The World Meteorological Organization’s State of the Climate in Asia 2024 report warns that the region is warming nearly twice as fast as the global average, driving more extreme weather and posing serious threats to lives, ecosystems, and economies. In 2024, Asia experienced its warmest or second warmest year on …
Social-ecological transformation in Asian cities is instrumental to achieving many global development and climate targets. As dense settlements of human and economic activity, Asian cities present unique challenges but also opportunities for low-carbon transitions.
Road safety is a sustainable development challenge for the Asia-Pacific region. The Global Status Report on Road Safety published in 2018 by the World Health Organization indicated that more than 60 per cent of the global road fatalities occurred in the Asia-Pacific region. A number of global and regional initiatives …
Agricultural mechanization in Africa south of the Sahara — especially for small farms and businesses — requires a new paradigm to meet the needs of the continent’s evolving farming systems. Can Asia, with its recent success in adopting mechanization, offer a model for Africa? An Evolving Paradigm of Agricultural Mechanization …
This handbook features best practices for integrating waste to energy and related technologies into the operations of various industries in developing Asia. It discusses current technologies, presents a conceptual example of municipal solid waste planning, and provides commentary on waste-to-energy initiatives. The importance of appropriate infrastructure as well as flexibility …
This report provides detailed information about the Carbon Offsetting and Reduction Scheme for International Aviation (CORSIA) and the challenges and opportunities for developing countries in Asia and the Pacific to benefit from the scheme as a source of carbon offsets. It includes an analysis of the offset demand outlook in …
The Asian Water Development Outlook (AWDO) assesses national water security across the Asia and the Pacific, with a focus on five key dimensions: rural, economic, urban, environmental, and water-related disaster. Despite considerable achievements in the region since the AWDO 2013 edition, 1.5 billion people in rural areas and 0.6 billion …
This discussion paper explores the linkages between climate change ambitions, policies, multi-level governance frameworks and vertical integration in cities in the Asia-Pacific region. In particular, it focuses on what the paper calls: (a) specific instruments – decentralization, finance, and measuring, reporting and verification systems (MRV); and (b) cross-cutting instruments – …
This paper discusses the opportunities and challenges for green businesses in Asia and the Pacific. It also identifies the market motivations, regulatory and nonregulatory mechanisms, and implications for companies. The imperative for green businesses is growing in the region. In many Asian countries, governments are introducing policies, regulations, initiatives and …
The Raoul Wallenberg Institute of Human Rights and Humanitarian Law (RWI) has published a report on legal instruments and practice in Southeast Asia that support a right to a healthy environment. The authors find that countries in the region that recognize this right are in a better position to tackle …
The COVID-19 pandemic is having an unprecedented impact on countries in the Asia- Pacific region. Not only have the health consequences led to over 170,000 deaths in the region, but the socio-economic costs have exceeded those of the Asian financial crisis in 1997. The cascading impacts of this health emergency …
The paper examines the impact of sectoral transformation in agriculture on sustainable development in North and Central Asia. It discusses trends and developments of agriculture and structural transformation, as well as its effects on sustainable development in the subregion. Since the breakdown of Soviet-Union, the subregion underwent economic and political …
Geospatial information has been providing far-reaching solutions to pressing issues facing humanity, ranging from health, education, food security, agriculture, to disaster risk reduction and resilience-building. The effective integration of geospatial data, existing statistics and ground-based information and exploiting new data sources, analytics, and tools has proven instrumental to deliver timely …
The joint WFP-IOM report highlights the close interconnection between hunger, conflict, migration and displacement, which has been further aggravated by COVID-19. The study explores the impact of the pandemic on the livelihoods, food security and protection of migrant workers households dependent on remittances and the forcibly displaced. Using the latest …
This brief emphasizes that Asia and the Pacific is at a crossroads in its efforts to forge a sustainable future and urges policy action to put the region on track to achieve the environmental dimensions of the Sustainable Development Goals.
In most countries, land inequality is growing. Worse, new measures and analysis published in this synthesis report show that land inequality is significantly higher than previously reported. This trend directly threatens the livelihoods of an estimated 2.5 billion people worldwide involved in smallholder agriculture.
This second edition of Ready for the Dry Years reveals that the severity of two drought events during 2015-2016 and 2018-2020 exceeds anything recorded in the past two decades, since the major El Niño of 1997-1998. Evidence presented in the Report shows that this could be set to continue as …
This paper assesses how the collective pathway toward food security in Central and West Asia has transformed due to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) and recommends post-pandemic measures for ensuring long-term food security. The rapid spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in Central and West Asia has prompted individual governments to …
Effective solid waste management is critical for achieving sustainable development in municipalities. In the last half century, urban cities around the world have grown significantly, and experts forecast that this trend will continue into the future. Increased populations coupled with rapid urban buildup put enormous stress on municipalities, especially in …
This Issue Brief aims to: (i) facilitate discussion on the need to properly address the existing issue of poor wastewater management in many Asian countries, in order to minimise the human health risks associated with SARS-COV-2 infections; (ii) identify possible routes of SARS-CoV-2 infections and contamination across water and wastewater …
As countries strive to build back better post COVID-19, sustainable urbanization can make cities change agents on solving the persistent problems of climate crisis, unsustainable resource use, widespread inequality, discrimination and injustice in the Asia-Pacific region. The Asia-Pacific Regional Guidelines on Voluntary Local Reviews, launched by the United Nations Economic …
