Skip to main content

Expert Opinions & Stories

Search for Expert Opinion

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…

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…

Unsplash / Laurentiu Morariu Blog

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…

Shutterstock / Chubykin Arkady Blog

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…

UN News / WB State Inter Agency Group on Disaster Management Blog

“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…

iStock-929499172 Blog

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…

UNICEFINDA2013-00377Romana Blog

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…

... Blog

City Finance as a Cornerstone for the 2030 Agenda
Providing essential public infrastructure and services to support sustainable development is not a task for central governments alone. The…