A female merchant was crossing a bustling street in Hanoi, Vietnam. Despite economic development over five decades, development gaps in Asia and the Pacific remained. Credit: Unsplash/Jeremy Stewardson

By Sudip Ranjan Basu
BANGKOK Thailand, Oct 17 2025 (IPS)

The Asia-Pacific region has long served as a springboard for transforming socio-economic implementation gaps into development opportunities. With the 2030 deadline for the Sustainable Development Goals fast approaching, policymakers are stepping up efforts to translate policy announcements into tangible impacts.

Looking back since 1970s, the region’s development trajectory has been shaped by a series of crises that triggered transformative policy responses. By engaging strategic partnerships, countries in the region are well-positioned to promote shared prosperity for both people and the planet.

Anchoring crisis-driven policy shifts
In the 1970s, technological advances—particularly in agriculture—ushered in a new era. The introduction of high-yield crop varieties, known as the Green Revolution, boosted food production and rural incomes, laying the foundation for the emergence of a middle class. However, the decade also exposed vulnerabilities, as volatility in global commodity and energy prices exposed the risks of external shocks.

The 1980s brought further challenges. Rising oil prices and global interest rates strained national budgets across developing countries. The cost of servicing external debt crowded out investments in productive sectors, highlighting the risks of over-reliance on foreign aid.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis marked a watershed moment. Currency collapses, triggered capital flight and trade disruptions, leaving deep scars and prompting shifts in political governance and economic policy across the region.

By the early 2000s, optimism returned. Trade and investment surged, regional value chains expanded, and ICT-driven growth integrated economies more deeply into the global economy. Globalization was widely seen as a pathway to long-term prosperity.

Yet the 2008 global financial crisis shattered this euphoria. Inflation soared, investor confidence plummeted, and trade contracted.

Fast forward to the COVID-19 pandemic, which once again exposed lingering vulnerabilities: socio-economic inequality was deepened, jobs prospects dimmed, overdependence on supply chain became more pronounced, technological monopolies were revealed, and environmental fragility was clearly manifested. The pandemic reinforced the urgent need for adaptive policy frameworks.

These crisis episodes underscored the importance of coordinated policy action in an interconnected landscape, reinforcing the lesson that growth without adequate and shared outcomes is unsustainable.

Adjusting to changing socio-economic realities
The development journey has been marked by complexity and diversity. A comparative analysis over recent decades reveals recurring patterns: energy and food price volatility and tightening financial conditions have consistently tested policymakers. Rising interest rates in advanced economies have reignited debt concerns in developing countries, threatening economic stability and undermining progress.

Simultaneously, intensifying geopolitical competition is reshaping trade relationships, investment flows and technology transfers. Policymakers must navigate these shifts while advancing national development priorities and adapting to evolving dynamics.

These pressures have prompted to diversify its sources of economic growth and strategic engagements. Despite impressive achievements in social development, long-term stability and impact-driven outcomes hinge on governments’ ability to manage external shocks, anticipate risks, and promote cross-border economic cooperation and accelerate climate action.

Recent policy shifts signal a move toward structural transformation. Governments are spearheading industrialization, accelerating green energy transitions and pioneering sustainable financing mechanisms. This marks a shift from short-term crisis management to building medium- and long-term socio-economic progress.

The pandemic years further emphasised the need for adaptive policies—ones that can absorb unexpected shocks while maintaining progress toward stability.

Adapting through policy lessons
The development experience, particularly the least developed countries, the landlocked developing countries and small island developing States, offers valuable insights into building institutional capabilities and preventing future crises. Four strategic policy insights emerge:

Price stability matters: Volatile prices have repeatedly undermined development gains. Strategic foresight and balanced economic policy planning are essential to safeguard progress.
Fiscal buoyancy is critical: Excessive external borrowing has triggered past crises.

Creating fiscal space, mobilizing domestic resources, scaling blended finance and implementing coordinated debt management frameworks are vital for development.

Crisis preparedness requires coordination: The 1997 and 2008 crises showed that no country can respond effectively in isolation. Strengthening institutions is crucial for early warning systems, policy dialogue and coordinated action.

