Technology, Finance and Statistics for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific

As this report points out, mostly the news is good. In 2001, it may have seemed a daunting task to halve the 1990 poverty rate − the proportion of people living on less than $1.25 per day. In fact Asia and the Pacific has cut that poverty rate by more than two-thirds. The region has not achieved all the goals, and some subregions and countries have made faster progress than others. Moreover, because of inevitable lags in gathering the most recent information, this report, whose data largely correspond to 2014, should perhaps be seen as the final milestone rather than the finishing post. Nevertheless, even at this stage it is clear that the MDGs have spurred heartening levels of commitment and achievement.