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Heavyweights and key policymakers from across Asia and the world are expected to flock to London city early next month to map out a development partnership agenda, with an ambitious goal of fighting Asian poverty in the next decade.
The conference styled "Asia 2015:promoting growth, ending poverty" is also being organised between March 06 and March 07 to assess the opportunities, risks and challenges to the development needs of the continent, amid its impressive achievements, according to DFID officials.
The Asian Development Bank (ADB), the World Bank (WB) and the Department for International Development (DFID) of the UK will jointly sponsor the conference.
The conference will begin at Lancaster House March 06, with a welcome address by parliamentary under secretary of state Gareth Thomas MP, followed by two working sessions, the officials said.
The first session on "What Asia has achieved; what Asia can achieve" of the day will be co-chaired by presidents of ADB Kuroda and WB Paul Wolfowitz.
Prime minister of Pakistan Shaukat Aziz will present the keynote paper while other panelists include secretary of state of DFID Hilary Benn, Bangladesh finance minister M Saifur Rahman, Indonesian finance minister Dr Sri Mulyani Indrawati, deputy prime minister of Vietnam Vu Khoan, and deputy prime minister of Thailand Dr Surakiart Sathirathai.
The second session titled "Challenges and risks to development in Asia", to be chaired by director general of DFID, will dwell on the growth prospects in the region up to 2015, risks, best utilisation of natural resources, closing the infrastructure gap and sustaining the private sector.
There will be two sessions on the second day, to be presided over by permanent secretary to DFID.
The session will focus on the natural of poverty in changing Asia, regional disparities, effective service delivery for human resource development, and Asian-led strategies for improving governance and the effectiveness of state institutions.
Another session will be managing risks and accelerating development in Asia, Asian regional partnerships and development partnership with the private sector and civil society.
Over the past two decades, more people have been lifted out of poverty in Asia than in any other region at any time in history.
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