Sustainability is key to people-centred development: Climate change, socio-economic disparities and institutional inefficiencies pose long-term risks. Integrating sustainability into strategies and promoting technological transformation are no longer optional; they are imperative.

Turning points
The Asia-Pacific region’s development story is one of transition, and transformation. Connecting these turning points reveals a region that has consistently learned from its challenges and leveraged them to advance policy solutions.

The path ahead is promising, but policies must adapt to address shifting socio-economic dynamics, structural and climate change vulnerabilities, and emerging geopolitical realignments. These efforts must be anchored in regional cooperation, inclusive dialogue, and coordinated action, particularly through platforms such as ESCAP.

While governments play a central role, long-term progress will depend on the collective engagement of the private sector, academia, civil society and regional institutions. With strategic convergence, the Asia-Pacific region is well-positioned to overcome today’s uncertainty and shape a better future for all.

Sudip Ranjan Basu is Secretary of the Commission, ESCAP

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An EV charging sign on the street. The growing demand for EVs requires a comprehensive framework to handle environmental impacts from used EV batteries. Credit: Unsplash/Michael Marais

By Anupam Khajuria and Sudip Ranjan Basu
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jul 22 2025 (IPS)

The Asia-Pacific region is becoming a showcase for regional solutions. As electric vehicles (EVs) rapidly gain traction, the region must confront a dual challenge: managing the environmental and health risks of end-of-life EV batteries, while actively pursuing the economic and technological opportunities of a circular economy.

By strategically combining public policy and private sector innovation, especially among micro, small, and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs), the region can turn this policy challenge into a blueprint for inclusive and sustainable economic growth.

Making the shift: The circular economy imperative

The transition to EVs isn’t merely about cleaner and sustainable transportation and energy transition options; it’s a fundamental shift in how we utilize, recover and re-purpose resources.

The circular economy, built upon the five “R” principles (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle, Repurpose, Recover), provides a strategic framework to maximize battery material value, minimize waste and sever the link between economic growth and climate action. These principles are essential for sustainable battery waste management.

Yet, realizing this ambitious vision extends beyond technology; it hinges on fostering a skilled workforce and cultivating innovative business models. Consequently, education and capacity-building become key drivers. Without a broad understanding of the country specific context and practical implementation of circularity principles, the promise of a truly sustainable ecosystem will not be met by 2030.

In 2025, the Jaipur Declaration on 3R and Circular Economy provided crucial ideas and solutions for transitioning to circularity in end-of-life batteries and vehicles.

Integrating policy frameworks: National, regional and global ambitions

Addressing EV battery waste demands a collaborative approach; no nation can solve it alone. Governments are crucial in establishing robust regulatory frameworks, such as Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) schemes, mandatory recycling targets and eco-design standards.

These policies must align with international climate agreements, like those forged at COP29 in Azerbaijan in 2024. Such global discussions underscore both ambitious emissions reduction targets and the critical importance of circular economy principles for achieving net-zero.

By legally codifying these requirements and connecting them to transparent reporting and monitoring, governments ensure that localized efforts effectively contribute to broader climate and sustainability goals.

Harnessing synergies: Circularity, finance, and multi-stakeholder policy dialogue

The transition to a circular economy for EV batteries is most effective through synergistic collaboration. At its core, this synergy involves integrating circularity principles, innovative financial mechanisms, and multi-stakeholder engagements. These engagements and dialogues should bring together government agencies, private sector leaders, MSMEs, civil society and academia.

Circularity extends beyond just recycling; it’s about fundamentally rethinking the entire value chain. National and regional engagements are crucial for facilitating the sharing of best practices, harmonizing standards and coordinating the cross-border flow of recyclable materials.

These collaborative regional and national platforms are instrumental in scaling up advanced recycling infrastructure, promoting eco-design and embedding circular economy principles at every stage from product design to end-of-life management.

Equally vital is financial innovation, which necessitates the integration of digital technology and innovative policies to facilitate widespread investment in digital public goods and infrastructure across various sectors.

