• BLOG SURF
In the decade before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, South Asia struck a strong growth note of 5 percent per year in per-capita GDP, strongly outpacing other developing regions in the world, notably Latin America and the Caribbean; the Middle East and North Africa; and Sub-Saharan Africa-all of which grew less than 1 percentage point per year. Only East-Asian economies outperformed South Asia at a growth rate of 6.5 percent.
Undoubtedly, South Asia as a region, possesses a powerful growth engine.
Yet, what is striking is that this engine has not been firing on all cylinders, implying that large numbers of people and significant parts of the economy are not participating in the strong growth. In South Asia, only 20 out of every hundred women actively participate in the labor market, while the labor force participation for men is 80 percent, far below the participation rates in other regions. Between 80-90 percent of the workforce is stuck in unproductive informal sectors that have notoriously limited access to credit and sales markets. - blog.wb.org/blogs
A version of this article appears in the print on July 21, 2022, of The Himalayan Times.