Hard Data and Hard Choices: Disaster Risk Financing in an Asian City
Floods in India and Pakistan, typhoons in the Philippines and the recent earthquake in Nepal have reminded city leaders of the urgent need to safeguard the lives of their people, protect costly infrastructure, and ensure services and businesses can continue after disaster strikes.
How to Make Asia’s Cities ‘Livable’
By 2050, up to 65% of Asia’s population is expected to live in cities. With urbanization growing at such at a breakneck speed, many believe that how cities cope with it may well determine the region’s long-term productivity and overall stability.
Nepal Earthquake – Tossed and Broken, But Our Spirit Stands Strong
Seven days after the earthquake in Nepal, it’s a race against time to provide food, shelter, and water to those affected. An ADB staff member in Kathmandu describes how they are still coming to grips with the devastation, and they take it one day at a time.
Will the Green Climate Fund Pledges Create a Momentum for Ongoing Climate Negotiations?
The recent formal pledging session for the Green Climate Fund (GCF)—more than $9 billion in just 5 months—is by far the most successful resource mobilization ever seen for a multilateral climate fund. The US has pledged $3 billion, followed by Japan ($1.5 billion), UK ($1.13 billion), and Germany and France (with $1 billion each). Four developing countries—Indonesia, Mexico, Mongolia, and Panama—have made pledges, breaking the traditional donor boundaries.
Window of Opportunity Still Open on Climate Action
A set of reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the last of which was released on November 2, 2014, sets the scene for governments to renew their efforts on the issue through ambitious commitments for a comprehensive climate agreement in Paris in December 2015.
We are All Advocates
About twenty years ago I was working for a well-known nongovernment organization (NGO), campaigning on many issues from access to affordable drugs for HIV/AIDS patients, to advocating for fair trade for small farmers. When asked what I did I explained about my advocacy for social justice. “Oh so, you’re promoting communism?” was the response.
Getting Ready for the Post-2015 SDGs: Join the E-Dialogue
The new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are expected to bring a stronger focus on longer-term durability of development gains as opposed to the current approach which sees decision-making targeted at the shorter term. At present, businesses main focus is annual balance sheets; for development organizations it is annual results reporting; and for democracies there's cyclical elections.
Walkability—Building Cities for People Too
With the urban population swelling the world over, it makes sense that we start—or go back to—designing cities for people too. People are a city’s principal raison d'etre.
Environmental Justice in South Asia Goes Green
“The law hath not been dead, though it had slept.” When Shakespeare wrote those lines, he never knew that many, many years down the road, he may actually be referring to the enforcement of environmental law by the judiciary around the world.
From Farm to Fork—Combating Asia’s Hidden Hunger
Feeding the world is becoming an increasingly complex task. Providing all our daily bread—or rice—requires grappling with intense competition for natural resources, producing more from less land and dealing with changing dietary habits. But meeting food needs is not just about quantity. Quality is also important. Along with daily minimum calorie requirements, people also need vital micronutrients from their meals. High levels of micronutrient deficiencies, a phenomenon we call “hidden hunger” remains pervasive, particularly in South Asia and Southeast Asia.