By A. R. Khan
Commissioned by the UNDP

This paper makes a comparative analysis of national poverty reduction experience in eight Asian countries—Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, the Philippines and Thailand—on the basis of the findings of the country studies recently completed under the auspices of the United Nations Development Programme. These eight countries together account for 48 per cent of the world’s population, 57 per cent of the population of all developing countries, 92 per cent of the population of developing Asia. They also account for well over two-thirds of world's poor by any absolute standard of poverty. The three South Asian countries and China belong to the category of low-income countries. The remaining four countries, all in Southeast Asia, belong to the category of middle-income countries, Malaysia being in the category of upper middle-income countries.