat. She said that workers in other companies often work overtime for 40-60 hours per month, but the overtime at Dai Phat had been 100-120 hours, month after month. Sometimes workers have had to work until 11 pm, two full shifts."

"Many Vietnamese families moved to the Koh Thum District in Cambodia many years ago as they found it easier to subsist on fishing and farming there. However, the children do not know the local language, so more than 500 of them travel back to Viet Nam every day, crossing many rivers to attend classes in An Giang Province.

Many children quit school right after learning to read and write to help their parents make a living. But some children have entered college and done well. These students inspire those looking to escape from poverty."

"Failure to keep girls in school past primary education is taking a massive toll on Cambodia?s economy and leaving young women vulnerable to exploitation, a new report warns. Women deprived of proper schooling are limited to high-risk, unskilled, low-paying jobs that are slowing Cambodia's emergence from the financial crisis, the report says, adding that they are also more likely to lose their jobs, enter the sex trade and die at a young age.

Though the number of girls enrolling in primary school is high, that rate drops sharply at secondary schools. Roughly 1.3 million girls attended primary school in 2007-2008. About 55,000 girls completed grade nine, and only 22,000 completed high school. The consequences are serious. This means they suddenly become more vulnerable to sexual exploitation. Many of them have low-income jobs in the informal sector, where they are more susceptible to trafficking, sexual violence and contracting HIV."

"As work becomes scarcer in Cambodian cities and salaries fall due to the economic slump, some unskilled laborers are returning home to take up employment in the traditional Cambodian handicraft of silk weaving. Srey Pov, 18, left her job at a Phnom Penh garment factory when her overtime was cut and her salary dropped to just $45 a month. After paying for food and rent, she had nothing left to send to her family, so she returned home.

She found a job at a silk weaving enterprise where she still earns only $45 a month, but the rural setting allows her to save $35. For workers struggling in cities, the survival and growth of the sector could provide a welcome employment option until more well-paying jobs return to the country's factories."

"Drought-hit farmers in northern India are resorting to selling their wives to repay debts to local loan sharks. Poverty, poor administration and a lack of education means farmers in the rugged Bundelkhand region are taking extreme steps to pull through a poor rainy season. Excluded from the formal banking sector, the poverty-stricken farmers often turn to usurious private money lenders when banks refuse them loans or even accounts.

After five years of poor crop yields and steadily decreasing rainfall, the crushing weight of the high interest payments has led to a well-documented spate of suicides and increasing cases of human-trafficking. Local reports have suggested wives can be pawned or sold for anything between one rupee to 12,000 rupees ($240). Some women are sold under the guise of a legal marriage, complete with a formal contract, but activists believe others end up being exploited by prostitution rings. In the last four to five years around 50 percent of the region's population has left Bundelkhand villages to find work in cities, and at least 500 farmers have committed suicide."

"Over the past nine years, Uttam Sanjel has built up a nationwide network of schools that offer an education for just 100 rupees ($1.40) a month. They are built using only the cheapest materials -- earning them the nickname 'bamboo schools' -- with funds donated by local businesspeople and charitable organizations.

Although more than half the population still lives beneath the poverty line, education is highly prized and many families scrimp to send children to fee-paying schools that offer classes in English. In 2005 -- the latest year for which comparative data was available -- only 48.6 percent of adults in Nepal were literate against 61 percent in India, 90.7 percent in Sri Lanka and 47 percent in Bangladesh, UN figures show."

"Around the world, people brave the high, turbulent seas in rickety, overcrowded boats that often capsize before they get anywhere. Why would Pacific Islanders whose home countries have long been blessed with the natural bounty of food, shelter and secure environment want to be so desperate to get into western countries risking life, limb and reputation? While there can't be simple answers to such a question, there are some obvious pointers. A rapidly monetizing economy (as against a subsistence economy that has existed since times immemorial) has put undue pressures on Pacific Islanders throughout the region to earn cash money -- something impossible to do in fringe communities where most live.

Development has brought power supply and drinking water to even the remotest villages but there has arisen a need to pay for these services in cash -- a scarce commodity that was not terribly needed to get by in life for several generations. This has necessitated families to send away their youth to urban centers to earn a cash wage to be able to pay those mounting utility bills. The price of development has taken another toll as well. It has loosened the extended family structure so characteristic of Pacific Island life and it is no coincidence that urban crime has spiraled in many of the island nations."

