Latest news with #UNESCAP
The Sun
23-07-2025
- Business
- The Sun
ASEAN must lead real estate reform amid global challenges says Nga
KUALA LUMPUR: ASEAN must spearhead reforms in the real estate sector to navigate global economic volatility, rapid urbanisation, and structural changes, said Housing and Local Government Minister Nga Kor Ming. Speaking at the ASEAN Real Estate Conference (AREC) 2025, he described the region as facing a 'perfect storm' of challenges, including supply chain disruptions and fluctuating property demand. 'We stand at a pivotal moment where real estate is no longer just about buildings, but about building futures—where every citizen finds not just shelter, but dignity and opportunity,' Nga said. Citing UN ESCAP data, he noted that ASEAN's urban population is expected to grow by 90 million by 2030, requiring 10 to 12 million new housing units annually. However, market instability has impacted property sales, with luxury condominium prices in Ho Chi Minh City dropping by eight per cent due to oversupply, while industrial real estate surged by 22 per cent. Nga highlighted material price volatility as another challenge, with steel prices fluctuating by up to 30 per cent and the Malaysian ringgit weakening to RM4.80 against the US dollar before recovering. 'These uncertainties complicate supply chain planning by altering import and export costs,' he said. Beyond immediate issues, Nga outlined three irreversible shifts affecting the sector: sustainability demands, urbanisation pressures, and geopolitical capital repricing. 'Green features are no longer premium options but minimum requirements,' he said, noting that sustainable materials now add up to 15 per cent to construction costs. To future-proof the industry, Nga proposed an ASEAN housing model based on data-driven planning, public-private-people partnerships, and tailored solutions for member states. He cited Malaysia's Rent-to-Own (RTO) scheme as a successful example, aiming to boost homeownership from 77 per cent to 80 per cent by 2030. Nga also suggested forming a Regional Housing Policy Lab and an ASEAN Urban Agenda Progress Dashboard to monitor affordable housing and carbon reduction goals. As Malaysia chairs the UN-Habitat Assembly, he stressed aligning ASEAN strategies with the New Urban Agenda for inclusive and sustainable development. 'Housing is not about brick and mortar. It is about dignity, stability, and a shared future where no ASEAN citizen is left behind,' he concluded. – Bernama
Hans India
12-07-2025
- Business
- Hans India
Digital empowerment a game-changer for women entrepreneurs
Bengaluru: As India pursues its $5 trillion economic ambition, digital empowerment is emerging as a key catalyst for women entrepreneurs, according to insights shared at a two-day national workshop jointly organised by the United Nations ESCAP and the Ubuntu Consortium in Bengaluru. Titled 'Skill Development of Women Entrepreneurs: Enhancing Business Opportunities Through Digital Tools', the event was held under UN-ESCAP's regional initiative, E-Commerce Capacity Building for Women-led MSMEs in South Asia. The workshop brought together senior policymakers, digital experts, entrepreneurs and ecosystem enablers to explore ways to strengthen women-led MSMEs through technology and digital literacy. From pandemic crisis to digital opportunity Speaking at the event, Mrs. K. Ratnaprabha, Founder-President of Ubuntu and former Chief Secretary of Karnataka, recalled how the digital skilling journey began during the COVID-19 lockdown. 'Over 100 women joined our initial online training sessions. Many of them went on to significantly grow their businesses,' she noted. Since 2022, over 3,300 women across India have undergone digital training through the Ubuntu–UN ESCAP collaboration. Ratnaprabha also announced two upcoming initiatives: Ubuntu's flagship Together We Grow event on November 19 and an International Agritech Exhibition at BIEC from August 1–3. Bridging the export gap Dr. Rajan Sudesh Ratna, Deputy Head, UN ESCAP, and Mr. Padmanabhan Babu, CEO, LEXSHIP, underlined how digital tools can open global markets for Indian women entrepreneurs. Babu noted that women comprise only 8% of India's export business ownership—far behind nations like the US and Australia where the share ranges from 30–40%. To address this, Babu announced the establishment of an Export Promotion Hub in Bengaluru, in collaboration with the Ministry of Commerce. Modelled after passport service centres, it will act as a one-stop solution for MSME exporters and is expected to be operational by September. Removing barriers, creating ecosystems Mikiko Tanaka, Head of UN ESCAP South and South-West Asia Office, pointed to persistent barriers such as lack of finance, digital skills, and market visibility. 'Only 20% of India's 58.5 million MSMEs are women-run. Without targeted support, many risk being left behind in the digital shift,' she said. She praised Ubuntu's collaborative model as a successful ecosystem that fosters inclusion, particularly in emerging sectors such as AI and e-commerce. On-the-ground impact Highlighting grassroots success, Mrs. Hemalatha Gopalaiah, former Deputy Mayor of Bengaluru, cited examples from Mahalakshmi Layout where over 4,500 women are engaged in entrepreneurial ventures including tailoring, catering, and beauty services. 'These women are not only self-reliant but are mentoring others as well,' she said.
