Pandemic threatens Asia-Pacific's progress on global development goals, says ADB

The coronavirus pandemic may have pushed as many as 80 million people in developing Asia into extreme poverty last year, threatening to derail progress on global goals to tackle poverty and hunger by 2030, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said on Tuesday.

Developing Asia's extreme poverty rate - or the proportion of its people living on less than $1.90 a day - would have fallen to 2.6% in 2020 from 5.2% in 2017 without Covid-19, but the crisis likely pushed last year's projected rate higher by about 2 percentage points, ADB simulations showed.

The figure could even be higher considering the inequalities in areas like health, education and work disruptions that have deepened as the Covid-19 crisis disrupted mobility and stalled economic activity, the ADB said in a flagship report on the region.

"As the socioeconomic impacts of responses to the virus continue to unfold, people already struggling to make ends meet are at risk of tipping over into a life of poverty," the Manila-based lender said.