In the occasion of UNESCAP 60th anniversary, celebrated economist and Nobel laureate Amartya Sen was conferred an Award for Lifetime Achievement. Giving a special lecture to United Nations staff in Bangkok on the subject of “Asian Immensities”, Professor Sen catalogued some of the contributions made by Asian civilizations to the world throughout the centuries, and many of the different ways in which Asians have learned from one another.

“Our immensity lies not just in our size, but also in our willingness to accept that we can have diverse beliefs and disparate life styles, and can still cultivate constructive interactions with each other”, Prof. Sen said to a packed conference hall.
He continued: “Asia played a central part in the making of what we can now call the “global civilization”. Asia’s claim to civilization does not lie in its efforts to build some impenetrable uniqueness that could not be repeated anywhere other than in Asia. It lies rather in our efforts to develop knowledge and understanding from which the whole of mankind can benefit”.

But Prof. Sen also pointed out to the various fields “in which scope for further learning remains possible”, in the form of a sequence of questions or “useful inquiries”.

On the “long-standing blot in Asia’s record in gender justice through higher female mortality rates compared with what could be expected on the basis of male mortality may have been reversed in many Asian countries”, Prof. Sen questioned “Can this terrible inheritance of Asia be made into a thing of the past in all Asian countries and regions”?

On the skewed sex ratio prevalent in a few Asian countries, the Nobel laureate questioned: “What should be done about natality differential against women in the form of sex-specific abortions, which is quite widespread in many countries such as the Republic of Korea, China, and even in the northern and western states in India? Why should “son preference” be so strong even in countries in which women do so very well in many other ways, especially since that is not the case in other parts of Asia?”

These questions deserve attention, Prof. Sen stressed. “The relevance of these questions does not in any way diminish the value of what Asia has already achieved… We have reason to be proud of what we Asians have been able to do for ourselves and for world civilization. But there is a lot to do still”.
“I would like to be able to say: the best is yet to come!” Prof. Sen concluded.