Hans India
11-07-2025
- Business
- Hans India
‘Women entrepreneurs catalysts in India's $5 trillion economy ambition'
Bengaluru: As India intensifies efforts to become a $5 trillion economy, women entrepreneurs are being recognised as key drivers of inclusive and sustainable economic growth. This was the central theme at a two-day national workshop inaugurated in Bengaluru on Thursday, jointly organised by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UN-ESCAP) and the Ubuntu Consortium. Former Chief Secretary and Ubuntu Founder-President K. Ratnaprabha recalled the programme's launch during the COVID-19 lockdown, when hundreds of women entrepreneurs faced business setbacks. 'We offered digital training, and the results were transformational. Since 2022, over 3,300 women across India have been trained under the Ubuntu–UN ESCAP collaboration. Many have gone on to build digitally enabled enterprises,' she said. UN ESCAP South Asia head Mikiko Tanaka pointed out that while women constitute nearly half of India's population, they account for only 14% of business ownership and 20% of the 58.5 million MSMEs. 'Digital skills, access to finance, and visibility remain significant barriers,' she said. 'Without timely intervention, women risk being excluded from the digital transformation.' Highlighting grassroots efforts, former Bengaluru Deputy Mayor Hemalatha Gopalaiah cited the success of thousands of women in Mahalakshmi Layout constituency who have built businesses in catering, tailoring, and crafts. 'They are now mentoring others, creating a ripple effect,' she said. Industry experts including LEXSHIP founder Padmanabhan Babu called for greater female participation in exports and the digital economy. 'Women lead only 8% of export businesses in India, compared to 40% in some countries. We must close this gap,' he said. The workshop offers hands-on training in digital tools, marketing, and e-commerce. Officials from DGFT, the Department of Industries and Commerce, and UN ESCAP participated, stressing that empowering women is essential to realising India's economic aspirations.
The Hindu
01-07-2025
- Health
- The Hindu
Health Matters Newsletter: Discover the importance of vital statistics for a healthy society, India's role in chemotherapy drugs, and unresolved Covid origins.
On the significance of vital statistics to ensuring a healthy society and India's position in this, startling revelations about India-made chemotherapy drugs, the unresolved origins of Covid, and more Making sure everyone is counted is absolutely essential to every nation committed to the welfare of its people. Civil registration and vital statistics as a segment is coming into its own, has been for the last decade or so, with nationals in the Asia Pacific zone agreeing to implement a CVRS system that would be, as defined by the United Nations: Continuous, Permanent, Compulsory, Confidential and Universal. These vital events include births, deaths and marriages, divorces, besides causes of death. The focus of the nations is on registering births and deaths as a fundamental aspect of a person's legal identity, and besides, granting access to a whole range of life cycle benefits/functions for any one living in a society. The UN ESCAP, with a mind to setting this in place for the nations in the region, and egging them on with a sense of urgency, set the period after 2014 as the 'Decade of CRVS'. While several countries showed progress in this decade, as the report of the UNESCAP showed, about 51 million children are still not registered with any system. India was among the nations that pledged to work towards 100% registration at the 3rd Ministerial Conference on CRVS. Following up, soon after, the Registrar General of India told States to issue birth certificate before discharging the baby, Vijaitha Singh reported. The government has made amendments to the Birth and Death Registration Act, built a new online portal and has leveraged technology in order to emphasise the fundamental nature of registration. From October 1, 2023, the digital birth certificate is the single document to prove the date of birth for various services such as admission to educational institutions, government jobs, marriage registration among others. This past week, The Hindu, in association with The Bureau of Investigation, published an expose on the quality of chemotherapy drugs made in India, following it up with a couple of relevant explainers. In a startling revelation, Paul Eccles, Andjela Milivojevic and Ramu Sapkota quoted a study that established that Chemotherapy drugs made by Indian firms had failed quality tests, leaving cancer patients in more than 100 countries at risk of ineffective treatments and potentially fatal side effects. Doctors from multiple countries told TBIJ of the drugs in question not working as expected, leaving patients suddenly unresponsive to treatment. Other