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ESCAP Environmental Performance Report 2020
Get PDFThe 2020 edition of the Greening the Blue Report, detailing the UN System's environmental footprint and efforts to reduce it
Classification and Regression Trees (CART) : a user reference guide for Identifying those left furthest behind
Get PDFThe 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development makes a call to “leave no one behind” and to “endeavour to reach the furthest behind first” on the path towards sustainable development. This Agenda reflects a consensus on the need to move towards more egalitarian, cohesive and solidarity-based societies, by promoting an inclusive development model leading to a sustainable future.
In practice, leaving no one behind means moving beyond assessing average and aggregate progress, towards ensuring progress for all population groups at a disaggregated level. The LNOB trees were developed with the aim of shedding light on how various social circumstances can intersect to create inequality in access to basic opportunities.
The Russian version is also availabl
Report : Fifth South Asia Forum on the Sustainable Development Goals : Building Back Better from COVID-19 while Accelerating the Implementation of the SDGs in South and South-West Asia, 15-16 November 2021, Colombo, Sri Lanka
No full textThe Fifth South Asia Forum on the SDGs (SAFS)1 was held in hybrid mode (both physical and virtual participation), from 15-16 November 2021 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, as a subregional preparatory meeting for the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) 2022, which in turn will contribute towards the annual High-Level Policy Forum (HLPF) to be held at the global level in July 2022. The Forum was jointly organized by the South and South-West Asia Office of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP SSWA) and the Sustainable Development Council (SDC) of the Government of Sri Lanka, in collaboration with member organisations of the South Asia Network on the SDGs (SANS). The Forum was attended by about 750 participants representing governments, academia, think tanks, civil society organizations, and other key stakeholders from South Asian countries.
The Fifth SAFS was inaugurated by Hon. Mahinda Rajapaksa, Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Policies and Plan Implementation, Sri Lanka. The Forum deliberated on inclusive, resilient and sustainable strategies towards COVID-19 recovery efforts and policy priorities to accelerate SDG implementation in South Asia. It drew upon a special report prepared by UNESCAP SSWA titled Achieving the SDGs in South Asia: An Integrated Approach to Accelerate SDG Progress and COVID-19 Recovery. Various South Asian countries presented on their experiences in carrying out their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) and follow-up actions. National perspectives on the impact the pandemic have had on SDGs, policy responses taken and prospects for meeting the 2030 Agenda were also shared. Thematic discussions on progresses being made on Goals 4 (Quality education), 5 (Gender equality), 14 (Life below water), 15 (Life on land) and 17 (Partnerships for the goals) which will be reviewed at the HLPF in 2022 were held. Discussions focused on how the leveraging of partnerships and regional cooperation can be used to support countries in building back better and accelerate the achievement of SDGs were also conducted.The Fifth South Asia Forum on the SDGs (SAFS)1 was held in hybrid mode (both physical and virtual participation), from 15-16 November 2021 in Colombo, Sri Lanka, as a subregional preparatory meeting for the Asia Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD) 2022, which in turn will contribute towards the annual High-Level Policy Forum (HLPF) to be held at the global level in July 2022. The Forum was jointly organized by the South and South-West Asia Office of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP SSWA) and the Sustainable Development Council (SDC) of the Government of Sri Lanka, in collaboration with member organisations of the South Asia Network on the SDGs (SANS). The Forum was attended by about 750 participants representing governments, academia, think tanks, civil society organizations, and other key stakeholders from South Asian countries.