National governments, often partnering with regional and international development agencies and banks, can play a pivotal role. They can provide grants, concessional loans and investment guarantees to lower barriers for MSMEs and startups entering the battery recycling and repurposing market.

By coupling financial support with technical training and capacity-building, these initiatives empower local businesses to drive innovation, create green jobs and strengthen regional supply chains.

Leveraging education: Empowering MSMEs

The ESCAP Sustainable Business Network (ESBN) Position Paper on the circular economy underscores the fundamental role of education in bridging the gap between policy and practice. Comprehensive public awareness campaigns are vital for promoting responsible EV battery disposal and educating communities about the dangers of unsafe informal practices.

Equally important is targeted capacity building and technical training for MSMEs, technicians and recyclers, which cultivates the expertise needed to safely handle, process, and innovate with battery waste, ensuring local methods meet international standards. The recent Fourth International Conference on Financing for Development also emphasized the critical need for appropriate incentives, particularly those supporting MSMEs.

Looking ahead: The region’s blueprint for a low-carbon future

The Asia-Pacific region has a transformational opportunity to elevate its knowledge-sharing and capacity-building in circular economy innovation. ESCAP stands ready to support this pivotal shift. This is not just about managing waste. It’s about reimagining the value of a circular economy: fostering green job creation, strengthening education and nurturing innovation that serves both people and the planet, a vision underscored in a recent ESCAP policy document.

Seamlessly integrating national policies with regional frameworks and global commitments is essential. So is deploying smart development financing instruments, digital tools and cultivating synergistic public-private partnerships. With the right approach, the Asia-Pacific region can transform EV battery waste from a daunting environmental challenge into a powerful engine for inclusive and sustainable economic growth, new employment opportunities and enhanced climate resilience.

Anupam Khajuria is Research Fellow and Academic Associate, United Nations University- Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), Tokyo, Japan; Sudip Ranjan Basu is Chief of Sustainable Business Network Section, ESCAP, Bangkok.

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A female merchant is preparing her produce in a market in Hanoi, Viet Nam. Informal sector is vital for the livelihood of over 4 billion people in Asia and the Pacific. Economic policies should be mapped out to support them amid global uncertainties. Credit: Unsplash/Jack Young

By Sudip Ranjan Basu
BANGKOK, Thailand, May 16 2025 (IPS)

As the United Nations celebrates its 80th anniversary, one message from the UN Charter remains particularly relevant: promoting cooperative solutions to international economic, social, health, and related problems.

Over the past eight decades, international cooperation has led to an unparalleled reduction in hunger, extreme poverty, and disease. Investments in public services have unlocked opportunities and enhanced choices in Asia and the Pacific.

There are numerous lessons for policymakers to learn and apply to the current context. Rising prices, growing wealth inequality, multidimensional poverty, and the prevalence of low-paid informal sector jobs still shape the lives and livelihoods of over 4.86 billion people in the Asia-Pacific region.

Differential outcomes in economic prosperity, social progress, and environmental stewardship have been critical in addressing policy turns. Policy insights and formulations are often shaped by the need to navigate regional and global uncertainties; with these triggers influencing policy turns.

Today, there are enormous opportunities to turn past policy lessons into future policy insights.

The age of a new international economic order

The adoption of new technologies, particularly advanced farming techniques and high-yield crop varieties, significantly boosted agricultural productivity and led to substantial rural income growth in the 1970s. Conversely, volatility in energy prices adversely affected macroeconomic conditions and increased debt levels in many developing countries in the 1980s.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis raised alarms about the deepening links of financial markets, impacting trade diversion, cross-border investment measures, and labour market absorption capacity.

These region-wide challenges were addressed through multi-layered policies focusing on public services, macroeconomic stabilization measures, active labour market policies and promoting national policies for industrial and technological development.

The policies also emphasized the significant role of supporting private sector enterprises to restore growth potential and the need to accelerate regional, inter-regional and sub-regional cooperation in trade as well as promote financial sector development.

An era of globalization

With the world turning towards the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2000, optimism soared with the prospect of ending extreme poverty and fostering a commitment to development cooperation.

