Urban and rural poverty are two sides
of the same coin - Angara

SINGAPORE -- Senator Edgardo J. Angara today said that in order to usher people out of poverty, the country must focus on developing rural areas by pouring more resources and investments into those areas. By doing so, he said, we address poverty at its roots and lessen migration towards cities which will, in turn, decongest urban slums.

Attending the World Cities Summit upon the invitation of the Embassy of Singapore, Angara stressed that rural development is the most potent way to arrest poverty.

"For every ten people who have moved outside the poverty line, eight escaped poverty because of improved conditions in the rural areas. Almost all the decrease in South Asia and East Asia's poor has been due to improved quality of life in the countryside," he said.

Cities in developing countries continue to attract hopefuls from poverty-ridden rural areas, even as it has reached its full capacity to generate employment.

Poverty in the rural areas pushes people to live in cities, but this migration often results to extreme poverty in the cities' slums. Unsurprisingly, urban poverty incidence has increased from 17.9% in 1997 to 24.9% in 2003 while urbanization in the country continues at its breakneck pace of 3.3 to 3.8% a year.

"The Philippines, which has long been plagued by urban-biased policies, lags behind in poverty alleviation compared to our East Asian and Southeast Asian neighbors. Countries such as Thailand, Vietnam and China, which used to have higher levels of poverty incidence, now have less number of poor inhabitants. Poverty in the Philippines, on the other hand, increased from 23.8 million population in 2003 to 27.6 million in 2006," he said.

According to the 2008 UN Country Report on the Philippines, migration to urban areas has made it the fastest urbanizing country in Southeast Asia, with 55 million of 86 million Filipinos living in cities. Of this, 30% resides in slums.

Meanwhile, to address the growing urbanization, Angara recommended better infrastructure and other incentives for secondary cities to slow down growth in the primary cities which in turn have minimum investment needs to avoid environmental and public health disasters. Substantial investments are also needed to avoid further degradation of urban air quality and to provide adequate safe drinking water.

The Summit, jointly organized by the Singapore Civil Service College, Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the Ministry of National Development, centers on the challenge of developing cities that are both livable and vibrant. The Summit is attended by Ministers, mayors, senior officials, business leaders and experts from the international community.