UNITED NATIONS, July 1 (UPI) -- A U.N. report says in a region of rising prosperity, Asia and the Pacific, widespread extreme poverty is hidden in the Least Developed Countries.
"Due to the tyranny of averages, the relatively poor performance of the Asia-Pacific LDCs gets overshadowed," by such nations as China, India and the East Asian "tigers," said the report by the U.N. Development Program and the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific launched Friday in Geneva.
It said the 14 Asia-Pacific LDCs have a per-capita income only one-fourth of that in the region overall, with almost half their population living below national poverty lines.
Included in the group are some of the poorest countries in the world, such as Afghanistan and Timor-Leste, formerly known as East Timor.
At the same time, development aid and debt relief to the Asia-Pacific LDCs have been disproportionately low and must be increased if the impoverished countries are to reach the U.N. Millennium Development Goals.
