Empowering change & resilience: Social protection in the age of megatrends

Social protection systems are essential to achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. However, social protection is insufficient across Asia and the Pacific, and the region is at risk from megatrends: climate change, demographic shifts and digitalization. Tens of millions of people have been pushed into extreme poverty since COVID-19, reversing

Coastal farmers in Bangladesh give up shrimp farming for agriculture

Sheikh Sirajul Islam, a smallholder farmer in Bangladesh’s southwestern Satkhira district, sowed the wet-season aman rice in his four acres of land this August. He is hopeful for a good yield, he says. Sirajul, from Satkhira’s Shyamnagar upazila, resumed rice cultivation two years ago, after having stopped it for two decades.

Ousted PM Hasina’s oligarchs jeopardized Bangladesh economy

After weeks of deadly anti-government demonstrations in the South Asian nation, in the afternoon of August 5th, televisions in Bangladesh broadcast images of a helicopter rising from the residence of Sheikh Hasina, the country’s prime minister until minutes before. The chopper was carrying her and her sister “to safety”. Shortly

A year of conflict in Middle East ushers in a new era of regional displacement

A year of conflict has ushered in a new era of mass displacement in the Middle East. Since Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, and the subsequent sustained Israeli bombardment of Gaza, Israel has expanded its operations on multiple fronts to include the West Bank, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. With

Interim govt takes strong steps to eliminate single-use plastic

The newly formed government in Bangladesh is about to implement the existing law regarding plastic usage by strictly banning — initially — single-use plastic and, gradually, all possible plastic uses. Civil society members formed the current non-political government on Aug. 8, 2024, after former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina and her cabinet

The UN Cybercrime Convention: A new repressive tool in disguise?

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime hailed the recently agreed Cybercrime Convention as a ‘landmark step’ in cooperating to tackle online dangers. But human rights organisations aren’t so sure. Ominously, the resolution that started the process, passed by the UN General Assembly in December 2019, was sponsored by authoritarian Russia

Nasrallah: Stronger dead than alive

There is no question that Hassan Nasrallah was a powerful orator. He could hold millions of followers in rapt attention—even adoration—through his deep voice, logic, passion, and wit. Now that he is gone, Lebanon’s powerful Shi’a organization Hezbollah is greatly weakened—or so the pundits say. While that’s true in the short-term