Expert Group Meeting "Closing the Gap: Strategies to Combat and Monitor Exclusion in the Asia and the Pacific Region" (29 September – 1 October 2009, Bangkok, Thailand)

The Asian and Pacific region has witnessed rapid development in the past decades. However, inequalities across and within countries still persist. In order to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, further emphasis is needed on monitoring social inclusion, gender equality and health promotion to ensure that interventions enhance the access to and use of opportunities and resources by disadvantaged and excluded groups.

Current monitoring of international, national and local indicators and measures of development outcomes have helped to identify the levels of deprivation among certain groups, such as illiteracy rates, educational outcomes, ill-health and income poverty. While showing the progress that has been achieved in some areas, these statistical measures do not necessarily  reflect the patterns and multiple processes of exclusion that entrench these groups in cycles of persisting deprivation and present formidable barriers that exclude them from equal access to services, opportunities, governance structures, and control over resources. Further efforts are thus required to identify indicators that capture and measure these barriers and strengthen the monitoring of interventions to combat these barriers.

The expert group meeting will be convened  to  review ways to guide Government capacity to monitor policy interventions that can promote social inclusion, gender equality and health promotion.   It is part of the Development Account project on interregional cooperation to strengthen social inclusion, gender equality and health promotion in the Millennium Development Goals  .  

Meeting Programme