Economic And Social Commission For Asia And The Pacific Research Articles

Итоги 25-й сессии Северо- Евразийского климатического форума и стартового регионального семинара ЭСКАТО ООН по проекту: Расширение знаний и потенциала для повышения устойчивости к медленно наступающим стихийным бедствиям в Центральной Азии

The North Eurasian Climate Center held the 25th session of the North Eurasian Climate Outlook Forum (NEACOF-25) combined with the project inception regional workshop under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). In total, 143 participants from 12 countries were registered at the event, 60 of them took part in the forum in person. During NEACOF-25, a consensus forecast of air temperature and precipitation anomalies for the territory of Northern Eurasia for the winter of 2023/2024 was presented. The NEACOF-25 consensus forecast is in agreement with the outlook of the large-scale atmospheric circulation from other world forecasting centers. Based on the consensus forecast and using the ESCAP methodology, an experimental outlook of the impact on agriculture, water resources and emergency management was given for the first time. During the program, work was also done to identify and harmonize national climate risk profiles in the countries of Central Asia. Keywords: North Eurasian Climate Outlook Forum, ESCAP, climate model, climate risks, consensus outlook, air temperature and precipitation seasonal anomalies

Итоги 25-й сессии Северо- Евразийского климатического форума и стартового регионального семинара ЭСКАТО ООН по проекту: Расширение знаний и потенциала для повышения устойчивости к медленно наступающим стихийным бедствиям в Центральной Азии

The North Eurasian Climate Center held the 25th session of the North Eurasian Climate Outlook Forum (NEACOF-25) combined with the project inception regional workshop under the auspices of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). In total, 143 participants from 12 countries were registered at the event, 60 of them took part in the forum in person. During NEACOF-25, a consensus forecast of air temperature and precipitation anomalies for the territory of Northern Eurasia for the winter of 2023/2024 was presented. The NEACOF-25 consensus forecast is in agreement with the outlook of the large-scale atmospheric circulation from other world forecasting centers. Based on the consensus forecast and using the ESCAP methodology, an experimental outlook of the impact on agriculture, water resources and emergency management was given for the first time. During the program, work was also done to identify and harmonize national climate risk profiles in the countries of Central Asia. Keywords: North Eurasian Climate Outlook Forum, ESCAP, climate model, climate risks, consensus outlook, air temperature and precipitation seasonal anomalies

Strategic perspectives of integrating land use and transport development in Sri Lanka: a review

This article reviews the developments in the transport sector policy in Sri Lanka from the time of getting independence from Britain, highlighting the merits, gaps, prospects and opportunities noticeable in the present-day context. While the transport policy formulation happened in a compartmentalized manner focusing on sub-sectors of road, rail, water, and air, it did not seem to have an overall strategic perspective, especially to integrate the planning of human settlements and the sustainable use of limited land area and other resources of the island. Despite the availability of all-encompassing statutes and well-established institutions, large-scale projects in the road sector, the overall development has been ad-hoc and mostly demand-driven rather than as an integrated demand-managed approach. Such disintegration and dissociation with parallel spatial plans such as the Mahaweli Development Project, Greater Colombo Economic Development Commission projects, etc., has hindered both the development of the transport sector and the overall physical development of human settlements from contributing to rapid growth and sustainable socio-economic development of Sri Lanka. The article suggests a few opportunities and prospects currently available to formulate a cohesive and integrated transportation policy that would enable a strategic contribution to overall national development. The paper discusses the Colombo-Trincomalee Development Corridor, the spatial structure proposed in the National Physical Plan 2050, and the Asian Highway Network proposed by the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

Working in Libraries for the United Nations—Interview with Carly Bachman

In this installment of “Conversations,” Carly Bachman, chief librarian for the United Nations’ Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), discusses her work, including her past work for different regional libraries for the United Nations.