"Out of every hundred Filipinos, 13 live in absolute poverty line. What does being absolutely poor mean? Poverty of this depth means not only malnutrition and constant hunger, lack of access to basic education and shortened life spans. It also means social exclusion, loss of dignity and powerlessness. For the absolutely poor, even periods of economic boom may merely mean being left further behind -- since they're unable to take up the jobs that growth opens up.

Many approaches to this objective have been developed. The key lies in concentrating our scarce resources on lifting up the lives of our absolutely poor families. Experts warn that anti-poverty programs that do not target the absolutely poor well enough may merely allow the non-poor to capture the benefits from these programs -- the end result being greater and wider inequalities. Since the correlation between the lack of schooling and the degree of poverty is so strong, ensuring that no child is left behind should be a key objective of any anti-poverty program. Right now, our dropout rates are among East Asia's highest."

"The flooding that inevitably accompanies the arrival of the monsoon may seem to suggest that India's problem is too much water. Too often, though, the opposite is the case. Overpopulation and climate change have played their part, with many people abandoning agriculture because of the increasingly erratic rainfall and drifting into the cities to live. That has placed additional pressure on a water supply that was already inadequate.

With temperatures at the start of last month soaring to as high as 49C in some parts of India, dozens of people are reported dead from the effects of the heat. Forced to conserve what little water they have, families in slums admit they wash less often and many complain of thirst as the temperatures soar. As they scavenge for what they can find, they are also more vulnerable to waterborne diseases, and mothers say their children often fall sick through drinking contaminated water."

"The steep rise in the prices of food commodities a year ago made eating rice an occasional luxury for many villagers in the Philippines. Chicken and pork are rare too; most eat vegetables and little fish. In another village, the mother of a 5-year-old harelip boy displayed the chest X-ray of the child: he is afflicted with tuberculoses, a killer disease rampaging around the villages. Skinny malnourished children looked on with imploring eyes. The only thing missing from the scene was a waiting vulture.

Those who think that poverty in the Philippines has receded and claim the country to be a middle-income nation are living far removed from reality. Three years ago, almost 33 percent of Filipinos were living below the poverty line. Now it is even worse because of the recession."

"The Jakarta government would like to move squatters away from rivers and reservoirs as part of a dredging program to ease flooding. But building new homes for the estimated 150,000 people who live near waterways illegally is costly and difficult, city officials say. The city government has raided the area several times, but the community of about 600 people keeps coming back.

'Everything is free here. We don't have to pay rent, and we've got a water supply,' Juliawati said. 'This is far better than roaming the city streets.' But living free comes at a price. Floods are a reality of life. The squatters survive by building their shacks as high as they can with scavenged planks."

"The stench of filthy water from a small open sewer permeates the air. Hundreds of houses line the small roads that branch into narrow concrete footpaths divided by the sewer. The community is packed closely together, with one-storey houses standing cheek by jowl. Separated by narrow concrete paths, privacy does not exist in this community. This is the '70 rai' community, part of Bangkok's biggest slum. Some 8,500 people in 1,200 households are packed into 11 hectares. Most subsist on port work, as street vendors or as laborers.

Many residents cannot afford their own meals and seek food from NGOs and charity organizations. The trend towards higher rates of poverty has increased since the end of last year. A lack of data to locate the poor due to red tape has remained a weak point in the government's policy. Six out of 10 of the labor force are informal workers. These workers are not covered by the existing pension fund system, nor entitled to unemployment or health benefits. The number of informal workers increased steadily from 62% of the labor force in 2005 to 24.1% (63.7 million workers) in 2009."

"Few scenes more richly deserve the description hell on earth: teams of filthy stick-limbed children and adults foraging through mountains of stinking garbage for scraps. At the end of each day, the scavenger colony retreats to rows of unsteady hovels parked either side of an open sewer, where children and pregnant women survive, literally, on trash. Manila's huge bayside dump, catering to a city of 15 million people, draws great black clouds of flies and ferments a methane-rich funk that rises from the garbage.

