Skip to main content

Expert Opinions & Stories

Search for Expert Opinion

Photo credit: UNICEF/UN0691098/Sami Malik Blog

"The Pakistani people are facing a monsoon on steroids -- the relentless impact of epochal levels of rain and flooding,” stated UN Secretary-General António Guterres recently as floods submerged much…

Photo credit: iStockphoto/D.Talukdar Blog

“The global battle to reduce disaster losses by 2030 will be won or lost in Asia and the Pacific” – Mami Mizutori, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Disaster Risk Reduction.

This…

Photo credit: iStockphoto/D.Talukdar Blog

Floods are a recurring phenomenon in Bangladesh and the adjoining state of Assam, India. The ongoing large-scale flooding here is not an exception. Floods often trigger landslides and large-scale…

Photo credit: iStockphoto/LSP1982 Blog

In 2022, the early onset of heatwaves in South Asia was a unique example of compounding and cascading risks in this interconnected world. Heatwaves that struck India early this year coincided with…

Photo credit: UNDP/Hira Hashmey Blog

This year, India and Pakistan have recorded their warmest ever March and April. The pre-monsoon period in South Asia is usually marked with excessively high temperatures, especially in May but early…

Op-ed

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,…

Photo credit: Adobe Stock/Gajus Blog

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,…

Photo credit: Johannes Plenio/Pexels Blog

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…

Shutterstock/TZIDO SUN Blog

Economic and non-economic shocks such as financial crises, natural disasters, and pandemics leave behind permanent scars in economies and societies and result in major setbacks to development gains…

Photo credit: Yang Shuo on Unsplash Blog

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…