Expert Opinions & Stories

High prices of essential goods and services have become a pressing issue for the poor and vulnerable in Asia and the Pacific despite decent economic growth and declining inflationary trends so far in…

Economic performance in Asia and the Pacific has proved to be quite resilient to the shocks of the past few years – the COVID-19 pandemic, the ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, and the cost-of-living…

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…

Bhutan is one of two countries globally that maintains a carbon-neutral status and is the only country in the Asia-Pacific region that can claim this title. However, as the country recovers from the…

Food system risk is increasing across most countries in the Asia-Pacific region in recent years according to the recently launched INFER Framework
INFER uses 95 indicators to produce food system…

More and more developing countries in the Asia-Pacific region are struggling under mounting public debt, making it difficult for them to invest in sustainable development.

External debt servicing…

The unprecedented fiscal firepower used to protect the vulnerable from the harsh socio-economic impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting economic contraction have pushed the average…

In a few days, global leaders will gather at UN headquarters in New York to make certain we recognize the value of water, appreciate its vitality to life and embrace a visionary Water Action Agenda…

After two years of human devastation, the world is learning to live with COVID-19 while trying to balance the protection of public health and livelihoods.

For countries in Asia and the Pacific,…

Emerging from the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, the global economy has been shaken yet again, this time by geopolitical events that threaten to set back the nascent post-COVID-19 economic recovery,…

Even as Asia and the Pacific continues to be the fastest growing region in the world, economic growth has been slowing since the 2008 global financial crisis. Add the COVID-19 pandemic to the mix,…

The Covid-19 crisis has upended lives across the globe, wreaking havoc on economies and societies.

Looking beyond the pandemic, climate change poses the single most important threat to the…

The adoption of the Paris Agreement (“PA”) in December 2015 created the opportunity to use legal instruments for climate action. To reach the strategic objective of limiting global warming to 1.5°C,…

Not far from downtown Bangkok is the district with the largest number of COVID-19 infections in the latest wave of the pandemic. In April, slum dwellers accounted for two thirds of all infections,…

“The 2030 Agenda is coming to life”, declared the Secretary General at the opening of the first SDG Summit, a quadrennial event for the follow up and review of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable…

For the first time in history, remittances are expected to become the largest source of external financing for low- and middle-income countries worldwide. Remittances are expected to reach $550…

Do people cheat because they can get away with it or because they feel that the rules are unfair? My recent paper examines this question in the context of tax evasion.

Unable or unwilling to cheat…

More and more countries are volunteering to report their progress towards achievement of the 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through Voluntary National Reviews (VNR) at the…

Fiscal policy – the use of government spending and taxation – is a prominent policy tool for national development. Since the 1980s, its role somewhat diminished as laissez-faire, an approach of…

Three years of implementation of the transformative 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in Asia and the Pacific shows the region has some catching up to do.
Despite much progress, the…