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Credit: UN Photo/Eskinder Debebe Blog

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) indicator framework has been developed with 231 indicators for global monitoring of the 2030 Agenda. However, the applicability of certain indicators to…

iStockphoto / Ijeab Op-ed

As we reach the midpoint of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, it is an opportune moment to reflect on the Asia-Pacific region’s progress and accelerate efforts to achieve our goals.

Photo credit: iStock/Czgur Blog

Countries in North and Central Asia are increasingly trying to make their energy sectors greener and more sustainable. With stagnating economic growth and climate change on the horizon, countries are…

Photo credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto Blog

In theory, the pandemic created an opportunity for policymakers to recalibrate existing policies and develop new, innovative strategies to mobilize financial resources and drive a green, inclusive,…

iStockphoto/Pavel Talashov Blog

North and Central Asia is on track to achieve Sustainable Development Goal 7: affordable and clean energy, based on aggregated data for the whole subregion. However, general statistics may conceal…

Shutterstock/TZIDO SUN Blog

Economic and non-economic shocks such as financial crises, natural disasters, and pandemics leave behind permanent scars in economies and societies and result in major setbacks to development gains…

Shutterstock / Chubykin Arkady Blog

Civilizations in North and Central Asia have ebbed and flowed, along with the river basins that feed and nurture them. Water has always been a key source of livelihood in this subregion, given that…

Unsplash / Dominik Vanyi Blog

The current COVID-19 crisis has shown that governments can act quickly and decisively if needed and collaborate to work collectively. So, why are governments not acting as quickly and decisively in…

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It’s 1962, and in a modest Hong Kong neighborhood, a poetic love story unfolds. Filmed almost twenty years ago, Wong Kar-wai’s seminal movie In the Mood for Love captured the world’s imagination…

iStock-929499172 Blog

Fiscal policy – the use of government spending and taxation – is a prominent policy tool for national development. Since the 1980s, its role somewhat diminished as laissez-faire, an approach of…

UNICEFINDA2013-00377Romana Blog

Less than a dollar per person per day. That is all it will cost developing countries in Asia and the Pacific to realize their ambitions for an inclusive and sustainable future, according to a study…

Three years of implementation of the transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific shows the region has some catching up to do.
Despite much progress, the…

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Structural economic transformation and the expansion of international trade are among the most pressing issues to be addressed, if Asia’s landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) are to overcome the…

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The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development has set an ambitious agenda of 17 global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), 169 global targets and 232 global indicators. But wait, there is more. The…

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Our dislike of inequality is innate. A child may have been perfectly happy with her breakfast until she sees her brother being served a more desirable kind of cereal. Desire is unlocked when new…

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On 13 July 2018, the United Nations Generally Assembly in New York approved the final draft of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), culminating a year-long extensive…