Preface

Summary

Financial crises after financial crises have occurred, but for many countries the last one, the 2008–09 global recession, has been the deepest since the 1930s great depression. This book started with an objective to understand the impact of high inflation on poverty and food security in Southeast Asia and authors had been contacted to write on this subject. However, the global economy moved quickly into recession in 2008. Global recession has also come to Southeast Asia.

Anticipating that the impact of global recession would be more severe than that of high inflation in Southeast Asia, we refocused the title of the book to Poverty and Global Recession in Southeast Asia. A closed-door conference presenting and discussing the first draft of the papers was conducted on 25–26 March 2009. Some important points from the conference, particularly related to Southeast Asia in general, were presented by Aris Ananta and Richard Barichello, the coordinators of the project, in a public seminar “Poverty, Food, and Global Recession in Southeast Asia” on 27 March 2009, the following day after the conference. In the public seminar, Tan Ern Ser and Yothin Jinjarak, also paper writers in the conference, made presentations on issues related to Singapore. Both the closed door conference and public seminar were conducted by ISEAS in Singapore.

During the revision and editing of the chapters, world financial and economic development continued to change. By early 2010, people were already optimistic that the global recession was over or would be over soon. However, the evidence was mounting that the poor had suffered and were still suffering from the current global crisis, even if the richer individuals may have recovered. Therefore, an important question arises, “Is the crisis really over for the poor?” The book is not intended to present the most recent events of the Southeast Asian economy or the situation of the poor and food security. Instead, this book is a modest attempt to contribute a better understanding on poverty and food security in Southeast Asia during the recent global recession considering both recent developments and the previous major crisis of 1997–98. We are very thankful to Dr Collin Duerkop, the then Regional Representative for Southeast Asia, Konrad Adenauer Stiftung (KAS), Singapore, who has funded the conference and public seminar.