Resource information
The East Asian and Pacific region has
achieved tremendous progress in poverty reduction in recent
years. However, further progress in poverty reduction may be
undermined by the high levels of vulnerability in many
countries across the region. The term vulnerability is
viewed from an economic context, where it is conceived as
the likelihood of suffering from future deteriorations in
standard of living which may result in a state of poverty,
or inability to meet basic needs. Therefore, vulnerability
is stated as an ex-ante measure of well-being, reflecting
not so much how well off a household (or an individual)
currently is, but what its future prospects are. In thinking
about poverty and vulnerability, it is important to realize
that there are two groups of households: a) those who are
vulnerable to transitory poverty if exposed to adverse
shocks; and b) those who are structurally or chronically
poor-many of those households have been affected by shocks
in the past, and have limited long-term income generating
capacity. To better protect household from shocks one must
also better understand how households face and manage risks.
