Reports - United Nations Development Programme

COUNTRY EVALUATION: ASSESSMENT OF DEVELOPMENT RESULTS – TURKEY
TABLE 2.1: BASIC DATA FOR TURKISH GEOGRAPHICAL REGIONS
Regions
Share of total
Pop in 1997
(%)
GDP per capita
(000 in
1987 prices)
Share of total
GDP on average
(1991-97) (%)
Share of total
value-added in
the manufac.
industry
on average
(1980-2000) (%)
Share of
total public
investment
on average
(1980-2000) (%)
Share of
total private
investment
incentives
on average
(1991-1997) (%)
16
Aegean 13.44 2172 15.61 15.72 14.04 11.68
Mediterranean 12.82 1657 12.18 8.15 14.08 11.67
Marmara 25.75 2618 36.56 59.60 28.76 46.27
Central 16.83 1616 16.57 9.37 21.61 13.99
Black Sea 12.48 1271 9.55 4.64 7.07 5.33
S. East 9.75 952 5.43 1.88 7.96 8.29
East 8.93 683 4.09 0.59 6.58 2.77
Source: Karadağ, Deliktaş and Özlem 2003, p.7 11
TABLE 2.2: HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INDEX BY REGION
REGIONS 1975 1997 CHANGE
Aegean 0.573 0.757 0.184
Mediterranean 0.528 0.713 0.185
Marmara 0.627 0.801 0.174
Central 0.549 0.736 0.187
Black Sea 0.504 0.694 0.190
S. East 0.447 0.612 0.165
East 0.446 0.612 0.166
TURKEY 0.530 0.720 0.190
Source: UNDP Human Development Report Turkey 2001, p. 21
Health conditions have also improved significantly in
Turkey in recent decades. Life expectancy increased from
62 years in 1980 to 70 years in 2000, infant mortality
declined from 103 per 1000 live births to 38 over the same
period, and immunisation rates and access to physicians
tripled and doubled respectively (Annexe 7). Again,
however, health conditions and service standards in
Turkey are well below those of comparable developing
countries and even more so compared to the more
developed countries. In contrast to the educational
system, reform of the excessively complex and inefficient
health care and financing system of Turkey has not yet
seriously begun. 12 It is clearly one of the most urgent
human development challenges that Turkey faces today.
Turning then to comparative measures of poverty,
incidence of extreme poverty (the share of the population
living on under USD 1 a day) is very low at less than 2%,
but as the poverty threshold is raised, the poverty rates
increase dramatically (to 18% for USD 2.15 a day, and to
42% for USD 4.30 a day). Moreover, inequality in Turkey
is high (with a Gini coefficient of 46 in 2001). According
to recent poverty research carried out under the auspices
of the UNDP, it appears that “new poverty” is on the rise,
i.e., poverty that is long-term in nature and not easily
remedied by access to traditional support networks of
family and friends, which in the past have helped keep
poverty a temporary state for many poor. 13 A strategy
to combat the many and changing causes of poverty
in Turkey requires a consistent and pervasive pro-poor
growth strategy that combines employment-creating
growth with improvements in regional disparities, access
to social services and safety nets for the disadvantaged and
excluded population groups.
One particularly striking aspect of inequality in
Turkey is the great regional disparities (see Table 2.1), as
reflected by high regional income differentials and by
regional differences in poverty incidence. 14 According to
the UNDP HDR Turkey 2001, regional disparities have
increased since 1975 as measured by region-specific HDIs
(Table 2.2). 15 These regional disparities are of long
historical standing, and are due to differential natural and
human resource endowments and due to the better access
to world and regional markets of the coastal regions along
the Mediterranean Sea. However, they are also the result
of a relative neglect of the Eastern and Southeastern
regions of the country by successive Governments. More
recently, however, and with UNDP assistance, increasing
attention has been paid to the issue of regional disparity
and in the course of preparation for EU accession this
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11. “The Effects of Public Infrastructure on Private Sector Performances in the Turkish
Regional Manufacturing Industries”, Working Paper, Department of Economics,
Ege University, 35040, I˚zmir, Turkey
12. Ibid.
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13. A. Bugra and C. Keyder, “New Poverty and the Changing Welfare Regime of Turkey”,
UNDP, Ankara, 2003.
14. Ibid., p. 16.
15. UNDP, “Human Development Report Turkey 2001”, Ankara, 2001, p. 19.