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Photo credit: ESCAP Photo/Mailee Osten-Tan Story

In a world grappling with climate change, innovative solutions are the need of the hour. BillionCarbon, an Indian climate tech start-up founded by siblings Ankita and Nikhil Vijayvergiya, is at the…

Photo credit: ESCAP Photo/Cindy Liu Story

For Ou Sokphanna, who lost her leg to a landmine explosion when she was young, opportunities for income generation have always been limited, with widespread discrimination preventing her from…

Photo credit: ESCAP Photo/Lauren DeCicca Story

33-year-old Rina Akhtar, hailing from Dhaka, Bangladesh, found herself grappling with adversity when her husband deserted her, leaving her to raise their two daughters alone.

Undeterred by the…

Photo credit: Freepik/Jcomp Blog

Despite efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change, Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 13 on Climate Action has seen an overall regression in progress in Asia and the Pacific. A 2023 ESCAP…

Photo credit: Shutterstock/Tony Duy Blog

The unique challenges posed to the Asia-Pacific region in the face of climate change, poverty and hunger are well known. The region plays a significant role in climate action as both the largest…

Photo credit: Unsplash/John Schnobrich Blog

The potential of e-commerce to drive inclusive development has been debated for decades. As far back as 2002, then-United Nations Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan, in the publication titled E-Commerce…

Photo credits: Freepik/tawatchai07 Blog

With COP27 ending last month in Egypt, the world’s attention has been laser-focused on the latest commitments from nation-states for solving humanity’s biggest challenge: climate change.

CO2…

Photo: Shutterstock/Rawpixel.com. Blog

To meet the ambitions of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we will need a vibrant and innovative private sector able to seize opportunities to solving the problems that hamper progress and…

Photo credit: Shutterstock/Tsetso Photo Op-ed

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…

Photo credit: ESCAP/Soni Chetan Blog

The outcomes of harnessing digital technologies for financial inclusion will pay dividends for people at the bottom of the economic pyramid (BoEP) across the Asia-Pacific region. Innovative policy…

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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: Alexey Kravchenko Blog

In July 2021, the European Commission (EC) announced a proposal to implement a Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) on energy-intensive imports from third countries. The proposed CBAM would…

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In the summer of 2021, record high temperatures scorched Central Asia. Distressing videos and news showed livestock dying on pastures in the western provinces of Kazakhstan due to water shortages and…

Photo credit: Jonas Flake Blog

It is widely believed that the biggest contribution of trade to climate change is from transport-related greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Indeed, as reported in the Asia-Pacific Trade and Investment…

Photo credit: Ian McAllister/Pacific Wild Blog

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…

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Ending poverty in all its forms is the first of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). While significant progress to reduce poverty had been made at the global and regional levels by 2019, the…

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The Asia-Pacific region is home to some of the most advanced and fast-moving digital economies in the world. In countries such as China, the Republic of Korea and Singapore, the COVID-19 pandemic has…

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…

Photo credit: SHE Investments Cambodia Blog

We are living through a decisive moment. The COVID-19 pandemic’s devasting impact is reaching every corner of the world. As we look back at this period, we will see history divided into a pre-COVID…

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…