Global trade performance saw a sharp rise in export growth in developing countries, alongside a steady flow of supplies across regional value chains. These positive trade experiences were complemented by a favourable macroeconomic environment, which further improved foreign direct investment flows and ICT-led growth.

However, the 2008 global financial and economic crisis had an adverse impact on the Asia-Pacific region. Economic growth experienced one of the most severe downturns since the Great Depression of the 1930s, constraining domestic economic activities and destabilizing the trade sector, causing hardship for millions and dampening job prospects.

During this period, policymakers pursued multilayered goals to balance strategies on multiple fronts based on their national and regional contexts. Governments prioritized anti-poverty agendas, scaled up public-private investments, and fostered cooperation around fiscal, financial, and monetary responses to mitigate the severity and duration of the crises.

Governments announced fiscal stimulus packages and reinvigorated global policy coordination post-2008 crisis to overcome the Great Recession. Post-2008 policy turns emphasised governance, decentralization, and trans-boundary cooperation, which stabilized the macroeconomic and foreign exchange markets.

As people began to enjoy the benefits of stability and the spirit of cooperation, there was a renewed call to increase socio-economic opportunities for the marginalized groups.

Towards sustainable development

As the world leaders adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in 2015, international cooperation was championed to transform our world. Forward-looking policymaking has been mainstreamed to unlock opportunities across regions. Inspired by policy choices for inclusive development, structural transformation, accelerated energy transition, technology-driven industrialization and sustainable financing, a new path has been paved to overcome the existential threat of climate change.

Meanwhile, the COVID-19 pandemic impacted communities and countries across the region, exposing weak healthcare systems, inadequate social protection mechanisms, informal labour markets, supply chain vulnerabilities, and limited trade and economic diversification strategies.

The multi-speed economic recovery highlighted the need for cooperation during turbulent times, while prioritizing sustainability to ensure a smooth recovery from the cost-of-living crisis as well as global supply chain disruptions and debt distress.

Governments emphasized the importance of reimagining public policymaking, ranging from cooperation in vaccine production to environmental protection policies, technological advancements, and early warning systems.

Strategic foresight and going beyond 2030

In 2025, all stakeholders face a critical choice between regional and subregional cooperation and focusing on limited interests, which could further stall progress in socio-economic prosperity and climate action. As policy turns occur, international cooperation and fostering partnerships are once again poised to play a catalytic role in expanding and scaling up solution-focused pathways, enhancing futures thinking for all stakeholders in Asia and the Pacific.

Now is the time to focus on developing economic and social infrastructure, trade and investment strategies, and private sector engagement to align with the aspirations of the people in the region.

Sudip Ranjan Basu is Chief of ESCAP Sustainable Business Network Section

Source: Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

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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 situation, the UN, along with Pacific member States have deployed personnel on the ground to coordinate humanitarian assistance and prepare post-disaster damage assessment.

Sitting in the Pacific “Ring of Fire,” Vanuatu experiences frequent volcanic and seismic activity. And along with the other Pacific small island developing States (SIDS), Vanuatu faces existential threats due to rising sea level, ocean acidification and the increased frequency and severity of natural disasters and is on the front line of climate crisis.

The twin cyclones and an earthquake in just 48 hours remind the world that seismic and climate risks are converging and intensifying – no community feels this stronger than those of the Blue Pacific Continent.

On macro-economic impact, in fact, Pacific SIDS face Average Annual Losses from multiple hazards totaling to US$ 1.1 billion in the current scenario. This figure is set to increase to US$ 1.3 billion under moderate and US$1.4 billion under worst-case climate warming scenarios. As a percentage of GDP, Vanuatu, Tonga and Palau are projected to face highest losses – Vanuatu is projected to lose a staggering 20 per cent GDP annually due to disasters.

Figure 1: Tropical cyclones Judy and Kevin track with wind speed zones (UNITAR-UNOSAT)


 

Intensifying and expanding climate crisis

In ESCAP’s recent report, the analysis shows that at 1.5 to 2.0 °C warming, there are likely intensifying annual wind speeds of tropical cyclones and that the risk of tropical cyclones is expected to expand and include newer areas beyond the historical tracks (Figure 2). Vanuatu in particular, will experience higher risk of tropical cyclone both in terms of the intensification as well as geographic expansion of the riskscape.