Bibliography

Bibliography

Effects of Paperless Trade Policy and Aid for Trade on Export Performance: Evidence from SASEC And CAREC Countries

The study aims to investigate the causal effect of cross-border paperless trade policy reforms and aid for trade on export performance in 14 Asian developing countries. Sample countries are selected based on membership of the South Asia Sub-regional and Economic Cooperation (SASEC) and Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (CAREC). This study uses annual panel data from 2005 to 2017, exploits the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) Trade Facilitation Measures survey data to sort out the pre-treatment and post-treatment period of the paperless trade policy transformation, and employs the difference-in-differences method of estimation. The results show that the adaptation of paperless trade facilitation policy measures and aid for trade to trade facilitation and the communication technology sector has a positive and statistically significant impact on export performance in Asian economies including in SASEC and CAREC region. However, the findings of this study also point out that the economic growth, foreign direct investment and the labour force has a positive effect on export performance. Thus the results from this study suggest that the export performance in these regions could be enhanced by adopting paperless trade policy measures and more aid allocation for the trade facilitation and communication technology sectors.

Impacts of Climate Change on Tropical Cyclones in the Western North Pacific Basin. Part II: Late Twenty-First Century Projections

ABSTRACT This paper reviews the latest studies on the relationship between projected late 21st century climate changes and tropical cyclone (TC) activity in the western North Pacific (WNP) basin, which is the region of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)/World Meteorological Organization (WMO) Typhoon Committee members. Existing studies of projected changes of TC activity in this basin, such as frequency, intensity, precipitation, genesis location and track pattern are summarized, based on an assumed A1B future climate change scenario. A review of available studies on projected future changes in WNP landfalling TC activity is also included. While it remains uncertain whether there has been any detectable human influence on tropical cyclone frequency, intensity, precipitation, track, or related aggregated storm activity metrics in the basin, modeling studies suggest changes in future tropical cyclone activity for the WNP basin. More models project decreases than increases in tropical storm frequency (range − 70% to + 60%); most studies project an increase in the TC intensity (range − 3% to + 18%); and all six available studies that include the WNP basin project increases in TC precipitation rates (range + 5 to + 30%).

Readiness of local government in PPP project development - case of LRT Bandung

Infrastructure development with PPP (Public Private Partnership) scheme is a relatively new concept applied by the Indonesian construction industry as an alternative to overcome delays and the low absorption of the Indonesian Government Budget (APBN) and Regional Government Budget (APBD) in the procurement of basic infrastructure. However, in practice, the failure rate of the government in carrying out infrastructure projects with PPP scheme is high. The failure of PPP project is generally caused by the way the government works in preparing projects that are not adjusted to the needs of PPP, the constraints of land acquisition, poor coordination between central and local government, participation, and overlapping regulations. This raises the question of how to know the condition of government readiness in implementing projects under PPP scheme and identify the constraints affecting government readiness. This study develops an assessment that can be used to measure government readiness in implementing projects under PPP scheme. Factors used in the system were developed based on three studies on the readiness assessment systems in various countries, namely: Public-Private Partnerships for Transport Infrastructure Toolkit from PPPIRC World Bank, United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). The assessment will be used to assess the level of readiness and constraints faced by the government of Bandung in implementing the project LRT Bandung.

Integrating transportation and economic information for the African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) risk modelling purposes in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) using online data and grey literature

Integrating transportation and economic information for the African Swine Fever Virus (ASFV) risk modelling purposes in the Greater Mekong Sub-region (GMS) using online data and grey literature

Belt and Road Initiative (BRI): Enhancing ICT connectivity in China-Central Asia Corridor

