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Photo credit: Adobe Stock/Lazy_Bear Blog

Several Asia-Pacific countries are ageing fast. This transition is neither unique nor limited to the region - it is a global megatrend. However, this time it is different. Why? Because ageing…

Op-ed

After two years of human devastation, the world is learning to live with COVID-19 while trying to balance the protection of public health and livelihoods.

For countries in Asia and the Pacific,…

Photo credit: Adobe Stock/Gajus Blog

Emerging from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy has been shaken yet again, this time by geopolitical events that threaten to set back the nascent post-COVID-19 economic recovery,…

Photo credit: istockphoto/tampatra Blog

Even as Asia and the Pacific continues to be the fastest growing region in the world, economic growth has been slowing since the 2008 global financial crisis. Add the COVID-19 pandemic to the mix,…

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…

Photo credit: iStock/tudiocasper Op-ed

The world is emerging from the biggest social and economic shock in living memory, but it will be a long time before the deep scars of the COVID-19 pandemic on human well-being fully heal.

In the…

Photo credit: Yang Shuo on Unsplash Blog

In the first quarter of 2020, as news of lockdown measures in other parts of Asia and the Pacific rolled in, Kazakhstan was holding its breath and developing appropriate urgent measures in…

UNICEF Op-ed

The Pacific Island Developing State of Vanuatu has emerged as one of the region’s great success stories. Vanuatu has joined the ranks of Samoa and the Maldives as one of only six countries to…

Shutterstock / Nuad Contributor Blog

Could you imagine a world where online chat platforms become the primary source of information for truckers on how to get across borders? This blog follows the Subregional SDG Forum hosted in…

Shutterstock / Curioso.Photography Blog

In recent years, countries in North and Central Asia have put in place measures to ensure the rights of migrant workers, recognizing their significant contribution to both home and recipient…

Unsplash / Victor He Blog

The global outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic is causing severe hardship to millions of people from Beijing to Bangkok, Dhaka to Da Nang, Kolkata to Karachi: leaving no place and community untouched.

Unsplash / Bill Oxford Blog

On the frontlines of the battle to contain the public health and economic fallouts of the global COVID-19 pandemic, the Asia-Pacific region faces crucial policy choices as it tries to balance short…

Image by Republic of Korea CC 2.0 via Flickr https://flic.kr/p/pe7ixf Blog

Do people cheat because they can get away with it or because they feel that the rules are unfair? My recent paper examines this question in the context of tax evasion.

Unable or unwilling to cheat…

ESCAP Photo/ Kibae Park Blog

Asia and the Pacific is lauded globally for its rapid economic growth over recent decades and has lifted 1.1 billion people out of extreme poverty since 1990. Nevertheless, the region continues to…

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…

Shutterstock.com Blog

Economics is supposedly a hard-nosed academic profession, focused on understanding the mechanisms by which material wealth is created and enlarged to meet ever-growing demand. For a long time, the…