patients suffered side effects so toxic that they could no longer tolerate the medicine. The variance found in the levels of active ingredient was alarming. In some cases, pills from the same blister pack contained different amounts. What is the Indian connect? The June 26 study which reported that about a fifth of cancer drugs tested failed quality tests also indicated that 16 of the 17 implicated manufacturers were India-based. To understand this story better do check out the links below, which serve as explainers to set the context Meriem Mahdi : What do different cancer drugs do? Andjela Milivojevic: How do unsafe cancer drugs reach patients? If we could only get the pathogens out of the way. Now, we know that is impossible in the real world, so let's get on with it. To start with, it seems as if the origins of COVID still remain unresolved, as theories about the WHO recently declared: All hypotheses on COVID-19 origins 'remain on the table'. In other news, the drug Favipiravir showed promise against Chandipura virus in preclinical studies done by National Institute of Virology, Pune. The NIV has been in the news for one other achievement - it has reportedly developed portable 'point-of-care' test kit for detecting Nipah virus. In hard-to-reach areas the value of a portable kit cannot be overstated. Anirban Mukhopadhyay wrote this very important story: Large genetic map of Indians flags hidden disease risks. In a new study in Cell, researchers reported sequencing the genomes of 2,762 Indians from 23 States and Union Territories. The data captured variation across caste, tribal groups, language, geography, and rural-to-urban settings, offering the most comprehensive genomic map of India to date, and flagged disease risks that we are not yet seeing. Yet another study, this one by Lancet, indicated India's alarming vaccination gap: 1.44 million children still 'zero-dose'. With vaccination our best bet against infectious diseases, this does not bode well for the nation. Also, in drug pricing news: Bharat Biotech, GSK to cut malaria vaccine price by more than half by 2028 From communicable diseases, we make the natural shift to non communicable diseases. A study found that diabetes risk may increase in roles with emotional demands, confrontations. Given that we are aware that stress plays an important role in onset of, and control of diseases, this seems intuitive, but a study to establish it will provide data to launch interventions. Novo Nordisk has launched Wegovy in India for weight management, cardiovascular risk reduction, while R. Sujatha wrote of Decoding the findings of a study linking night shifts with asthma problems in women. Serena Josephine M. wrote on how the public and private health sector can tackle the emerging threats to tobacco control. Did you know Kombucha can rebalance the gut ecosystem in people with obesity? If you are just finding out, like we did, hit on the link to read more. Launching on to our staple for the newsletter, it's time to talk of climate change and its impact on human lives. In the first of our stories Sudheer Kumar Shukla writes about the effect of pernicious and persistent plastics on one of the key human systems. He argues that there are Endocrine disruptors in plastic waste, and calls out plastic as a new public health threat that needs to be addressed immediately. Eunyoung Choi, in The Conversation wrote that Extreme heat silently accelerates ageing on a molecular level, while this other study established a strange link: Prolonged droughts linked to rise in sexual violence against women in poor nations. D.P. Kasbekar wrote about how Candida tropicalis, an important fungal pathogen in India and in many other parts of the world, has been found using chromosome alterations to resist common anti-fungal drugs such as fluconazole and voriconazole. And finally, Sharmila Vaidyanathan stressed that Adolescent health needs require a renewed focus in the time of climate change. Equally crucial to our understanding of health is the perception of mental health, and invariably, these stories find space automatically in our columns. Here is a very interesting piece by Dr. P. Vijayalakshmi offering solutions to a phobia, that has existed for long, but recently emergent, with a major plane crash: Turbulent skies, turbulent minds: the rising fear of flying and how to combat it. Dr. Manoj K Pandey and Dr. Manoj Kumar Sharma make the case that India needs comprehensive school mental health programmes, no contesting that, while Dr. Alok Kulkarni turns the attention on destigmatising men's mental health. Purnima Sah meanwhile, reported on a Community-designed toolkit launched in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka to raise awareness of childhood neurodevelopmental disorders. Bindu Shajan Perappadan brought us news from the capital, as usual, this time, bringing some hope to specific groups of