Expert Opinions & Stories

As countries in Asia and the Pacific strive to achieve sustainable development against mounting climate change challenges, engaging youth in digital innovation is recognized as one strategy for…

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…

Digital innovation and technology have become an integral part of the way governments, businesses and individuals function, transforming the speed and efficiency of communication, service delivery…

The Asia-Pacific region has the world’s highest estimated number of children and youth (ages 24 or younger), counting over 1.7 billion in 2020. This represents 1.7 billion distinct lives and,…

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…

As countries gathered at the United Nations’ biodiversity conference, or COP15, to agree on the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, policymakers, scientists, and rights advocates reaffirmed…

As the Second Global Ocean Conference opens today in Lisbon, governments in Asia and the Pacific must seize the opportunity to enhance cooperation and solidarity to address a host of challenges that…

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…

As the leaders of Asia and the Pacific prepare to head to Glasgow for the 26th United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP26), they can be sure that our region will be in the…

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…

On bikes and on foot, with trikes, pushcarts and more, informal waste pickers are an active and persistent feature of waste management systems across the Asia-Pacific region. Daily waste pickers make…

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,…

Throughout history, zoonotic diseases (diseases transmitted from animals to humans) have made their marks in human history. For example, the bubonic plague, which was transmitted from rodents, is…

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…

Why are cities vital to support a green recovery from COVID-19? Urban areas are critical for both the global and local environment. They constitute the most significant source of GHG emissions,…

Could you imagine a world where online chat platforms become the primary source of information for truckers on how to get across borders? This blog follows the Subregional SDG Forum hosted in…

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…