The dumpsite has replaced the notorious Smokey Mountain, once synonymous with poverty in the Philippines. Shamed by international coverage of the 20,000 desperate people eking out a living there, the Manila government bulldozed Smokey Mountain in 1995 and moved some scavengers into public housing. But many simply moved across the road to the new landfill, which is surrounded by slums and thousands of raggedy hovels that spill onto the Manila streets. Perhaps a million more live on or near 700 other dumps around the country."

"Only 19 percent of the rural population in India lives in 'strong' houses, while the remaining live in 'weak' houses with mud walls and thatched roofs, according to a survey. Eighty-seven percent of homes in the villages do not have toilet facilities. Cooking is usually done inside the house under inadequate ventilation with biomass such as dried cow-dung, fire wood, dry weeds or crop residue, exacerbating the risk of tuberculosis.

Despite the allocation of considerable funds by central and state governments, the housing program for the poor is failing because it is ill-conceived, focusing on offering shelter as opposed to improving living conditions, and executed without sufficient thought about many inter-related considerations. Planners must not lose sight of other, interrelated goals such as offering basic amenities, preventing diseases and assuring social integration."

"About 37 million Indonesians are currently living below the poverty line. Through the National Program for Community Empowerment, the government has allocated Rp 10.4 trillion ($1 billion) to every district and Rp 1.7 billion for employment-related development activities to help tackle poverty. It is hoped that the management of this enormous fund, which has its origins in foreign debt, comes with high levels of transparency and supervision.

For development, more important than 'productive investment,' is investment in the poor, in particular in children's health and education. Many countries that have applied this are currently reaping the results, such as Malaysia and Korea. Without it, a vicious circle will only take place."

"Like other developing countries Pakistan has poverty, illiteracy, population growth, unplanned urbanization, unemployment, gender discrimination dysfunctional families, rural-urban as well as cross-border migration, and non prevalence of a comprehensive social security and support system. All these problems are contributing factors for promotion of human trafficking. During last 10 years, estimated number of 200,000 women and girls, between 12-30, has been trafficked from Bangladesh to Pakistan.

The reason why women and children are primary targets for traffickers is that they can in turn be sold to cater to a variety of needs ranging from sex-slavery to menial labor. Women and children trafficked within the confines of national borders may be used to settle disputes, or sold off to begging mafias. Recently trafficked women are also suspected of being used to operate 'baby farms', which cater to the growing demand for adoption in richer countries. Incidences of trafficking being linked to organ trade have also been reported."

"The global economic crisis is also a social crisis in Asia, with an estimated 60 million people remaining mired in poverty due to falling growth rates, according to the Asian Development Bank's managing director general. Rajat M. Nag said the estimated three percent drop in GDP between 2008-9 in developing Asia -- excluding Japan, Australia and New Zealand -- meant 60 million would fail to emerge from poverty. An extra 10 million people would be undernourished and around 56,000 more children aged under five would die.

Developing Asia at present exports 60 percent of its production to Japan, the Eurozone and the United States. Asia must boost consumption -- an important part of poverty reduction -- by saving less and spending more. The regional savings rate is very high, largely to compensate for the lack of welfare programs. Service industries should also be encouraged. At present, services in Asia are difficult to access because of protectionist or other measures."

"In Hiware Bazaar, what was once a perennially drought prone area is now a green zone. The village has neatly laid concrete roads, public toilets and sanitation systems. The men have virtually no vices as liquor and cigarettes are banned. Cattle grazing and tree felling is not allowed. The magical transformation has taken place because of voluntary labor of the residents to create a watershed and utilize the resources in a proper way.

Almost all of the population was below the poverty line just two decades ago. Migration to neighboring towns and cities was common. Today, this village is studied by researchers and activists as a model of rural sustainability through people's participation. Roadside plantations, cement concrete check dams, minor lakes and other watershed development programs were implemented through the voluntary donation of labor."

"Hundreds will be left without work next month with the closing of Phnom Penh's Stung Meanchey dump, an icon of poverty that has become an unlikely safety net for some of the city's poorest inhabitants. The site, which opened in 1965, is the main source of income for about 1,000 families. Despite a 50 percent drop in the price of recycled goods since last year, every week new people are arriving at the dump because it can still provide enough to live.