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) aims to enhance connectivity and collaboration among 60 countries and beyond in Asia, Africa and Europe. Information and communications technology (ICT) is an indispensable component of the initiative, critical in providing fundamental communication channels for global financial transactions, trade exchanges and transport and energy connectivity, and socio cultural collaboration and scientific exchanges between people, organizations and countries along the BRI corridors. Previously constrained by infrastructure deficits in ICT, the Asia-Pacific region is accelerating its efforts to provide reliable and affordable broadband networks throughout the region, to contribute to successful implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG).Within the BRI corridors, this study which has been undertaken as part of the research programme of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) on promoting regional economic cooperation and integration, focuses on the China-Central Asia Corridor (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), giving attention to the sub-region’s specific challenges, namely limited international transit opportunities and an increase in bandwidth requirements that is expected to grow exponentially, as the fourth industrial evolution centered on automation and artificial intelligence gathers momentum. The sub-region is characterized as highly dependent on the ease and costs of connecting to neighboring countries for transit, as many countries in the sub-region are landlocked developing countries (LLDC). Because of the geographical features and other factors, the development potential of Central Asia and its integration into globalization, continues to be stymied by insufficient international bandwidth and high transit costs to access international links. Therefore, improved ICT connectivity in Central Asia through the BRI corridor could result in improved availability and affordability of broadband networks and services in the sub-region.For the purpose of this study, a gap analysis is the methodology that underpins the proposed topology for the China-Central Asia Corridor. The analysis included examining the current state of the optic infrastructure, such as existing and planned fiber-optic networks, existing Internet Exchange Points (IXPs) and international gateways. The study also identifies the key factors that determine the desired future state of infrastructure deployment for the BRI initiative. A topology that consists of connecting Almaty (Kazakhstan) and Urumqi (China), as core nodes, is proposed based on a partial mesh topology. Over and above this core finding, the study concludes that digital infrastructure connectivity has a tendency of lagging behind the rapid opportunities evolving, and the study therefore advocates for sub-regional and regional approaches, including the BRI and Asia-Pacific Information Superhighway (AP-IS) in further expanding regional broadband networks. A key recommendation of the study is co-deployment of broadband infrastructure along passive infrastructure, as an additional cost effective means of achieving fast and affordable broadband connectivity for all.

The Newest UN Treaty to Facilitate Cross-Border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific: An Insight Preview

The Framework Agreement on Facilitation of Cross-border Paperless Trade in Asia and the Pacific (Framework Agreement) is a new United Nations (UN) treaty adopted at the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) in May 2016. It is now open for the signature of the ESCAP Member States till September 2017. As the most recent UN treaty on trade and development, the Framework Agreement will be an important development as well as a complement to the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade Facilitation (WTO TFA), which is effective since February 2017. The Framework Agreement creates unprecedentedly the new multilateral legal framework for facilitation of crossborder paperless trade. While maintaining the balance between international trade efficiency, transparency, regulatory compliance and development stimulation, the Framework Agreement crafts the legal mechanisms to harmonize the Member States’ national paperless trade facilities through implementing a common set of the general principles and the relevant international standards and legal instruments. Most significantly, the Framework Agreement creatively enables cross-border mutual recognition of trade-related data and documents in electronic form through its institutional arrangement and supporting operational mechanisms. The Framework Agreement also provides a dedicated intergovernmental platform for capacity building and technical assistance to enable developing countries (including the least-developed countries and landlocked developing countries) to benefit from paperless trade facilitation. The Framework Agreement will open up the new possibilities for trade facilitation and is particularly important for the development of crossborder e-commerce and global digital economy. Its impact and influence will not only be felt in Asia-Pacific region but in the whole world. There has been very few substantive research on this newest treaty law. The Author who has been the primary legal advisor of UNESCAP for the initial research, drafting, negotiation and implementation of the Framework Agreement since 2011 is able to provide the insights on both the legal texts and the in-depth designs of the Agreement.

