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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…

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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 by Unsplash/Irina Shishkina Blog

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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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: ASEAN Foundation Blog

Last month, the world marked the first anniversary since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 virus as a pandemic. Throughout the year, we witnessed how a virus can bring forth a…

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 / Chubykin Arkady Blog

Civilizations in North and Central Asia have ebbed and flowed, along with the river basins that feed and nurture them. Water has always been a key source of livelihood in this subregion, given that…

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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 / Lynda Hinton Blog

After decades of impressive growth, for the first time, Southeast Asia is experiencing a drop in measured human development. The economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic will likely take months…

Unsplash / Nicolas Weldingh Op-ed

Developing countries of Asia and the Pacific are experiencing unbalanced tolls of the COVID-19 pandemic. Grim milestones in infections and deaths have left countless devastated. Yet, we must look at…

Unsplash / marina Blog

Our lives are anchored to the ocean in Asia and the Pacific. Yet, if we drift with the currents, we can wave goodbye to the ocean we know and love. Here are five reasons why we need to speed up our…

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Structural economic transformation and the expansion of international trade are among the most pressing issues to be addressed, if Asia’s landlocked developing countries (LLDCs) are to overcome the…