Ensuring a secure supply of food is essential, given the world’s (and especially Asia’s) growing population, high and volatile food prices, increasingly scarce resources, and changing environment. This paper discusses the drivers behind food insecurity in Asia and points to ways to mitigate it. The world’s population has now reached 7 billion, and is projected to increase by more than 2 billion between now and 2050. Asia will account for majority of the increase.

The frequency of intense floods and storms is increasing globally and in Asia and the Pacific amid the specter of climate change, pointing to the need for better mitigation and adaptation to natural disasters. This synthesis presents the lessons drawn from evaluations of information sourced from publicly available databases.

Climate change is one of a few major factors that ensure the country will continue to struggle to supply its cities and industries and fields with enough water, particularly in the North, as well as face more frequent and longer droughts. The country has shown a stunningly agile disaster response system, but its system for disaster prevention and management is far less developed. The road to greater drought management and sustainable water supplies is demand management.

The annual Asian Development Outlook provides a comprehensive analysis of economic performance for the past year and offers forecasts for the next 2 years for the 45 economies in Asia and the Pacific that make up developing Asia. Despite weak global demand, Asian Development Outlook 2012 expects that developing Asia will largely maintain its growth momentum in the next couple of years, in an environment of easing inflation for most regional economies, although policy makers must be alert to further oil-price spikes arising from threats of oil supply disruptions.

The Asian Development Bank has established the Sustainable Transport Initiative to align its transport operations with ADB's long-term strategic framework, Strategy 2020. In July 2010, ADB approved the Sustainable Transport Initiative Operational Plan, which identifies road safety as one of the priority areas to be mainstreamed and scaled up in ADB's transport operations. To guide its work on mainstreaming road safety, ADB developed the Road Safety Action Plan.

This publication examines the problems and issues of urban transport in relation to climate change in the People’s Republic of China. It reviews international and local best practices for addressing such challenges. It also identifies policies, strategies, and measures to reduce CO2 emissions from the transport sector and recommends applicable options for implementation in the People’s Republic of China.

Climate change will increase the frequency of extreme weather events, making more geographic places inhospitable to human habitation and secure livelihoods. This report presents a detailed picture of the potential impacts of climate change on migration in Asia and the Pacific. It draws upon a wealth of research to provide policy makers with informed analysis of an emerging phenomenon requiring urgent attention by governments and the international community.

This paper deals with the problems related to food price inflation in South Asia in a comprehensive manner.Includes an empirical analysis of the possible factors that could explain the increase in food inflation and also covers the impact of food price inflation on poverty and macroeconomic stability in South Asia .

The study investigates willingness to pay for water supply services in Khulna, using a contingent valuation method. Since the large connection cost is regarded as one of the major obstacles to expand the piped network among the poor, the model explicitly incorporates the connection cost in addition to monthly charge. The study shows that both willingness to pay the monthly charge and willingness to pay the connection cost are higher for richer households.

Food security is a critical issue for Asia and the Pacific. The region is the world’s key supplier and largest consumer of food yet it is also home to the largest number of the world’s poor and hungry. It presents a stark contrast—a food bowl that is full to the brim but cannot feed those who need food the most just to survive.