Expert Opinions & Stories

From social media and e-commerce to artificial intelligence, technology is transforming how we work, communicate and live our lives. Yet as technology races ahead, women and girls – especially those…

New technologies and innovations are reshaping our world and its future, often at a dizzying pace. Yet women and girls continue to be left behind in this burgeoning digital universe. How, then, can…

Throughout the years, Laxmi Shrestha and her husband saw the opportunities that opening an online shop could bring to her family business.

“Looking at the trend of TikTok and other sites, we…

The Pacific Small Island Developing States (PSIDS) are among the most vulnerable countries in the world to the impacts of climate change. The World Risk Index 2021 ranks several Pacific Island…

Extraordinary times calls for extraordinary measures. The COVID-19 pandemic has required countries to deploy large spending for emergency health response and relief measures for households and firms…

As the socio-economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic spread across the length and breadth of Asia and the Pacific, finance ministries are continuing their relentless efforts to inject trillions of…

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…

“We have to learn from COVID… We can’t wish away systemic risk. It’s much much cheaper, much more effective to invest upfront in order to avoid disaster and so it is with climate change – a crisis…

The current COVID-19 crisis has shown that governments can act quickly and decisively if needed and collaborate to work collectively. So, why are governments not acting as quickly and decisively in…

The year 2020 has witnessed an unprecedented COVID-19 crisis where many human lives have been lost. We have also witnessed the tremendous magnitude and speed of collapse in economic activity–…

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…

As we are celebrating the International Day of Older Persons today, we recognize that population ageing is a human success story, a story of longer and often healthier lives of the world’s people…

It’s 1962, and in a modest Hong Kong neighborhood, a poetic love story unfolds. Filmed almost twenty years ago, Wong Kar-wai’s seminal movie In the Mood for Love captured the world’s imagination…

Asia and the Pacific is lauded globally for its rapid economic growth over recent decades and has lifted 1.1 billion people out of extreme poverty since 1990. Nevertheless, the region continues to…

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…

Four years after the global leaders came together to commit to the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to end poverty, fight inequalities, tackle climate change, and ensure that no one is left…

Less than a dollar per person per day. That is all it will cost developing countries in Asia and the Pacific to realize their ambitions for an inclusive and sustainable future, according to a study…

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…

Infrastructure development is undoubtedly critical for a country’s long-term economic growth and competitiveness as it impacts economic activities by increasing productivity, facilitating trade, and…

On 13 July 2018, the United Nations Generally Assembly in New York approved the final draft of the Global Compact on Safe, Orderly and Regular Migration (GCM), culminating a year-long extensive…