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Photo credit: World Meteorological Organization Op-ed

The Asia-Pacific region is faltering on decades of progress in reducing poverty and hunger. Increasingly, severe climate-related hazards are threatening food security and triggering human…

Photo credit: iStockphoto/Nastco Op-ed

We are living in an era of a polycrisis: the lingering effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the climate emergency and the Russian invasion of Ukraine continue to send shockwaves through Asia and the…

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The recent crises have erased at least one decade of development progress. Why?

The 2023 ESCAP-ADB-UNDP SDG Partnership report explores the impacts of the polycrisis of COVID-19,…

Photo Credit: UNICEF Pacific Blog

Two destructive Category 4 tropical cyclones, Judy and Kevin, and an earthquake of 6.5 magnitude impacted over 80 per cent of the Vanuatu population from 1 to 3 March 2023. To address this emergency…

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: Shutterstock/Przemyslaw Skibinski Blog

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…

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…

UNICEF Op-ed

The Pacific Island Developing State of Vanuatu has emerged as one of the region’s great success stories. Vanuatu has joined the ranks of Samoa and the Maldives as one of only six countries to…

Unsplash / Nicolas Weldingh Op-ed

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…

ESCAP Photo/ Kibae Park Blog

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…

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…