New technology and experiment of rocket dropsondes for typhoon observation

This study presents a new technique for typhoon observations that is based on dropsondes launched by long-distance rockets instead of research aircraft. This technology was developed by Shanghai Typhoon Institute of China Meteorological Administration in collaboration with China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation in the past three years. On October 3, 2015, this meteorological rocket was successfully launched for the first time into an offshore strong typhoon (Mujigae, 2015) located east of Hainan Island. Four dropsondes were subsequently deployed within 6 min by the rocket when it flew into the inner core of Mujigae from the launching city, Wanning in Hainan Province that was located 200 km away from the storm. Real-time data from the dropsondes were sent back to the observation station on the ground. The detailed profiles of wind, temperature and humidity were obtained, showing high quality according to comparisons with the near collocated GPS radio-sondes data. These dropsonde profiles captured some fine-scale wind structure in the Typhoon Mujigae with may be related to large eddies. This field experiment described in this study implied a potential use of this new dropsondes-deployment technique for future TC research and operation. The success of the field campaign with rocket-carrying dropsondes could provide an effective and direct observation technique for rapid and accurate access to the fine-scale structure of typhoon interior (different areas, but at the same time), and provide a new way to achieve the typhoon targeting sensitivity analysis related to forecasting. Showing the advantages of long-range, high-quality and high-precision, this new technique, when deployed from high altitudes could improve TC model initial condition and provide accurate estimates of storm intensity of offshore typhoons, resulting in improved operational TC track and intensity predictions, as proved by previous studies that used aircraft-deployed dropsondes. Under the support of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and World Meteorology Organization (WMO) Typhoon Committee, STI together with HKO organized the Experiment of Typhoon Intensity Change in Coastal Area (EXOTICCA) as an international cooperation project. This project carried out field experiments using rocket-platform sounding detection technology and other new typhoon field detection utilities. In the coming few years, EXOTICCA will also implement observations using man aircraft, unman aircraft, long-distance rockets and GPS sounding in South China Sea. It is believed that the new rocket deployment technology presented in this study when used in future field experiment will improve the track and intensity forecasts of typhoons.

Assessing Country’s Readiness for adopting Transportation Public Private Partnerships: The Case of Pakistan

Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) are seen as the opportunity to circumvent the budgetary and technical constraints to develop public infrastructures. PPPs are representing a useful tool for developing nations to boost the economic development by means of inducing private sector in public infrastructure business. Nevertheless, developing and managing PPPs has never been an easy job. The history is full of failed and flawed PPPs, which have yielded heavy losses to the public. As a matter of fact, there are a number of factors that collectively define the perfect environment for a successful PPP. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has developed an instrument, in a form of a questionnaire, which is prescribed as a test to assess PPP readiness for any country. This paper has adopted the similar questionnaire to determine if the national economic and institutional conditions in Pakistan are sufficient to develop transportation PPPs that can deliver value to the public. The results yielded by the test have shown that Pakistan still lacks the satisfactory level of necessary factors, which are considered a precursor. Such, identification of this study will help policy makers in understanding the persisting issues pertaining to the development of transportation PPPs in Pakistan, and will help the private sector investors in better understanding of the local market.

E-Government for Women’s Empowerment in Asia and the Pacific

As governments transition towards e-government in Asia and the Pacific, there is growing acknowledgement of the role that e-government could play to harness ICTs for women’s empowerment and gender equality. However, much of e-government policy and implementation still do not take into account the differentiated access to, and impact of, technology for men and women. Recognizing the potential of e-government for women’s empowerment, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) undertook a project in 2014–2015 on “E-Government for Women’s Empowerment in the Asia Pacific”, in partnership with the United Nations Project Office on Governance (UNPOG). The project aims to enhance knowledge and awareness of good practices of gender-responsive policies, programmes and strategies in e-government, in order to help build the capacity of governments to harness this tool towards women’s empowerment.

Bibliography

Bibliography

The Evolution of Green Growth Policy: An Unwelcome Intrusion on Global Environmental Governance?

