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 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…

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  ̶…

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 …

On this World Meteorological Day, WMO and ESCAP unpack the 2023 theme: Weather, Climate and Water across Generations – through a series of three opinion pieces focused on the Asia-Pacific region,…

Two destructive Category 4 tropical cyclones, Judy and Kevin, and an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude impacted over 80 per cent of the Vanuatu population from 1 to 3 March 2023. To address this emergency…

The recent climate talks in Egypt have left us with a sobering reality: The window for maintaining global warming to 1.5 degrees is closing fast and what is on the table currently is insufficient to…

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…

As we inch closer to the 1.5°C target and beyond in this century, the sixth generation of CIMP6 climate models (known as Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 6) and the Shared Socio-economic…

On January 14, 2022, the South Pacific experienced the incredible force of the submarine volcano Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai. The plume reached 30 kilometers into the stratosphere, and the eruption was…

Countries in the Asia-Pacific region continue to make progress in digitalizing trade procedures. When these procedures are digital, they can be made simpler, more accessible, and quicker to execute…

A person in the Asia-Pacific region is four times more at risk of natural hazards than a person in Africa and sixteen times more than someone in North America or Europe. The “riskscape” of the region…

Recent research by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has shown that the world is likely to reach or exceed 1.5°C of warming much earlier than previously anticipated. The United in…

The world’s topmost decision-making body on trade will meet in Geneva on 30 November, having only four days at the World Trade Organization 12th Ministerial Conference (MC12) to deliver a…

Foreign direct investment (FDI) can significantly contribute to the sustainable development of both home and host countries in several important ways: through expanding access to…

“We have to learn from COVID… We can’t wish away systemic risk. It’s much much cheaper, much more effective to invest upfront in order to avoid disaster and so it is with climate change – a crisis…

Back in 2015, the member-states of the United Nations adopted its most ambitious, all-encompassing agenda ever attempted: To guide the advancement of humankind for the next 15 years.

Collectively…

Currently, approximately 300 million tons of oil-based plastic waste are produced every year. A significant amount of plastic waste ends up in the oceans, having a detrimental effect on marine…

The past five years have been the hottest on record in Asia and the Pacific. Unprecedented heatwaves have swept across our region, cascading into slow onset disasters such as drought. Yet heat is…

The success of Silicon Valley has been inspirational for many countries worldwide wishing to establish science and technology parks. In Asia, successful science and technology parks can be found in…