High food prices have put increasing inflationary pressures across the South Asian region and threatened food security. Bad weather in important food-producing countries and speculation in commodity markets have affected global food supplies and added volatility to booming commodity markets that have been fueled in the long-term by increasing global demand. High food prices have threatened to slowdown economic growth, poverty reduction and inclusive sustainable development throughout the region.

High food prices have put increasing inflationary pressures across the Asia-Pacific region and threatened food security. Bad weather in important food-producing countries and speculation in commodity markets have affected global food supplies and added volatility to booming commodity markets that have been fueled in the long-term by increasing global demand. High food prices have threatened to slowdown economic growth, poverty reduction and inclusive sustainable development throughout the region.

This paper analyses the effect of public and private health expenditures on the achievement of health-related MDGs. It finds that three quarters of the variation of health-related MDG indicators can be explained by public and private health expenditure per capita when controlling for levels of income and demographic factors such as age dependency ratio, urbanization and population density. In addition, the analysis finds that marginal gain in health performance is

This paper estimates the impact of the high food prices of 2010 on income poverty and the achievement of MDG 1 in Asia and the Pacific. It also estimates the impacts of high price during 2011 under various scenarios for the prices of food and oil. Find that although the high food prices of 2010 have not caused an increase in poverty in the region, they slowed down the rate of poverty reduction - the estimated number of poor decreased by 24.5 million people between 2009 and 2010, compared with 43.8 million people if staple food prices had not increased above domestic rates of inflation.

Catastrophes caused by natural hazards that hit “without warning” serve as grim reminders of the challenge that governments and civil society face in identifying and protecting the areas that are at risk of extreme events.