Nitya Mohan Khemka - Social Development and the Sustainable Development Goals in South Asia

This book assesses the roadmap for the implementation of the SDGs in South Asia, focusing in particular on the areas of poverty reduction, inequality, health/well-being and water and sanitation. South Asia is amongst the fastest growing regions in the world, with an aggregate GDP in excess of two trillion US dollars, but at the same time it has significant deficits in human development, with 37 per cent of the worlds poor and nearly half of the worlds malnourished children. For South Asia, the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) represent a constructive opportunity to end many of the regions deprivations in a time-bound and systematic manner.

Starting with the legacy of the Millennium Development Goals, the book goes on to provide a country-by-country overview of strategies for addressing the problems of poverty, health, water and sanitation. South-South Cooperation and in particular the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) are discussed and, finally, the editors present a summary of policy priorities for social development.

This book aims to be a useful resource for researchers, policy influencers, planners, implementers, students and activists aiming to push to achieve the SDGs.

Nitya Mohan Khemka is an Affiliate Lecturer at the Centre of Development Studies at the University of Cambridge, UK, and a Fellow Commoner at Clare Hall College. She is also Senior Advisor to the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) and is Director at the Nand and Jeet Khemka Foundation where she heads up the Foundations initiative on The Indian Welfare State in the 21st century.

Suraj Kumar is SDG Advisor to the State Government of Chhattisgarh and Tripura and the UN in India and the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. He has pioneered the state Human Development Reports for 23 states in India, beginning with the Madhya Pradesh HDR in 1995. He is currently Senior Advisor at the KISS Bhubaneswar and visiting fellow at universities in India and the United States.

Routledge Research on Asian Development

Development and Gender Capital in India

Change, Continuity and Conflict in Kerala

Bangladeshs Graduation from the Least Developed Countries Group

Pitfalls and Promises

Regional Cooperation for Peace and Development

Japan and South Korea in Southeast Asia

Child and Youth Well-being in China

Modern Slavery and Bonded Labour in South Asia

A Human Rights Based Approach

Social Development and the Sustainable Development Goals in South Asia

First published 2020

by Routledge

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2020 selection and editorial matter, Nitya Mohan Khemka and Suraj Kumar; individual chapters, the contributors

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A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Names: Khemka, Nitya, editor. | Kumar, Suraj, editor.

Title: Social development and the Sustainable Development Goals in South Asia / edited by Nitya Khemka and Suraj Kumar.

Identifiers: LCCN 2019018947 (print) | LCCN 2019980042 (ebook) | ISBN 9781138490475 (hardback) | ISBN 9781351035262 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: South Asia--Social conditions--21st century. | Sustainable development--South Asia. | Sustainable Development Goals. | South Asian cooperation. | South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.

Classification: LCC HN670.3.A8 S623 2020 (print) | LCC HN670.3.A8 (ebook) | DDC 304.20954--dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019018947

LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019980042

ISBN: 978-1-138-49047-5 (hbk)

ISBN: 978-1-351-03526-2 (ebk)

Saher Asad is Assistant Professor of Economics at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS). Before joining LUMS, Saher completed her PhD in Economics from George Washington University as a Fulbright Scholar. She is primarily an applied development economist and uses both experimental and quasi-experimental methods to study issues related to agricultural markets, education and environment. Her work has received funding from organisations including Department for International Development (DFID), International Growth Center, International Food Policy Research Institute, Institute of International Economic Policy and Sigur Center for Asian Studies. She has also consulted for international organisations such as the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), World Bank and DFID.

Shiladitya Chatterjee is a development economist and public administrator who has worked extensively in India and the Asia-Pacific region. He holds a PhD from Boston University and taught economics at St. Stephens College, Delhi; Boston University; and the University of Massachusetts. In India, as a member of the Indian Administrative Service, he has worked on grassroots level development issues in Assam; at the Ministry of Finance on Centre-State financial relations; and as Director, Prime Ministers Office, supporting the comprehensive economic reforms of 1991 to 1994. He joined the Asian Development Bank in 1994 and provided advice for the next 20 years to developing countries in Asia on poverty reduction, sustainable development, structural reforms, fiscal decentralisation, capital markets development, transport and basic infrastructure. He helped forge a partnership between the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the UN agencies to achieve the Millennium Development Goals in Asia and contributed significantly in the formulation of the new Sustainable Development Goals. Currently, he is working as an advisor at the Centre for the Sustainable Development Goals of the government of Assam; and is also advising UN agencies intermittently in India and abroad on implementing the SDGs. He has a large number of reports and publications to his credit.

Jayati Ghosh is Professor of Economics at the Centre for Economic Studies and Planning, School of Social Sciences, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Her research interests include globalisation, international trade and finance, employment patterns, macroeconomic policy, gender issues, poverty and inequality. She has authored and/or edited a dozen books and more than 180 scholarly articles, most recently