South Asia, often dubbed as a land of tremendous wealth and acute poverty, is an abode to more than half a billion poor people living on less than 1.25 dollars a day. Most of these people have little or no education. Moreover, they endure poor health conditions owing to the region having one of the most fragile nutrition indicators in the world.
South Asia that has experienced vigorous economic growth, averaging six percent a year over the past 20 years, is trapped by the phantom of weak regional development owing mainly to policy uncertainties, fiscal deficits, deep-rooted inflation, and infrastructure gaps.
According to a recent report published by World Bank, the key fuel needed to ignite the flame of development in South Asia is the creation of more and better employment opportunities in the region.
Employment is the keystone of development for South Asian region with its payoff extending far beyond the income alone. Job creation in South Asia touted an average growth rate of around 800,000 jobs a month between 2000 and 2010, with total employment in South Asia (excluding Afghanistan and Bhutan) clocking in at 568 million jobs in 2010, as against 473 million jobs in 2000.
Among the five biggest countries in the region, Pakistan recorded the highest employment growth since 2000, followed by Nepal and Bangladesh, and India and Sri Lanka.
Moreover, according to a World Bank estimate, about 1.0-1.2 million new entrants will join the South Asian labour market every month over the next few decades, which signify a phenomenal boost of 25-50 percent over and above the average number of participants between 1999 and 2010.
Albeit the employment growth pattern in South Asia seems quite staggering, yet in all the countries (excluding Maldives and Sri Lanka), the major chunk of the workforce are the blue-collar workers or the low-end self-employed workers. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, for instance, casual workers account for one-fifth of the labour force.
Reportedly, in many developing countries where self employment and informal jobs are in vogue, people work for extended hours but still can make both ends meet. Not only this, the breach of basic human rights is also very frequent. To sum up, its the quality and not the quantity of job that matters.
In a milieu, where the blooming employment rate doesn seem supporting the poverty alleviation motive of the region, the World Bank has advanced a road map to assist governments in meeting the regions core objective of employment buoyancy and poverty reduction.
With a lending programme of about eight billion dollars in FY12, the strategy is built on four key pillars: creating more and better jobs by eradicating the constraints on growth; building skills and improving health and nutrition indicators, encouraging regional collaboration; and strengthening governance.
For executing the plan, at the outset, the governments should focus their attention towards improving the core fundamentals which take into account the macroeconomic stability, friendly business environment and a firm law and order backdrop.
In the second phase, the government should make sure that labour policies don pose an impediment to job creation rather provide access to voice and social protection. Thirdly, the governments should identify which jobs would contribute the most for development given their specific country context, and eradicate or offset obstacles to private sector creation of such jobs.
To put in a nutshell, the region needs to bank on its human capital by enhancing the quality as well as quantity of jobs in South Asia. This will serve as a key catalyst nurturing growth in the region in the years to come.