In April, the municipality approved a proposal that would turn the dump into a source for methane gas that could potentially provide electricity for 3,000 families. In order to collect the gas, a joint German-Cambodian company will cover the landfill with soil and plant trees on top. Yet news that the dump will be closed has instilled fear, rather than relief, in the people who depend on it. The 1,000 tons of trash that arrive each day will instead be trucked to a new site located about 15 kilometers outside of the city, where no scavengers will be allowed."

"Hundreds of child laborers in informal and/or illegal coal mines in Bamyan and Sar-e-Pol provinces, in central and northern Afghanistan respectively, have respiratory and eye infections and are exposed to other dangers, according to health officials in both provinces. Most child laborers said they were working in the mines to help their families but only got 150-300 Afghanis ($3-6) a day.

Coal mining in Afghanistan is a largely unregulated affair. Production is about 200,000 metric tons a year, but only about 20 percent is from government mines. Domestic demand for coal remains high, however, and this explains the large number of illegal and/or informal, small, artisanal mines, which use primitive methods and where health and safety, or environmental concerns, are barely a consideration."

"The health situation in the nation's rural areas is quite perilous. It is compounded by the widespread incidence of poverty and superstitious beliefs among rural dwellers. Rather than seek medical aid from qualified medical personnel even where they are available, most rural dwellers prefer to patronize herbal practitioners who rely essentially on trial and error to diagnose patients. Women and children who form the majority in rural areas are more affected by the situation.

It is a sad fact that most villages lack electricity, potable water, good roads, standard schools and modern communication facilities, among others. This is the area where the government takes the greater brunt of rural to urban migration. It is the duty of government to develop every part of the country so that people would be attracted to live and work in the rural areas with relative comfort. Although the government has a significant role to play in making rural areas attractive to medical personnel, doctors too must recognize that the medical profession requires a huge amount of commitment and sacrifice from practitioners."

"It is estimated that up to 70 percent of all marriages in Tajikistan are unregistered. In this poor and predominantly Muslim country many people, especially in the countryside, simply go to the local mullah for a 'nikaah,' or Islamic marriage. The practice became especially widespread during Tajikistan's brutal civil war in the 1990s. In the decade since the fighting ended, the wave of unregistered nikaah marriages has been followed by a corresponding wave of "talaaq" or Islamic divorces, leaving thousands of Tajik women and children destitute and completely unprotected by the law.

'I was pregnant with my fourth child when my husband left me,' says Marhaba. 'Look at this shack me and the children have to live in now. They can't even go to school, because I can't afford it and they don't have birth certificates.' "

"A shortage of cash has led authorities in Uzbekistan to delay paying pensions, according to observers. A media-watcher in the Bukhara region of western Uzbekistan says elderly people in the province have not received their pensions for two months now. The situation seems to be even worse in Khorezm in the northwest, as the cash flow problems are affecting the entire population.

Authorities have started deducting payments for electricity, gas and other utilities at source, apparently so as not to have to hand out so much cash. The benefit delays are a direct result of falling government revenues as businesses slow."

"There are nearly 1 billion people in the world who have been deprived of safe housing, with over a quarter of them living in South and Central Asia. Slums develop when migrants, often times farmers, move into the cities in search of greater economic opportunity, yet the city itself does not experience significant economic growth. Combined with extreme income inequity, such factors contribute to poverty among urban-dwellers living in the slums.

Residents of urban slums usually have extreme difficulty making ends meet. All members of the family, adults and children alike, often have to work all day every day just to earn enough money for simple food. In Hyderabad, India, approximately 40% of girl-children in the slums work as domestic laborers. Girls also complete jobs such as making incense sticks and rolling cigarettes, beedis, while boys do repair work and factory work. On average, these children only earn between 5-10 rupees a day, the American equivalent of 10-20 cents. However, even though children begin to contribute to their families' income much earlier than individuals in developed nations do, many children still do not receive nutritious food and, in turn end up malnourished."

"Malnutrition remains a major problem among children in Laos, with those in rural areas suffering most and less likely to attend school as a result, Lao officials and international sources say. In December, Laos adopted its first national nutrition policy in a bid to address chronic hunger, with involvement from 15 government ministries and institutions.

Laos has seen poverty fall from 46 percent to 33 percent from 1992-2002, but 40 percent of children under five still suffer from chronic malnutrition. UNICEF warned last year that infant death rates remain critical in Laos, citing malnutrition and contaminated drinking water as major causes. School is free and compulsory through the fifth grade, but high fees for books and a shortage of teachers in rural areas prevent many children from attending school."

