The overall maternal mortality rate dropped by 34.3 per cent over a 20-year period -- from 339 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 2000 to 223 maternal deaths in 2020, according to this report by the World Health Organization and other UN agencies.

The lack of coordination between Water Resources Management (WRM) and Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) and the resulting institutional fragmentation impedes progress on Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6) towards sustainable management of water and sanitation for all.

As the Asia-Pacific region grows increasingly urbanized, the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 11 is a comprehensive and action-oriented blueprint for advancing sustainable cities and communities. It proposes to readdress how plan, finance, develop, govern and manage cities and human settlements in line with the New Urban Agenda.

The Asia-Pacific region has made considerable progress on improving economic and social welfare over the last decade. Water resources have contributed greatly to this transformation through water and sanitation hygiene (WASH), provision of basic services, agricultural expansion, food security and nutrition, and ecosystem services.

Across the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), the greatest progress made in the Asia-Pacific region has been towards Goal 7. There has been considerable success in providing electricity access to urban and rural populations. South and South-West Asia performed exceptionally on electricity access, which helped accelerate progress on SDG 7.

The world output growth is projected to decelerate from an estimated 3 per cent in 2022 to 1.9 per cent in 2023, marking one of the lowest growth rates in recent decades, according to this report by the United Nations.

Population ageing is a defining global trend of the time. People are living longer, and more are older than ever before. Spectacular improvements in health and survival and reductions in fertility have driven this momentous shift, which has begun or is expected to begin soon in all countries and areas.

An estimated 5 million children died before their fifth birthday and another 2.1 million children and youth aged between 5–24 years lost their lives in 2021, according to this latest estimates by the United Nations Inter-agency Group for Child Mortality Estimation (UN IGME).

In an era of multiple crises, including the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the 2023 Asia-Pacific SDG Partnership Report – titled ‘Delivering on the Sustainable Development Goals through Solutions at the Energy, Food and Finance Nexus’ focuses on solutions at the nexus of the energy, food and finance secto

Access to safe water and adequate sanitation is a basic human right. While progress has been made towards the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal on water and sanitation (SDG 6), the trends and current status of access to water and sanitation provide cause for concern.