Expert Opinions & Stories

Tshering Wangchuk is no stranger to the challenges of living in a rural community in the mountainous parts of Bhutan. “My place is far away from the capital city Thimphu. There is no road access. We…

The summer of 2024 has shattered heat records, starkly illustrating the harsh realities of our warming planet. In India alone, the heatwave has claimed over 100 lives and caused more than 40,000…

Scientific assessments reveal that the Third Pole (TP), encompassing the vast glaciated mountain systems of Asia, is warming at an alarming rate of over 0.3 ºC per decade, surpassing the global…

Stories of growing vulnerability make regular headlines across all Asian and Pacific small island developing States (SIDS). With tens of thousands of people displaced every year due to climate and…

The ESCAP Asia-Pacific SDG Progress Report 2024 flagged the region’s regression on SDG 13, climate action. To reverse this trend, it is imperative that both mitigation and adaptation go hand in hand…

Between 1970 and 2022, disaster events in Asia and the Pacific caused 2.04 million deaths and $2.71 trillion in economic damages. ESCAP estimates that among these totals, tsunamis rank as the third…

Multiple earthquakes, the strongest being of 7.7 magnitude, struck southern Türkiye and northern Syria on 6 February 2023. The earthquake was extremely powerful, and more deadly because it…

Asia and the Pacific is the most digitally divided region of the world, and South-East Asia is the most divided subregion. The Covid-19 pandemic detonated a “digital big bang” that spurred people,…

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…

2022 started with an abnormally warm January for North and Central Asia, followed by civil unrest, and the lingering impacts of COVID-19. How the year ahead would look like is still fraught with…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

In recent years, countries in North and Central Asia have put in place measures to ensure the rights of migrant workers, recognizing their significant contribution to both home and recipient…

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…