Expert Opinions & Stories

Tshering Wangchuk is no stranger to the challenges of living in a rural community in the mountainous parts of Bhutan. “My place is far away from the capital city Thimphu. There is no road access. We…

The rapid growth of digitalization has fundamentally altered commerce, impacting production and facilitating the movement of goods. The 2023 Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment Report (APTIR), has…

The summer of 2024 has shattered heat records, starkly illustrating the harsh realities of our warming planet. In India alone, the heatwave has claimed over 100 lives and caused more than 40,000…

Scientific assessments reveal that the Third Pole (TP), encompassing the vast glaciated mountain systems of Asia, is warming at an alarming rate of over 0.3 ºC per decade, surpassing the global…

The demand for adopting more inclusive value chains in the private sector is apparent on all fronts. Customers are more mindful of their purchases, with extensive access to product information…

Stories of growing vulnerability make regular headlines across all Asian and Pacific small island developing States (SIDS). With tens of thousands of people displaced every year due to climate and…

The ESCAP Asia-Pacific SDG Progress Report 2024 flagged the region’s regression on SDG 13, climate action. To reverse this trend, it is imperative that both mitigation and adaptation go hand in hand…

In the heart of India's agricultural landscape, smallholder farmers, comprising 70 per cent of the sector, face a significant barrier: limited access to formal financial institutions and resources…

Between 1970 and 2022, disaster events in Asia and the Pacific caused 2.04 million deaths and $2.71 trillion in economic damages. ESCAP estimates that among these totals, tsunamis rank as the third…

Gulmira Kuzhagaliyeva, a former senior expert at Qaz-Trade, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Trade and Integration, has been exploring sustainable methods of food packaging and storage in her work  ̶…

When Lisa Huyen first set up her company, Vinasamex, which specializes in certified organic cinnamon and star anise grown in the mountainous and poorer provinces of Viet Nam, she faced daunting…

It is undeniable that the world is rapidly approaching a climate change catastrophe. According to the  Climate Change 2023: Synthesis Report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change …

Multiple earthquakes, the strongest being of 7.7 magnitude, struck southern Türkiye and northern Syria on 6 February 2023. The earthquake was extremely powerful, and more deadly because it…

As countries in Asia and the Pacific build back from the COVID-19 pandemic, they have a unique opportunity to empower women and advance gender equality by putting women at the heart of the recovery…

Asia and the Pacific is the most digitally divided region of the world, and South-East Asia is the most divided subregion. The Covid-19 pandemic detonated a “digital big bang” that spurred people,…

As digital technology continues to unlock new financial opportunities for people across Asia and the Pacific, it is critical that women are central to strategies aimed at harnessing the digital…

Five years after the entry into force of the WTO Trade Facilitation Agreement (TFA), many countries have made progress in implementing the agreement, much technical assistance has been provided, and…

The Asia-Pacific region is at a crossroads today – to further breakdown or breakthrough to a greener, better, safer future.

Since the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP…

At ESCAP’s latest Regional Conversation, Promoting Regional Cooperation for Enhancing Access to Essential Health Products, Dr. Mariângela Simão of the World Health Organization (WHO) gave a telling…

The world has seen tremendous development and production in vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics in the two years since COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. However, gross inequities in accessing…