"Infant and maternal mortality rates in Timor-Leste are being adversely affected by harmful traditions and practices, according to experts. But fighting them is a sensitive issue. After a mother gives birth, she will often stay by a fire for three months. They make a small bed beside the fire and sleep there while the fire burns 24 hours a day.

The heat from the fire is believed to help dispel 'dirty' blood from the body after birth. This can affect the baby's health as well as the mum. Timor-Leste has one of the fastest-growing populations in the world, with women having an average of 6.5 children each."

"More women in Western India are signing up to become surrogate mothers, with even nurses and teachers lining up, as their husbands lose their jobs. A surrogate is generally paid about 250,000-400,000 rupees ($4,000-$8,000), a huge sum of money in a country where many live on less than $2 a day.

A draft bill on surrogacy is pending before parliament, and meanwhile, hundreds of clinics have mushroomed across the country, with critics saying touts promoting this 'reproductive tourism' care little for the health or rights of the surrogates."

"Some 48.6 percent of Bangladesh's 20 million children aged below 5 years are chronically malnourished, a devastating problem caused by food shortages and high prices. A report said that although the country has systems in place to help impoverished people, they 'should be expanded and better targeted toward areas where malnutrition and household food insecurity are most prevalent.'

The country's economy has grown by about 6 percent a year in recent years, helping to reduce the percentage of people living on less than $1 a day to 40% from 49% in 2000. But one in four households still cannot obtain adequate food. Food prices in Bangladesh had risen more than 20%, eroding some of the gains from economic growth and slowing the pace of efforts to reduce poverty."

"Some 5,000 women spread across 75 villages in rural southern India are now offering chemical-free, non-irrigated, organic agriculture as one method of combating global warming. Agriculture accounts for 28 percent of Indian greenhouse gas emissions, mainly methane emission from paddy fields and cattle and nitrous oxides from fertilizers.

In Zaheerabad, women demonstrate adaptation to climate change by following a system of interspersing crops that do not need extra water, chemical inputs or pesticides for production. The women grow as many as 19 types of indigenous crops to an acre, on arid, degraded lands."

"The sun had not yet risen when the two boys woke up. By 4 a.m., the port on the River Buriganga here in the capital of Bangladesh was alive and bustling. The 'bed' where Yusef, 14, and his younger brother Smaile, 10, slept was made of hard wooden planks on the pier. In a familiar routine, the brothers washed up and then walked around, looking for empty bottles to fill with fresh water that they would later sell. They started their morning by begging for food at local cafes. On a good day, the boys get some leftovers. On a bad one, they go hungry.

Estimates of the number of children living on the street in Dhaka vary from 250,000 to 400,000. Rapid urbanization in the country has created pockets of dense slums and squatter settlements, each of which is home to thousands of street children. Children living in these conditions grow up on the margins of society, without appropriate protection, education, health care or guidance."

"In a country where education is often out of reach for thousands of impoverished children, the Kartini Emergency School in Indonesia is proving to be an exception. Amid the poverty and grime the free school offers its 550 students not only an education, but meals, a uniform, shoes, pencils and books, things that many children in Indonesia cannot afford or take for granted.

Officially, state schools are free in Indonesia but many schools charge unofficial fees when government subsidies are not enough to cover the cost of operations. The cost means many can only afford the most basic schooling, while the standard of education is often poor."

"With well more than 1,500 residents per hectare, Tambora is the most densely populated subdistrict of West Jakarta, and some say in Southeast Asia. Most of the families in Kalianyar live in rented 2-by-2 meter rooms with no indoor plumbing, and in some cases, no windows. The community is ravaged by drugs, prostitution, gambling and violence, and complete neighborhoods go up in flames with devastating regularity.

The mothers at a support group take turns sharing their tales of woe, of unruly children, squabbles with neighbors and stillborn babies. But the parents are no more to blame for their lack of child-rearing skills than they are for being poor. Social workers realize that scholarship alone is not enough to raise the community's children from despair and apathy. They also give motivational training and reproductive health courses to the children, in addition to trips to places most of them had never been to, including cinemas and the zoo."

