Private sector involvement needed to end poverty in Asia's mountains

Frankly, it need not be moon versus mountains. As Asia looks skyward to the tremendous success of China's 20-year-old, multibillion-dollar space programme, much more needs to be done here on earth to bring business growth to some of the highest parts of Asia and the Pacific, a region still home to the vast majority of the world's poor.

Poverty remains a persistent challenge among the people who continue to make their lives in some of the world's most remote mountain regions in Asia, whether in Afghanistan, Myanmar or China. Limited economic opportunities still characterise these sparsely populated communities.

That was certainly the message at a conference on poverty reduction that helped mark the 30th anniversary of the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development. Headquartered in Kathmandu, the intergovernmental centre was founded in 1983 to serve the member nations of the Hindu Kush Himalayan region - Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Myanmar, Nepal and Pakistan.

Here and elsewhere in Asia, it is the private sector that is key to sustainable economic growth, job creation and poverty reduction. That is as true in the plains and lowlands of Asia as it is in its remotest mountain regions, typically home to indigenous peoples and characterised by inaccessibility and fragile agricultural ecosystems.

To address this, business, government and civil society must come together and move beyond politics, stereotypes and animosity that have for too long divided the Hindu Kush Himalayan region - home by some estimates to more than 180 million people, as well as vast water, forest and other resources at risk of unsustainable exploitation - and focus instead on partnering for sustainable economic growth.

Three important areas must be addressed to spur private-sector engagement in Asia's remote mountain regions.