This yearbook includes data, charts and a textual overview of over 200 indicators, as well as such cross-cutting issues as poverty and gender. Chapter 30 specifically addresses natural disasters and their huge economic and social costs in Asia and the Pacific. It calls the region to do much more to reduce disaster risks, and emphasizes the importance of proactive action through the Hyogo Framework for Action, 2005-2015. This publication is the third edition of the revised Statistical Yearbook for Asia and the Pacific, and remains an authoritative reference on the social economic and environmental development of the Asian and Pacific region from 1990. Through more than 200 key internationally comparable indicators, it compares Asia and the Pacific with the world average and other regions, including Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean and North America. It includes 128 reader-friendly charts and descriptive texts on 30 development topics.