Expert Opinions & Stories

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…

As the world is still gearing up to welcome 2024, let us find a moment to reflect on some of the key trends of the past year and pursue now to embrace the path towards hope and promise for everyone,…

Quality infrastructure and investments in priority sectors drive sustainable development  by reducing inequalities and improving access to health, education, public services and income…

“Climate change impacts everyone, but not equally,” says Shreya KC, a young climate activist from Solukhumbu, Nepal.

Shreya has seen firsthand how women and young girls in rural communities have…

We are living in an era of a polycrisis: the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate emergency and the Russian invasion of Ukraine continue to send shockwaves through Asia and the…

The recent crises have erased at least one decade of development progress. Why?

The 2023 ESCAP-ADB-UNDP SDG Partnership report explores the impacts of the polycrisis of COVID-19,…

The latest synthesis report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes for grim reading: Every fraction of a degree of warming comes with escalated threats, from deadly heatwaves to…

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 impacts of the climate crisis are acutely felt in the Pacific region.  In recent years, the region has been hit by devastating climate events, which cause widespread destruction and…

The start of the “Decade of Action” to achieve the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has also marked the start of an unprecedented period of overlapping crises.

The Covid-19…

2022 started with an abnormally warm January for North and Central Asia, followed by civil unrest, and the lingering impacts of COVID-19. How the year ahead would look like is still fraught with…

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…

After a tumultuous 2021, all corners of the world are now focusing their recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic around ways that support the people and protect the planet. This is particularly relevant…

In a joint statement, the Executive Secretaries of the United Nations Regional Commissions have called for enhanced regional cooperation to develop nature-based and technological solutions for…

From Suva to Seoul, people wearing face masks is now a common sight in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic. Over the past years, face masks have become a regular feature of everyday life to protect from…

If the world wants to beat back the COVID-19 pandemic and ensure no one is left behind in the recovery, two issues thrown into sharp relief by the pandemic need attention: digitalization and regional…

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…

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…

In the 2000s, the streets of Bishkek city in Kyrgyzstan were buzzing with private minibuses, ferrying people from Osh Bazaar to Ala Too Square&nbsp…

The past year is one that few of us will forget. While the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic have played out unevenly across Asia and the Pacific, the region has been spared many of the worst effects…