COVID-19 Pushes 80 Million People In Asia Into Extreme Poverty: Asian Development Bank

The ''Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2021'' says the pandemic is threatening Asia and the Pacific's progress toward critical targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

The coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic has pushed an estimated 75 million to 80 million more people in developing Asia into extreme poverty as of last year compared with what would have happened without COVID-19, according to a new report by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) released on Tuesday. The ''Key Indicators for Asia and the Pacific 2021'' says the pandemic is threatening Asia and the Pacific's progress toward critical targets under the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Assuming that the pandemic has increased inequality, the relative rise in extreme poverty -- defined as living on less than 1.90 dollars a day -- may be even greater. Progress has also stalled in areas such as hunger, health and education where earlier achievements across the region had been significant, albeit uneven. Key indicators presents comprehensive economic, financial, social and environmental statistics for ADB's 49 regional members. According to the report, about 203 million people or 5.2 per cent of developing Asia's population lived in extreme poverty as of 2017. Without COVID-19, that number would have declined to an estimated 2.6 per cent in 2020.