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Features and Insights

Explore insights on solutions, case studies, best practices, and innovations addressing development challenges facing countries across Southeast Asia.  

High-value horticulture in Viet Nam
ASEAN is endowed with tropical rainforests, mangroves, peatlands, and growing renewable energy capacity, providing the region with significant opportunities to develop a successful carbon market. Photo credit: iStock/Jason-T-Mulvaney.
The Invisible Infrastructure: What ASEAN's Carbon Market Needs Most

Carbon markets enable countries and companies to trade credits representing verified emissions reductions, creating economic incentives for climate action.

A new UN report says an estimated 12.8% of the region’s population, or about 89.5 million people, experienced moderate or severe food insecurity in 2025, down from 15.3%, or 103.5 million in 2020. Photo credit: ADB.
ASEAN Food Security: Time to Scale Solutions

To go beyond pilots, ASEAN needs to create a mechanism to embed innovations into policy and financing pipelines.

Young people bring local knowledge, urgency, and fresh thinking to some of the region’s most pressing housing challenges. Photo credit: Courtesy of Habitat for Humanity/Thinking Playgrounds.
Reimagining Housing Futures: Young People across Asia–Pacific Lead the Way

Young innovators bring local knowledge, urgency, and fresh thinking to some of the region’s most pressing housing challenges.

According to the International Energy Agency, the region needs $27 billion between 2025 and 2040 to build interconnectors—transmission lines that link power systems, often across borders—to realize the ambitions of the APG. Photo credit: ADB.
ASEAN Power Grid: In Search of Bankable Projects

To create a pipeline of projects, the region needs to address concerns over regulatory and licensing rules as well as revenue certainty.

Southeast Asia has the potential to become an epicenter of the $3-trillion global blue economy. However, it faces sustainability and financing challenges. Photo credit: ADB.
How ASEAN Can Deliver the Blue Economy Promise of Sustainability and Prosperity

The 4th ASEAN Blue Economy Forum in Manila provided high-level strategic guidance and facilitated technical exchange and peer learning on blue economy development and regional cooperation.

Thanks to a project that brought training directly to marginalized communities, Radhika (not her real name) has been able to start a tailoring business. Photo credit: Courtesy of Save the Children Nepal.
From Adversity to Entrepreneurship: Bringing Skills Training Right to the Community's Doorstep

Mobile vocational training is unlocking economic opportunity for marginalized girls in Nepal’s Terai region.

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