As cyclone hazards are intensifying and deviating from their traditional tracks, their greater complexity results in deeper uncertainties in the ability to predict. Our Blue Pacific Continent is not sufficiently prepared.

Figure 2: Intensifying and expanding cyclone risks under new climate change scenarios


 

Formulating transformative actions

As the climate changes, the riskscape is transforming. These disaster risks compound and cascade to amplify the great hardship experienced by the Pacific SIDS in terms of population and critical infrastructure exposure. The argument for transformative action to mitigate and adapt to intensifying and expanding disaster risks in the Blue Pacific Continent has never been more compelling.

First, early warning for all is an imperative, needs to capture compounding risks.

The UN Secretary-General highlighted that every person on the planet is to be covered by early warning systems by 2027. The Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction sets the increase in availability and access to of multi‑hazard early warning systems as a distinct target, Target G, to be achieved by 2030. As per the latest Sendai Framework reporting of Target G, large gaps remain for many countries in the Pacific SIDS (See Figure 3).

Relative to other countries in the subregion, Vanuatu’s Target G scores are high, reporting substantial to comprehensive coverage of multi-hazard early warning systems across all indicators. WMO’s Regional Specialized Meteorological Centre in Nadi, Fiji was providing early warnings in the face of power outages and surmounting uncertainties – as a result, there have been no reported fatalities.

Figure 3: Sendai Framework for DRR Target G scores for countries in the Pacific region


 

Second, transformative adaptation solutions are needed.

To minimize and prevent systemic and cascading risk, we need to make new infrastructure and water resource management more resilient. Improving dryland crop production and using nature-based solutions such as increasing mangroves protection are also priority adaptation solutions.

1.5 per cent of GDP for adaptation investment is estimated to be needed in Pacific SIDS – three times less than the average losses projected. These adaptation investments must be risk-informed and strategically directed towards policy actions that yield high cost-benefits. Where there are multi-hazard risk hotspots across the region, risk-informed policy and transformative actions should capitalize on inter-sectoral synergies and co-benefits.

Third, the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent provides a clear pathway

With the adoption of the 2050 Strategy for the Blue Pacific Continent in July 2022, Pacific SIDS have developed a clear pathway to synergize regional priorities with accelerated implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the SAMOA Pathway.

Next generation risk analytics, advances in climate science, geo-spatial modeling, Artificial Intelligence and machine learning must be at the heart of people-centered and evidence-based decision-making. And, the Framework for Resilient Development in the Pacific is an ideal platform to take forward some of the policy decisions.

Strengthening subregional and regional cooperation platform

Tropical cyclones, often transboundary in nature, require an architecture of regional co-operation mechanisms to effectively manage the shared risks. In this instance, local capacities and regional support mechanisms should be commended. To further strengthen this work, the lesson from Vanuatu’s back-to-back cyclones and earthquake is to have effective, impact-based and risk informed early warning systems that can capture the complexity and dynamisms of a compounding risk.

The Asia-Pacific Risk and Resilience Portal was developed by ESCAP with the goal of creating a user-friendly one stop platform for policymakers to access a vast array of scientific information and decision support tools to promote risk informed policy decisions.

Furthermore, the Vanuatu incidents underscores the need for conducting a rapid post-disaster needs assessment that can support formulation of a long-term recovery strategy and plan for its reconstruction by applying a standardized approach with innovative methodology and framework.

The overlapping and transboundary nature of risks experienced by countries of the Blue Pacific Continent cannot be addressed without solidarity and collective action towards strengthening regional cooperation platform.

Sanjay Srivastava is Chief, Disaster Risk Reduction, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP);
Sudip Ranjan Basu is Deputy Head, ESCAP Subregional Office for the Pacific

IPS UN Bureau

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People walking in public space with medical masks on to protect themselves from coronavirus infection. Credit: iStock / DragonImages

By Sudip Ranjan Basu
BANGKOK, Thailand, Jan 7 2021 (IPS)

As the people of Kiribati, Samoa and Tonga gear up as the first nations to welcome 2021, communities around the Asia-Pacific region and beyond look forward to bidding farewell to the most tumultuous year in recent decades.

