There has been big talk about commitments by individual Asian countries to achieve some minimum of internationally accepted standards in basic necessities to ensure that the weakest members of their respective societies are able to live in dignity and have access to opportunities to improve their lot.

Too little has been done.

Never mind the fervent call for cooperation among Asian countries to help one another achieve such lofty goals. Few Asian countries put their money where their mouths are, except perhaps for Japan, which is among the world's most advanced nations and most generous donors for international development.

That's why we were quite sceptical when leaders from Asia and the Pacific got together last week in the Indonesian capital of Jakarta to urge one another to intensify cooperation in order to achieve the United Nations millennium development targets by 2015.

Appropriately, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono reminded delegates from more than 50 countries of the bleak statistics in the region today.

Half of the people in the region live on less than US$2 (Bt76) a day, 800 million are affected by hunger and malnutrition, more than 600 million have no access to safe water, and 115 million children are out of school.

"We are all gathered here to help advance the greatest project humanity has ever embarked on in the global pursuit of Millennium Development Goals," Yudhoyono said at the opening of the 62nd session of the UN Economic and Social Cooperation for Asia and the Pacific (Escap).

Yudhoyono said offering primary education to all children by 2015 was estimated as likely to cost $10 billion annually, the same amount Europe spends on ice cream every year. Ensuring basic healthcare and nutrition for all humanity would cost $13 billion annually, less than the United States and Europe spend on pet food, he said.

Installation of water and sanitation for all would cost $9 billion, a minuscule amount compared to the $780 billion that the world spends on its armies, he added.

Haven't we heard all of this before at one UN meet after another?

While these statistics may break our hearts, it should not bend our will to do something about it. Achieving the 2015 target may be well within our ability, but the real question has to do with the political will of our leaders and the commitment from citizens to see it through. Many of the developing countries are plagued by corruption and inefficient government or lack the capacity to make the most of assistance provided. Jeffrey Sachs, the Columbia University professor who heads the United Nations Millennium Project, said a number of ideas still on the table were very doable and could produce a win-win outcome for all. He described the global poverty that unnecessary caused so many preventable deaths as a "silent tsunami".

The death and destruction caused by the Asian tsunami were met with an outpouring of aid from individuals and governments worldwide. Unfortunately, we don't see the same kind of spirit or sense of urgency towards poverty and the daily preventable deaths it causes.

Perhaps it has to do with how we look at human tragedy. Tragedies like the one wrought by the Asian tsunami, writes Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker, have "victims and heroes but no villains" and the outpouring of aid was driven by "values that are, like the victims of the tsunami, simply human". But man-made tragedies have good guys and bad guys. For many of us, the consequences of these man-made problems can be explained away and even ignored to a certain extent.

But then, why should victims of developmental failures be treated any differently, particularly the millions of starving children, betrayed by their politicians and their own society, who wonder where their next meal will come from?