Blair Highlights Poverty; Christian Aid Calls for Partnerships

During the Asia 2015 : "Promoting Growth and Ending Poverty in Asia" two-day conference in London this week, British Prime Minister Tony Blair announced that Asia faces major challenges in tackling poverty in the next decade, reports The BBC (UK).

Although tens of millions have been lifted out of poverty in recent decades, Asia is still home to two-thirds of the world's poor, Blair noted, and added that by 2015 more than one billion people will be living in desperate poverty in Asia.

On behalf of this, head of Christian Aid's Asia program Robin Greenwood writes in a commentary published in The Guardian (UK) that organisations with their roots in Asian civil society or global groups with close ties to Asian society have a big part to play in ensuring that poor people get their say in the drive for development.