South Asia Regional Update: Jobs for Resilience report

Context

The World Bank (WB) in its ‘South Asia Regional Update: Jobs for Resilience report’ has recently warned that the South Asia region including India was not making use of its demographic dividend.

About 

• Deceptive energy:

• • • Output growth in South Asia, projected at 6.0-6.1% in 2024–25, maintains to exceed that in other emerging markets and developing economies (EMDE).
    • But this is basically due to strong growth in India and in the rest of the area it’s miles anticipated to remain primarily properly under pre pandemic averages.
    • More than in different EMDE, growth is being driven by the public sector, whereas private investment continues to be weak.
    • Many of the underlying vulnerabilities that had formerly triggered stability-of-bills pressures remain, and point to downside risks to increase.

• Private investment:

• • • Private investment growth has slowed sharply from pre pandemic averages in all South Asian nations, hampering the location’s efforts to meet development and climate objectives.

• Climate adaptation:

• • • South Asia is surprisingly liable to climate change. However, significantly limited fiscal positions will restrict the scope for public guidelines to facilitate climate change adaptation.
    • This means that the burden of version will fall disproportionately on firms, farmers, and households (in particular negative), which usually suffer more damage from climate shocks.

• Jobless development:
• • South Asia’s labour markets stand out amongst EMDEs for having suffered for decades from declining employment ratios and notably low stocks of women in employment.
• While agriculture has shed labour, the non-agriculture region has been unusually slow in creating jobs

Risks Highlighted in the Jobs for Resilience Report

• Efforts to lessen excessive debt, borrowing fees, and economic deficits might also ultimately sluggish growth and restrict governments’ ability to increasingly frequent climatic shocks.
  • The provision of public goods is a few of the only techniques for climate adaptation.
• The weak employment tendencies in the region have been focused in non-agricultural sectors.
  • Because employment growth is falling short of working-age population growth, the place fails to absolutely capitalise on its demographic dividend.
• The region could have 16% higher output growth if the share of its working-age population that was employed was on a par with other EMDEs.

Case of India

• India’s employment growth was well below the average increase in its working age population for the 2000-23 period.
• The country’s employment ratio had declined more than in any other country in the region except Nepal up till 2022.
• However, preliminary records suggested a three-percentage point rebound in 2023, which had in part reversed the decline.
• Noting that India’s economy was predicted to publish a robust growth of 7.5% in FY23/24, the WB said this expansion coupled with recoveries in Sri Lanka and Pakistan, was largely driving the strong numbers for the South Asian location.

Way Ahead Suggested within the Jobs for Resilience Report

• Stronger job introduction and the easing of monetary marketplace restrictions may want to help enhance growth, non-public investment and government revenues and put in location situations conducive to climate edition.
• Sustained accelerations in personal investment are most likely to occur whilst institutional quality is strong, the actual alternate price is aggressive, and economies are more open to exchange and capital flows.
• Adaptations that involve public help tend to be greater effective than simply private strategies. The evaluation suggests that policy have to be guided through 3 standards:
  • Implementing a comprehensive package of policies;
  • Prioritising policies that generate “double dividends”; and
  • Designing policies that target non-climate goals in a manner that does not set back climate-related goals.
• Sustaining growth would require increasing employment ratios, in particular inside the non-agriculture sector and among women, through –
  • Measures to dispose of limitations to growth for corporations,
  • Increase openness to international trade,
  • Ease labour market and product market restrictions,
  • Build human capital, and
  • Strengthen equality of women’s rights.

Source: The World Bank

UPSC Prelims Practice Question

Q.International Labour Organization’s Conventions 138 and 182 are related to (2018)

(a) Child Labour

(b) Adaptation of agricultural practices to global climate change

(c) Regulation of food prices and food security

(d) Gender parity at the workplace

Ans – (a)

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