Nevertheless, all countries with available data were subsequently able to reduce poverty rates, for example, in Azerbaijan, the poverty rate fell from 49.6 per cent in 2001 to 7.6 per cent in 2011, and in Kazakhstan the rate fell from 46.7 per cent in 2001 to 5.3 per cent in 2011. Nevertheless, the highest poverty gap ratios can be observed for least developed countries, indicating pockets of extreme poverty among the poorest and most vulnerable countries in the region. The poverty gap ratios are the highest in Bangladesh at 11.2 per cent in 2010, the Lao Peoples Democratic Republic at 9 per cent in 2008 and India at 7.5 per cent in 2010, whereas for countries in North and Central Asia ratios are generally very low (except Georgia). Inequality not only diminishes the poverty-reducing impact of economic growth, but also deprives hundreds of millions of people access to the means to develop their economic potential by denying them adequate health care, education, energy, credit, land and so forth.