Expert Opinions & Stories

World Population Day on 11 July provides an excellent opportunity to take stock and look ahead regarding population issues that are affecting all aspects of society in Asia and the Pacific. This year…

Maternity protection is a human right enshrined in Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Income security for newborn mothers ensures their mental and physical wellbeing and…

Let’s call her Anita. Four years ago, her life took an unexpected turn when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted everything she knew. As businesses closed and economic uncertainty loomed, Anita, like…

Quadrupling in size since 1950, the working age population in Asia and the Pacific now accounts for 67.2 per cent of the total population in the region and is set to peak at 3.3 billion by the…

Establishing comprehensive social protection and fulfilling the human right to social security for everyone is the foundation of a people-centric strategy for achieving social justice and inclusive…

In a world increasingly driven by information, the role of ‘data’ and ‘statistics’ is guiding decisions, including on population and sustainable development. In Asia and the Pacific, home to 60 per…

In Asia and the Pacific, migration is again on the rise. In 2020, almost 109 million people lived in a country other than that of their birth. They represented 2.3 per cent of the region’s population…

Solidarity is declining among people in the 21st century. This is evident in various aspects of society, including extreme individualism and consumerism, and growing polarization and fragmentation of…

The World Day of Social Justice takes place in challenging circumstances. The COVID-19 pandemic has pushed 85 million people into extreme poverty in Asia and the Pacific. Conflict, surging energy…

More than one third of the population in Asia and the Pacific is not effectively protected by a healthcare scheme, rendering 1.6 billion people in the region into health-related vulnerabilities…

The world is due to reach 8 billion people today, November 15! This very precise date hides an uncomfortable truth – we don’t really know exactly how many people there are in the world. This is…

As the owner of a small business at the Suva flea market, Vilisi Wavu knows what it takes to be a female entrepreneur in Fiji. It requires a “shift in attitude and a sense of urgency” to succeed in…

Social protection safeguards access to basic opportunities across the life cycle, particularly in times of need. When a household is protected through a social protection scheme, potential loss of…

It is nearly two years since the first case of COVID-19 was detected and the outbreak exploded into the deadliest pandemic in living memory. Are we able to see light at the end of the tunnel? Is…

As we celebrate this year’s Women’s Entrepreneurship Day on 19 November, we do so with the awareness that our region is still far from creating an environment where women entrepreneurs can flourish…

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…

Ms. Hong leads the Cuu Long Coconut Product enterprise in Ben Tre Province in Viet Nam. She explained that, as orders from traditional export markets stopped during the pandemic, their production was…

Last year, the Asia-Pacific region recorded its worst economic performance in decades. With the pandemic far from over, the region’s recovery is slow, fragile and highly uneven both across and within…

As the world enters its second year of living with the COVID-19 pandemic, the focus has shifted from containing the spread of the disease towards recovering from socio-economic disruptions. COVID-19…

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…