Publications Search

Understanding Myanmar’s solid waste systems presents a challenge for anyone working in the sector. While waste collection and disposal challenges faced by Myanmar’s cities and towns share similarities, strategies to overcome them evolve locally and are often not well-communicated between different local government bodies. Data on the country’s...

An ADB stocktake highlights that weak governance and a lack of incentives and finance are among the factors holding back the region’s progress on environmental sustainability. The authors urge decision-makers to prioritize investments that privilege the environment and to apply integrated development approaches, systems thinking, and a circular...

This mini review describes the current status and challenges regarding institutionalisation of wastewater surveillance systems against COVID-19. Monitoring SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater has been proposed to be a potential tool to understand the actual prevalence of COVID-19 in the community, and it could be an effective approach to monitor the trend...

Starting in August 2019, the SWITCH Asia SCP Facility has provided technical support to Vietnam’s Ministry of Industry and Trade (MoIT) for development of the National Action Plan on Sustainable Consumption and Production (2021.2030) (NAP on SCP). The SCP Facility established a team of international and national experts to conduct an assessment on...

Learning from cultural traditions and philosophies could help place countries in Asia on more sustainable development paths. This paper argues why and outlines how countries in Asia should collaborate in pooling and promoting good practices grounded in indigenous knowledge and philosophies to mainstream sustainability at the local, national...

The government of Indonesia has pledged to meet ambitious greenhouse gas mitigation goals in its Nationally Determined Contribution as well as reduce water pollution through its water management policies. A set of technologies could conceivably help achieving these goals simultaneously. However, the installation and widespread application of these...

Unmanaged plastic waste poses a major socio-economic, environmental and health risk to urban and marine environments in the Asia Pacific. Each year South-east Asian countries produce 11.7 million metric tonnes of plastic waste, of which over 60% is derived from urban areas. Therefore a focus on effective city governance will be vital to tackle the...

This report assesses to what extent the national governments of ASEAN countries have made concrete domestic efforts to implement the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in terms of policies and budgets as listed in their Voluntary National Reviews (VNRs). Methods used by this report are similar to those used by a comparable study of the G20...

Asia is an extremely diverse region, in terms of the political regimes of its constituent countries, and of their level of development and the nature of their civil societies. As such, its countries are producing a wide range of governance approaches to climate change. Covering the diversity of climate change governance in Asia, this book presents...

On 1 May 2020, the National Institute of Urban Affairs, NIUA, (autonomous body under India’s Ministry of Housing and Urban Affairs) and the National Mission for Clean Ganga, NMCG, (under India’s Ministry of Jal Shakti) organized an Ideathon on “The Future of River Management”. The purpose of this Ideathon was to use the current COVID-19 crisis as a...