Financial, climate crises could threaten development gains in Asia-Pacific – UN

Challenges facing the Asia-Pacific region – the food, energy and financial crises, as well as climate change – could unravel development successes, a top United Nations official warned today.

Addressing the start of a two-day UN-backed meeting in Indonesia, Noeleen Heyzer, Executive Secretary of the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP), said that these issues have resulted in enormous human, environmental and economic costs for the region.

“But the convergence of these crises has also brought an opportunity to take a fresh look at our policies and reshape our development agenda – for that, we must act together and act now,” she told participants at the high-level meeting.

Ms. Heyzer cautioned that the food, financial, energy and climate predicaments threaten to roll back progress in the Asia-Pacific in many development areas, such as reducing unemployment and hunger.