GEO-6 Regional Assessment for Asia and the Pacific


Countries including China, India, Iran, Japan and Republic of Korea have incorporated the theme into the school curricula at all levels of educational systems.


3.2.7 Much closer attention to socio-economic damage


It is important to undertake local-level disaster initiatives since inputs from the local level will improve national disaster management policy. The Local Government Self-Assessment Tool (LG-SAT), launched in 2012, is a key tool to review and plan disaster risk reduction efforts (UNISDR 2013).


The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Secretariat of the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction have jointly undertaken a pilot exercise in selected Asian countries to identify indicators and illustrative disaster risk reduction targets. It has provided important insights into how targets and indicators can play a crucial role in ensuring that the SDGs and the post-2015 framework for disaster risk reduction are effectively aligned (WWF 2015).


3.2.8 Reducing environment-related health risks


The World Health Organization (WHO) has suggested the promotion of a health-in-all policy which has been successfully promoted in Thailand. It is an effective and efficient tool for addressing health issues linked to air pollution and pesticide contamination in agriculture, amongst other environmental problems (UNEP 2015).


To address future vulnerability to climate change, Cambodia introduced its National Adaptation Programme of Action to Climate Change in 2006. The key objective is to have a framework that will guide, coordinate and implement adaptation initiatives based on a participatory approach by ministries, departments and other stakeholders. It would also help in prioritizing projects. The National Health Strategy also aims to reduce the number of malaria cases and corresponding deaths (Cambodia, Ministry of Enviroment 2006).


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The National Environmental Health Action Plan of the Philippines promotes collaboration between communities to improve environmental impacts on health. Key sectoral issues include solid waste, water and air pollution, use of toxic and hazardous substances and their impact, occupational health, food safety and sanitation (Philippines, Department of Health 2010).


3.3 Enabling conditions


Led by China and India, the Asia and the Pacific region has recently become one of the fastest growing in the world, resulting in large-scale environmental impacts across various sectors. Rapid urbanization has raised concerns regarding air and water pollution, congestion in cities and degradation of land, forests and other natural resources. Sustainable long- term growth will be at risk unless countries are able to combat the environmental consequences of growth and reverse the trend towards increasing environmental impacts. Although adequate policies and governance mechanisms are being established in most countries, many challenges face their implementation.


The region has a great diversity of systems and mechanisms in its institutions for environmental governance, framing of laws and norms, and processes of public participation in decision making. Diverse political structures across countries in the region often lack a good balance between centralized and decentralized approaches and engagement of stakeholders in implementation, with often inadequate engagement of experts, and compartmentalized policies with limited or no flexibility. Performance of regional initiatives often fails to match intended outcomes, sometimes due to inadequate human resource capacity, lack of financial resources, poor implementation, and lack of mainstreaming into larger economic development and poverty alleviation policies and programmes. Short-term (two- to five-year) external funding of regional initiatives also constrains assistance in dealing with long-term goals and institutionalizing change.


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