"Sixteen-year-old Babar is perhaps India's youngest school principal. Since 2002, every evening, between 4 p.m. and 7 p.m., he takes on the role of a principal at a school. In October 29, 2002. At the tender age of 9, with a little help from his parents, Babar set up a room to teach on his ancestral land.

Today the school has classes from 1 to 8 and a staff of 10. But getting 600 students to enroll was no easy task. In this hamlet, abject poverty means education is a luxury few can afford. So Babar makes sure that the education at his school is absolutely free. The government provides funds for the midday meal and books till class 4. For other expenses, he has to depend on donations from well wishers, which is never enough."

"Around 70 percent of children in Bangladesh who complete their primary education are unable to read, write or count properly, according to a report. The report also found students weak in English, which plays a key role in day-to-day life, particularly in business, higher studies and technical education.

The quality of education in remote rural areas was far worse than in urban areas. Many poor students come to school half-fed. They cannot pay attention to their studies in the afternoon classes as thirst for knowledge is replaced by hunger for food."

"India's shantytowns depicted in critically acclaimed film 'Slumdog Millionaire' are an outcome of the planners' failed attempt to build low-cost alternatives, according to a government new report. With the boom in the India's economy in recent years, rural people have been largely attracted to urban areas hoping to get a slice of the growing prosperity. With the lack of affordable houses they are left with no choice but to live in makeshift tenements with few basic utilities.

The report said that housing projects would provide residents with properly constructed homes, linked to basic infrastructure such as sewage, electricity and running water. It would be in sharp contrast to the slums which appear in most of the country's major cities, with their endless warrens of small houses and shops built of corrugated metal, cement and tarpaulins, public latrines and tangles of electric wiring, often illegally linked to the main power lines."

"A fire which razed a Karachi slum settlement and killed 40 of its residents earlier this month has brought to the fore the deplorable conditions in which half of the 12 million people of this port city live -- and official indifference to their plight. The government speculates that the blaze could have been caused by a live wire falling onto the roof of the shanties which were made of bamboo, cardboard and other combustible material.

Over the years, Karachi has become segregated into areas for the rich and poor. The poor have been pushed further out of the city limits due to evictions. Those still inside the city live in constant fear of being thrown out. When they are evicted and provided alternate land, it is usually in the wilderness, far from their places of work, far from schools, health and transport facilities and where their women cannot find any work."

"Remittances from migrant workers are crucial in helping to fight hunger and poverty as they feed millions and exceed ODA from foreign governments to poor countries. In Indonesia, many villages have been transformed by the remittances -- houses with mud floors are rebuilt into permanent structures and thousands of children complete their education funded by the toil of their migrant worker parents.

But as the global economic crisis bites, migrant workers in Malaysia are being retrenched in record numbers as factories shut down, construction projects come to a halt and oil palm plantations reduce capacity. The returning workers are expected to swell the ranks of the unemployed in their respective home countries. In Indonesia, unemployment will be a serious challenge as its own domestic manufacturing sector is forecast to shed 500,000 to a million workers."

"Beijing's rubbish depots are a reminder of this city's underclass -- million of migrants from the countryside laboring in menial jobs. The rubbish collectors are the poorest of the poor, living an unending struggle amongst the filth of Beijing's worst slums. They are part of the global economy, but they are at the bottom of the heap, and now the effects of the financial crisis are crushing any dreams they had of a better future.

Collectors such as Mr. Wang sell what they can to a rubbish depot in the Beijing slums where waste merchants collect it and then sell it on for recycling. On a bad day Mr Wang makes less than $1 for twelve hours of labor -- not enough to keep himself fed, clothed and heated in Beijing's frigid winter. As there is no state pension in China and no free healthcare, people are effectively adrift in a cutthroat market economy. By some estimates, the financial crisis will push another 40 million into poverty this year."

"At the age of 11 Purni Shah was forced by her family to marry a 25-year-old man. Four years into the marriage, her husband died leaving her a child widow. Her fate is not uncommon in Nepal. Over 63 percent of girls marry before 18, and 7 percent marry before reaching 10.

Banned from wearing new or colorful clothes, child widows are barred from eating fish or meat, remarrying, and even showing their faces in the early mornings to 'prevent bad luck.' To make matters worse, many have no citizenship. However, thanks to empowerment training, some child widows are starting to speak out and demand a voice."