Skip to main content

Features and Insights

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

Image
High-value horticulture in Viet Nam
A total of 1,656 children have so far participated in empowerment sessions under the program. Photo credit: Courtesy of Save the Children.

A project focused on peer support, play, and community action empowers girls in the People’s Republic of China.

The AI divide is already visible: unequal access to AI systems, unequal ability to use them, and unequal outcomes from engagement. Photo credit: iStock/natasaadzic.

Without full confidence in AI, adoption will be uneven and inequality risks likely to become structural rather than incidental.

Some villages near the lake lack latrines, making human waste disposal an environmental problem. Photo credit: ADB.

An ADB-supported project addresses critical gaps in urban environmental infrastructure and helps strengthen protection of Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Basin.

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.

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.

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.

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