I. IntroductionThe term 'green growth' was coined in 2009 by policy makers and practitioners of international organizations. The concept of growth was allegedly borrowed from the Green New Deal of the United Nations Environmental Programme (UNEP), and the term itself was first used during the 2005 UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP)'s Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development in Asia and the Pacific (the 5th Conference) after having been mentioned in early 2000 in the Economist and at the Davos Forum.1 Several years later, South Korea took the lead using the term, at the occasion of the Presidential speech on 15 August 2008 entitled 'Low-Carbon Green Growth'. However, similar language with a similar meaning to growth had started to be used much earlier by a number of environmental economists.2 In the 1970s, the controversial book entitled 'the Limit to Growth',3 once again widely evoked the debates over the concerns on growth and its environmental impact.The reasons for the rather abrupt resurgence and international endorsement of the notion of growth as a new narrative of economic growth since 2009 are manifold. First of all, this resurgence is partly attributed to the economic crisis. Countries were eager to seek new sources of growth during this difficult and critical juncture for the global economy. The core elements of growth, including employment, innovation, technology, and investment, appealed to many political leaders of developed countries. Secondly, it was a commonly held view that the results of sustainable development were rather unsatisfactory. Sustainable development has been criticized for remaining mere environmental rhetoric that addressed neither urgent environmental issues nor development.Against that backdrop, green and growth-two words that appear difficult to reconcile or even inherently conflicting-were combined to form the growth agenda, which was adopted by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) during its 2009 Ministerial Council Meeting chaired by Han Seung-soo, the then Prime Minister of Korea. In many industrialized countries at that time, the adoption of growth as a national agenda contributed temporarily to more or less placating radical environmental activism that advocates an anti-global and anti-growth vision in favour of strict environmental protection.4 Green growth was expected to be a policy tool which demonstrates that caring for the environment and economic growth are compatible and even mutually reinforcing.In the more recent past, re-structuring of global environmental governance is witnessed in the international community, which is tuning its vision to growth while relying less on the ambivalent concept of sustainable development. Global growth governance represented by the Group of 20 (G20) has positively streamlined growth into the G20 agenda. A search for common denominators between the two areas of governance-economic growth on the one hand and the environment on the other hand-helps yield synergetic effects toward economic growth with the assurance of environmental improvements.Academic debates on growth itself are still at a rudimentary stage. At both normative and empirical levels, disagreements around the issue of growth at present can be broadly divided into the optimistic defenders and the sceptics. The former tend to highlight the possible synergies between and growth through innovation and investment, similarly with technological optimists advocating the incorporation of growth into the existing discourse.Sceptics, on the other hand, tend to stress the negative aspects of growth. They do so on the grounds that it lacks, first of all, a global vision-it is a theoretical retreat with no substantial policy implications. Thus it is merely an intrusion on the existing global environmental governance which has been built around the sustainable development notion. …

Coordinated Border Management: The Experience of Asia and the Pacific Region

Asia and the Pacific region is becoming the centre of global attention due to its rapid economic growth in the past few decades. The global financial crisis has made it imperative for the countries in the region to take measures to stimulate domestic demand and to increase intra-regional trade to sustain the growth momentum. As the regional arm of the United Nations, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) has been working with its member countries to address the barriers that impede trade and transport in the region. ESCAP has taken various initiatives to promote the regional connectivity holistically by narrowing the infrastructure gaps as well as minimising the institutional deficiencies. Coordinated border management is an important component of the latter. Border delays constitute a major bottleneck to the smooth movement of goods in the region and countries in the region are taking concerted measures to address these issues. Experience has shown that there are various approaches to coordinated border management and some of the better practices demand detailed and careful planning. In particular, border agencies – specifically Customs – need to redefine their standalone role and more importantly, their role as part of the coordinated border management team.

