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Photo credit: Freepik/Rawpixel.com Blog

Drought is a slow-onset disaster that causes significant damage to the environment.  Unlike most other natural hazards, the effects of drought often accumulate slowly over an extended period…

Photo credit: Lim Yong Tick / EyeEm Op-ed

The Asia-Pacific region is at a crossroads today – to further breakdown or breakthrough to a greener, better, safer future.

Since the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP…

Blog

On 24 September, the United Nations Secretary-General, António Guterres, will convene the High-level Dialogue on Energy at summit level, under the auspices of the UN General Assembly. This will be…

Op-ed

Over the past two decades, the Asia-Pacific region has made remarkable progress in managing disaster risk. But countries can never let down their guard. The COVID-19 pandemic, with its epicentre now…

Photo credit: iStockphoto/FinestWorks Blog

Asia and the Pacific is home to around 60 per cent of the global population with no access to clean cooking solutions. Clean cooking solutions refers to fuel-stove combinations with emissions…

Photo credits: iStock/Andree_Nery/bookzaa/MicroStockHub/golero Blog

In New York this September, the High-level Dialogue on Energy will be convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations at a summit level. In the first global energy meeting under a UN mandate…

Photo credit: iStockphoto/Danielrao Blog

From May 12-19, in the midst of the devastating second wave of the pandemic, the powerful Cyclone Tauktae struck India’s west coast and killed more than 100 people. This was the deadliest cyclone in…

Photo credit: iStockphoto/Doran J Clark Blog

In recent weeks, India’s second COVID-19 wave has been devastating, reaching world records for the total numbers of cases and deaths and overwhelming the healthcare system. On 8 May, India, for the…

istock / gdagys Blog

In 2020, Asia-Pacific saw the collision of climate extremes and COVID-19 transmission create cascading disasters with wide-ranging impacts on sectors, economies, and populations.

The year…

Shutterstock / Formatoriginal Blog

Science Technology and Innovation (STI) has been at the forefront of the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic. From enhancing our understanding of virus transmission pathways and the complexity of…

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…

iStock / metamorworks Blog

Where are we going?

Today this question is often answered with a glance at a smartphone and a whole host of behind-the-scenes geospatial and other data working to provide easy-to-understand…

iStock / suc Blog

Asif Ali (name changed) and his wife live with three children in a rural township bordering India and Bangladesh. Asif lost his job as a mechanic when the COVID-19 lockdown forced the closure of a…

Unsplash/Piyush Priyank Blog

COVID-19 challenges the very fabric of human possibilities, survival and needs while amplifying the impacts of any ongoing crisis, especially the one faced currently by South Asia. Against a backdrop…

Pixabay/geralt Blog

The COVID-19 pandemic has created unprecedented changes to the way we lead our lives and our reliance on ICT connectivity has grown even faster than before. However, the region is also one of the…

Unsplash / Milind Ruparel Blog

The last few months have seen the collisions of COVID-19 with climate extremes. Its impact is potentially inter-generational where poverty, disaster risks and environmental degradation converge,…

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…

Unsplash / Guillaume de Germain Op-ed

The world before COVID-19 looks very attractive right now. In light of the disease, mass unemployment and social distancing, a return to pre-pandemic normality seems appealing. Yet we should remember…

Shutterstock / Richard Whitcombe Blog

Last week saw a ‘crisis on top of a crisis’ in South Asia – the unprecedented impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic in the region was followed by the most powerful cyclone to strike India and Bangladesh…

Unsplash / Robert Norton Blog

Worldwide, many countries continue to experience an extended period of COVID-19 risks. There are no off-the-shelf solutions for managing such a complex crisis, in which measures to prevent…