Efforts to cope with and contain the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed and magnified deeply rooted vulnerabilities and inequalities in the region’s economies and societies. Across the Asia-Pacific region there already are signs of a K-shaped recovery marked by increasing divergence in economic and social outcomes within and between countries. When environmental degradation, increasing natural hazards and accelerating climate change are added to the mix, the risks to developing countries and poor and vulnerable populations are even greater.
The report considers pandemic impacts on prospects for achieving the SDGs, and how countries in the region have been responding to this complex and still evolving crisis. It also analyses key factors that are shaping recovery prospects, including vaccination and access to diagnostics and therapeutics, social protection, digitalization, economic structure, environmental risks and fiscal space.