people. Do read these: Sickle Cell Mission identifies over two lakh patients through mass screening. In other positive news for the public health sector, ICMR has increased mobile lab capacity to enhance India's outbreak response capabilities. But we have reserved the best for the last: A New technology in the Indian market, MRgFUS, now offers non-surgical medical intervention for tremors. An alternative to more invasive surgical procedures like deep brain stimulation (DBS), MRgFUS intervention is a non-surgical procedure that uses focused ultrasound waves guided by MRI to target brain tissue responsible for tremors in patients with Parkinson's disease or essential tremor. Currently approved for Essential Tremor (ET) and Tremor-Dominant Parkinson's Disease (TD-PD), this technique offers new hope for patients whose symptoms significantly disrupt daily life. In the tailpiece section this week, we fall upon our The Health Wrap video cast. Last week, we discussed a bunch of things, including a rarest-of-rare blood group, how to fall asleep, and how the brain remains active even when we are fast asleep, at least some sections of it are. Do Watch: Rare blood types, twice-a-year HIV prevention, and rising maternal health risks and remember there is one episode out, every second and fourth Friday. Do remember to subscribe to this on The Hindu's YouTube channel. In our rather elaborate explainers section, this week we have: Dr. Arshad Raja talked about emerging CAR T-cell therapy and its promise of new hope for cancer treatment Athira Elssa Johnson broached two topics with the assistance of experts: What Creatine supplementation can do, and Why a persistent cough may be more than just a cold. Dr. Monisha Madhumita provides tips on what you should know before you dye your hair Zubeda Hamid adds to our All you need to know about series, with aneurysms Dr. Prince James asked, and answered for us: Why are allergies on the rise and how can you prevent them? In the context of the overall theme running in the country now, contextually, Ashwani Kumar explains where the forced sterilisations of Emergency stemmed from. Two excellent articles on anaesthesia, a subject least written about in popular columns, helped us understand the critical role of the gas that makes modern surgery possible, and humane. Dr. J. Balavenkatasubramanian wrote on Understanding the critical role of anaesthesia for safe surgical outcomes and Dr. Sunil T. Pandya focussed on the role of obstetric anaesthesiologists in reducing maternal mortality. If you have a few moments extra, Aalso read: Dr. Rinky Kapoor Bridging the disconnect between clinical perception and lived experience: the need for a holistic approach to vitiligo Dr. Vishnu Agarwal Beyond the operating room: the expanding role of robotics in healthcare New award launched honouring Chennai-based psychiatris t Science Quiz: On migraines and headaches For many more health stories, head to our health page and subscribe to the health newsletter here.
Scoop
30-06-2025
- Politics
- Scoop
Goal To Get All Pacific Births And Deaths Formally Recorded By 2030
Governments across Asia and the Pacific have made a pledge to ensure all births are registered and all deaths recorded by 2030. It was adopted at the conclusion of the Third Ministerial Conference on Civil Registration and Vital Statistics (CRVS) in Asia and the Pacific. The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (UNESCAP) said progress has been made - the number of unregistered children under five has dropped to 51 million, from 135 million in 2012. Twenty-nine countries now register over 90 percent of births within a year, while 30 countries achieve the same for death registration. However, an estimated 14 million children do not have their births registered by their first birthday; and each year, about 6.9 million deaths go unrecorded, most often those occurring outside of health facilities or in remote communities. UNESCAP executive secretary Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana said these numbers are more than statistics. "They represent lives without legal recognition and families left without support," she said. "We have seen inspiring examples of countries reaching the most marginalized, embracing digital innovation and strengthening legal and institutional frameworks." ESCAP said in its statement the declaration sets out an ambitious roadmap to 2030 and "one that places people at the centre". "The declaration also highlights the importance of marriage registration and the urgent need to build resilient and inclusive CRVS systems that can withstand future crises and reach everyone, especially the most vulnerable. "It signals a united drive to close the remaining gaps, build resilient and inclusive CRVS systems and ensure that every person - regardless of gender, location or circumstance - is counted, protected and visible in public policy."
