New social contract needed to lift half of Asia and Pacific region’s workforce out of poverty

The Asia and Pacific region’s economic recovery from COVID and other global shocks, must be anchored in an inclusive “new social contract”, to protect the vulnerable in the years ahead, according to a new Economic and Social Survey of the region, published on Tuesday by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP).

The convergence of the COVID-19 pandemic with natural hazards, made worse by climate change, has reshaped and expanded the disaster “riskscape” in Asia and the Pacific, according to a new report published on Wednesday by the UN’s regional commission there.

More than half of the people living in Asia and the Pacific lack any social protection coverage, leaving populations vulnerable to ill-health, poverty, inequality and social exclusion, a new UN report has found.