2020 brought unparalleled human suffering that continued to devastatingly impact on the daily lives of people across all corners of the region. With the emergency authorization and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines, people are hoping for a ‘new normal’ recovery from the summer of 2021 onwards.

Sudip Ranjan Basu

Commentators and experts are making every effort to better diagnose the underlying symptoms and root causes of fault lines in our societies, which are leading to widespread discrimination, distress and destitution. Simply put, economic growth paradigms and development models, strategic policymaking guidelines and prioritization of implementation roadmaps are all at a variety of inflection points.

Faced with multiple challenges and uncertainties, policymakers are consulting and learning from past policy experiences that could provide practical guidance to the art of policymaking, especially in times of multifaceted crises. Not surprisingly, policymaking continues to remain the crucial tool in building resilience in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Enlarging people’s choices

Since the early days of the Keynesian revolution in the 1930s, decision-making has emphasized the importance of the equilibrium values of output and employment through well-coordinated and sequenced policies. However, the differential outcomes in GDP growth and other development yardsticks, including health and education have led to the concept of going beyond GDP, with a broader and deeper focus on socio-economic well-being, quality of life, and standard of living dimensions.

In the post-second world war rebuilding era, the inadequacy of a trickle-down approach shifted the focus on poverty alleviation, along with non-economic factors such as governance, decentralization, and trans-boundary cooperation, when economic globalization flourished. In fact, through the development decades of the 1960s to the 1990s, policymaking focused on enlarging people’s choices and capabilities, not only on the expansion of income and wealth.

Rediscovering development vision

In the 2000 autumn gathering at the UN Headquarters in New York, world leaders established the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a set of clear time-bound objectives to achieve eight goals, and commit to substantial reductions in income poverty and other human development benchmarks through sustained economic growth by 2015.

From 2000 to 2015, the Asia-Pacific region made remarkable progress to reduce extreme poverty and other development gaps through calibrated policies to bolster trade openness and regional value chains; industry and technology-led structural transformation; policy coordination on regional public goods, and institution-driven subregional partnerships. Although communities were significantly impacted by the Great Recession of 2007/2008 and the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997/1998.

Additionally, in this period of great convergence, policymaking focused on translating productive investment into building skills development in developing and least developed countries, pushing the envelope of ‘policy space’ in the broader context of trade and finance-technology interlinkages with human development. The shifting of the development paradigm underscored the importance of a robust and conducive international development framework, including expanding opportunities for South-South cooperation. Yet, the MDGs needed another push towards more sustainable development for all.

Integrating sustainability

In a landmark gathering of world leaders in September 2015 at the UN, the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development offered a new lease of life to an integrated approach to development thinking – synergizing the social, economic and environmental pillars of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for transforming our world.

This formulation of ideas helped drive development practice and encouraged forward-looking policymaking to address new and emerging challenges and opportunities across beliefs, ideologies and institutional foundations.

Though at the regional level—a variety of development outcomes stimulated public discourse on diversity, trust and governance—progress towards the SDGs has remained largely uneven. It is, however, not hard to argue that the 2030 Agenda has inspired inclusive development to intersect with structural transformation, and accelerated energy transition and technology-driven industrialization to offer lasting solutions to the growing climate emergencies.

Building back better

Today, over 4.6 billion people of the Asia-Pacific region are confronting hardship and hindrance due to the COVID-19 pandemic. There are good reasons to believe that the weak health care systems, lack of social protection mechanisms, growing number of informal sector workers, limited diversification, and increased threats of climate change are opening up possibilities of a multi-speed recovery outlook in 2021 and beyond.

As communities gather steam to building back better, governments are recognizing the vital role of reimagining public policymaking to fit within the principle of value-based cooperation and multilateralism. Raising the ambitions of SDGs-centred policymaking is poised to define success in the next Decade of Action for all.

Sudip Ranjan Basu is Programme Officer (Partnerships), Office of the Executive Secretary, United Nations Economic ans Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)

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