The Fifth SAFS was inaugurated by Hon. Mahinda Rajapaksa, Prime Minister and Minister of Economic Policies and Plan Implementation, Sri Lanka. The Forum deliberated on inclusive, resilient and sustainable strategies towards COVID-19 recovery efforts and policy priorities to accelerate SDG implementation in South Asia. It drew upon a special report prepared by UNESCAP SSWA titled Achieving the SDGs in South Asia: An Integrated Approach to Accelerate SDG Progress and COVID-19 Recovery. Various South Asian countries presented on their experiences in carrying out their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs) and follow-up actions. National perspectives on the impact the pandemic have had on SDGs, policy responses taken and prospects for meeting the 2030 Agenda were also shared. Thematic discussions on progresses being made on Goals 4 (Quality education), 5 (Gender equality), 14 (Life below water), 15 (Life on land) and 17 (Partnerships for the goals) which will be reviewed at the HLPF in 2022 were held. Discussions focused on how the leveraging of partnerships and regional cooperation can be used to support countries in building back better and accelerate the achievement of SDGs were also conducted.</p
Leaving no one behind : a methodology to identify those furthest behind in Asia and the Pacific
Get PDFWith the adoption of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, 193 United Nations Member States pledged to ensure "no one will be left behind" and to "endeavour to reach the furthest behind first". This paper proposes a methodology that governments and stakeholders can use in their countries to operationalize the LNOB pledge in a way that enables and accelerate national progress to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Using data from nationally representative household surveys, the methodology identifies households and individuals furthest behind in having access to basic opportunities in the Asia-Pacific region. It also offers a practical way of measuring inequality of opportunity using the Dissimilarity Index (D-index), which allows a comparison of inequality levels among countries, as well as decomposition of the observed inequality into those circumstances that contribute mostly to it.</p
Asia-Pacific tech monitor. Vol. 25, No. 6, Nov - Dec 2008
No full textAir pollution control : Technologies in the transport sector / Manju Mohan, Renuka Saini and Shweta Bhati
Asian dust aerosol models (ADAM) : Parameterization of dust emission reduction factors / Soon-Ung Park, Anna Choe, Moon-Soo Park and Eun-Hee Lee
Environmentally sustainable transportation : Singapore’s approach / Joseph Hui Kim Sung
Compressed air car / S.S. Thips
Steps taken by India to contain the second wave of COVID-19
Get PDFSecond wave: some facts
The second wave of COVID infections in India started in mid-March 2021 (when the long-term downward trend in daily cases reversed and started rising) and lasted for about 3 months till mid-June 2021.2 At its peak, the daily new infections reached about 400,000 (0.41 million) cases (7-days moving average) in the first week of May 2021, which was more than 4 times higher than the previous peak figure of 0.097 million cases per day observed in mid-September 2020. By 21 June 2021, the latest reported figure, average of daily new infections has fallen to about 60,000 continuing a downward trend and exhibiting waning effects of the second wave. About 62% (about 18.5 million) of the total cumulative infections in India (29.9 million as of 20 June 2021) occurred during the second wave.3 The second Covid-19 wave has also been more deadly, accounting for nearly half of the total cumulative deaths (0.38 million deaths) since January 2020.4
The unexpected surge in new daily COVID-19 infections during the second wave put immense pressure on health systems across the country, overwhelming COVID-19 care facilities and human resources acting as first responders. Critical drugs and medical oxygen were found to be insufficient to meet the sudden surge in their requirement at the peak of the second wave.5 It also exposed initially, to certain extent the lack of preparedness of Government to take actions, in case of a recurrence of second wave, however, later the Government took some quick actions to contain the infections. The mutated Delta variant (The B.1.617.2 variant of COVID-19 virus), the most common in the samples sequenced during the second wave in India, which is observed to have spread faster and therefore potentially more infectious, is deemed to have worsened rate of infection during the second wave in India.6
1 This paper has been prepared with the objective of sharing information on some good examples in controlling the effect of COVID-19 pandemic. The views expressed are purely personal and do not reflect the views of UNESCAP. The authors are also thankful to the officials from the Ministry of Health, and the Department of Commerce, Government of India, as well as researchers for their review and comments.2 See Second wave of COVID-19 pandemic in India: Barriers to effective governmental response, Sujita Kumar Kar et al., The Lancelet, 29 May 2021.3 See Statista: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1104054/india-coronavirus-covid-19-daily-confirmed-recovered-death-cases/4 Ibid. Also see Indian Express: 3 lakh Covid-19 deaths in India: How far is the second wave peak?5 See BBC: Covid-19: Has India's deadly second wave peaked?6 See The Print: Delta variant behind India’s 2nd wave, 7 strains circulating in & around Varanasi, study finds.</p
Asia-Pacific countries' COVID-19 policy responses
No full textNo one had predicted that the piece of news that broke out on 31 December 2019, New Year's Eve, about the unusual
cases of pneumonia that spread in Wuhan, China, could bring almost all other countries down to their knees. The virus
was unknown. WHO announced “COVID-19” as the name of this new disease on 11 February 2020. A month later, COVID-
19 outbreak was declared a global pandemic. By then, people’s lives and livelihoods were already tremendously and
devastatingly affected.
The Governments have undertaken measures to contain or mitigate the spread of the virus, and to minimize the adverse
economic impacts, especially on the most vulnerable.
The country profiles here illustrate each respective country’s COVID-19 policy responses outlined briefly as:
containment measures;
fiscal;
monetary;
financial;
other policy measures.</p