Special issue on green economy and sustainable development

This issue of Natural Resources Forum considers the relations between sustainable development and the “green economy”. It is intended as a contribution to the discussions that are currently developing in the run-up to the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD, or “Rio +20”), which will be held in June 2012 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The conference will mark the 20th anniversary of the Earth Summit, also held in Rio, which firmly put sustainable development on the international political agenda. The objective of the Conference, as stated by UN Member States, is “to secure renewed political commitment for sustainable development, assessing the progress to date and the remaining gaps in the implementation of the outcomes of the major summits on sustainable development and addressing new and emerging challenges” (UN, 2009).narf_1398 151..154 The General Assembly resolution identified two themes (not excluding others) for the conference: “a green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication”, and “the institutional framework for sustainable development”. This issue of Natural Resources Forum focuses on the first theme. The wording “green economy” has had a long history in the academic world. The paradigm and its underlying ideas are introduced in the book Blueprint for a green economy by David Pearce, Anil Markandya and Edward Barbier (1989). One of the key arguments developed there and in related environmental economics work is that the current price system results in an allocation of resources in the economy that is biased against the environment. Environmental assets and services, as supports for economic and social systems broadly and more specifically as inputs in production, are undervalued or not valued, resulting in inefficient consumption of natural resources as well as environmental degradation. Similarly, the costs of pollution are generally not paid by the polluters but are transferred to the public. Therefore, correcting the price system faced by agents in the economy would lead to more favorable environmental outcomes. During the last 20 years, these ideas have been developed and debated in academia and have given rise to a large body of literature. For an in-depth examination of the theoretical and empirical issues involved as well as associated references, I refer the reader to the book by Eric Neumayer (Neumayer, 2010). These developments have been paralleled in the policy arena by different initiatives going by various names, including environmental tax reform, “green growth”, “green economy”, “green jobs”, “green stimulus” and “global green new deal”. These initiatives have involved individual countries, UN organizations such as UNEP, ILO, and the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), and other intergovernmental organizations such as the OECD. The OECD’s Green Growth strategy document was recently published (OECD, 2011). Among the UN initiatives, UNEP’s Green Economy Report has perhaps been the most publicized (UNEP, 2011). The usefulness and appropriateness of green economy as a paradigm for furthering sustainable development are currently debated in academic and policy circles, in think tanks and groups concerned with sustainable development, as well as in the general press. Opinions expressed tend to reflect strongly differing world views. A point on which everyone seems to agree is that prices faced by producers and consumers in the global economy do not reflect environmental and social costs adequately. Among the divisive issues is the place of markets in a “solution” to current unsustainable trends in resource consumption, pollution and use of the global commons. Whether the set of institutions under which the current global economy operates can be mended to deliver more sustainable outcomes is also the object of a wide range of opinions. The articles featured in this special issue echo a small subset of the topics covered in current academic and policy debates. In particular, they provide insights to the following questions. Under what constraints will a green economy have to take place if we are serious on addressing climate change? What can past technological transitions teach us about the feasibility of a green energy transition? How can institutions (in a broad sense) foster more sustainable Natural Resources Forum 35 (2011) 151–154

Population and development

The Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) recently organized a workshop to develop an analytical framework for population research and development planning. The workshop goal was to enable study directors to review and discuss research methodology and guidelines for a series of country studies to be undertaken as part of a large project devoted to integrating population and development. The overall project objective is to provide individual national entities with current and scientifically sound descriptions, analyses, and interpretations of significant population and development trends and their interrelationships along with assessments of the implications of such trends and relationships for the formulation and improvement of public policy. 1 reason for the limited progress in the integration of population and development planning is the lack of useful and applicable scientific information for responsible planners as well as a lack of analytical frameworks. If the results of the research are to be made useful for decisionmaking purposes, processing of the information is required. The need exists for current critical analysis and synthesis of available information at the country level on significant population and development trends and their interrelationships and an assessment of their implications for the formulation and improvement of public policy and programs. In regard to an analytical framework, much work has been done in the areas of population development interrelationships and their modelling. Bangladesh, Nepal, the Philippines, and Thailand are the countries which have been selected for investigation for the ESCAP project. The comparative analysis that is to be conducted will facilitate understanding of current population development research activities and the future needs of these countries.

Reproductive health, including adolescent reproductive health: Progress and challenges in Asia and the Pacific

The Plan of Action on Population and Poverty, adopted in Bangkok in December 2002 by the members and associate members of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), recognized that there remained major challenges in the areas of population, sustainable development and poverty; migration; ageing; gender; reproductive health including the need of adolescents; HIV and AIDS; and resource mobilization. They committed themselves to address these issues.