This report shares insights on economic corridor development (ECD) from the 2023 Regional Cooperation and Integration (RCI) Conference, discussing how ECD can help diversify trade, cut costs, and support regional growth.

This report emphasizes that open and fair trade is essential for Asia and the Pacific’s transition to low-carbon economies and outlines the important role of Aid for Trade in this transition.

This report outlines the cascading environmental, social, and economic impacts of aquatic biodiversity loss in Southeast Asia and recommends ways to develop scalable projects that tackle river pollution and support sustainable development.

This publication provides updated statistics on a comprehensive set of economic, financial, social, and environmental measures as well as select indicators for the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

This paper examines how booms and busts in peer-to-peer (P2P) lending in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) affect monetary policy transmission to inflation and output.

The project will continue the support of the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to Bangladesh in managing the influx of around one million displaced people from Myanmar (DPFM) since 2017. Now a protracted situation, the crisis is putting significant pressure on infrastructure and causing substantial challenges in terms of food, shelter, health, security, water, sanitation, and other services in the DPFM camps and host communities.

The project will be aligned with the following impacts: (i) modern public health service system ensuring well-being of all Thais in an effective, fair, sufficient, and sustainable manner developed; and (ii) UHC, including access to essential health care services, sustained. The outcome is: access to quality public hospital services by all in selected provinces improved.

The project will build and equip 3 climate-resilient and energy-efficient border crossing points (BCP) between the Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan on the Kyrgyz side of the border and a training center for the Kyrgyz Border Service (the project EA). The project with the total loan and grant financing of $37 Million will help facilitate trade and tourism between the Kyrgyz Republic and Kazakhstan and will contribute to the sustainable economic development along the Almaty-Bishkek Economic Corridor.

The Republic of Armenia is located at the intersection of major tectonic faults, making it highly prone to seismic activity. The devastation of the 1988 Spitak earthquake claimed about 25,000 lives, including 6,000 school children; left 517,000 people homeless, destroyed 190 schools and many urban infrastructures; and incurred direct economic losses of $15 billion-$20 billion. The recent 7.8-magnitude earthquake in neighboring Trkiye and Syria in 2023 is a wake-up call for Armenia, posing a significant threat to the country. rkiye and Syria in 2023 is a wake-up call for Armenia, posing a significant threat to the country.

1. Output 1: Quality of STEM education with support of technology improved.

The project will support Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee and their government to finance sound wastewater and drainage system in the remaining catchments, thereby strengthening its foundation as the socioeconomic growth pole of southern Viet Nam. The impact of the project will be improved surface water quality and drainage capacity in HCMC. The outcome will be increased wastewater and drainage collection and treatment capacity in key catchments in HCMC.

Project objectives. The proposed project will assist the government in addressing climate vulnerabilities and enhancing public health and economic conditions by ensuring inclusive access to safe, reliable, climate-resilient, and sustainable WSS services for the residents of Andijan, Djizzak and Fergana provinces; and the Republic of Karakalpakstan. The project will help upgrade and expand the WSS infrastructure in the project regions and support regional suvtaminots in implementing transformational changes.

The TA is proposed to develop Bhutan's overall power dispatch options and strategies for domestic electricity consumption and international power trade. It will look into strategic views to maximize power export from various potential energy sources of hydropower, solar power, and wind power while meeting growing domestic electricity consumption.

The proposed Northern China Agriculture and Food Ecosystem Net Zero Transformation Project (project) will support the PRC to achieve its climate commitment through catalyzing financing and strengthening institutional capacity for net zero transformation in agriculture and food ecosystem.

The graft involved in trying to bring the peregrine falcon, Hawaiian crow and California condor back from the brink in the US makes for compelling reading in Feather Trails by Sophie Osborn

Horses that are bred to race seem to perform better on the course if they had a diverse gut microbiome as foals

Microwaves in homes, offices and laboratories have been found to host diverse microbiomes, highlighting the importance of regular cleaning

Invasive cane toads have decimated native freshwater crocodile populations in northern Australia, as the predators don't know they should avoid the toxic amphibians

Lab-reared German cockroaches are susceptible to consumer insecticide sprays, allowing manufacturers to pass US regulatory tests, but insects taken from real-world infestations are able to shrug off the products

Cyanobacteria exposed to shorter days are better at surviving cold conditions, showing that even simple organisms can prepare for the arrival or summer and winter

These images are taken from a new book, Seeds: Time capsules of life, which explores how plant life has flourished in the past 360 million years

The books, TV, games and more that New Scientist staff have enjoyed this week

Feeding bees edible bits of hydrogel increases their odds of surviving pesticide exposure by 30 per cent

In most vertebrates, a pattern of chemical marks on the genome is a reliable indicator of age, but in axolotls this clock seems to stop after the first four years of life

From colonialism to AI, this Booker-longlisted novel urges us to wake up to how we treat wild creatures and places

Ancient volcanic rock from South Africa has been found to harbour primitive bacteria, which may shed light on some of the earliest forms of life on Earth

A new book from the science-writing legend is an Attenborough-esque romp through some of the wonders of the natural world. Just beware the title's misfiring metaphor

During a fight between two male mice, one will often run to a female mouse to distract their aggressor, a bait-and-switch strategy that could help abate social conflicts

Dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico have tiny bits of plastic in their breath, and this is probably a worldwide problem

Britain should be too cold for the invasive Aesculapian snake to survive, but it is thriving by exploiting the warmth of attics, wall cavities and compost heaps

A mouse's tumours, scales from a butterfly's wings and a smiling cross-section of a bracken fern are some of the incredible images from the Nikon Small World photography competition

Single-celled organisms called archaea can become multicellular when compressed, highlighting the role of physical forces in evolution

An analysis of thousands of cognitive tests carried out by chimpanzees finds that the number of spectators influenced their performance in different ways depending on the difficulty of the task

Eurasian reed warblers don’t just get a sense of direction from Earth’s magnetic field – they can also calculate their coordinates on a mental map

Strange solids called temporal metamaterials finally make it possible to investigate the controversial idea of quantum friction – and push special relativity to its limits

People don't realise just how bad our antibiotic resistance problem is, says Jeanne Marrazzo, the top infectious disease specialist in the US

Taiwan’s first ever minister of digital affairs has transformed politics, using online platforms and AI to give power to the country’s citizens – with lessons for us all

Your body is home to trillions of beneficial viruses crucial for a healthy microbiome. We may one day be able to tweak this "virome" to treat obesity and anxiety

Alex Lupsasca plans to extend Earth's largest telescope network beyond the atmosphere with a space-based dish. It could spot part of a black hole we've never seen before – and perhaps discover new physics

The slow-running movement, in which people meet for unhurried jogs, is booming – but don't be fooled into thinking that if there's no pain, there's no gain

Evidence suggests that cynicism is bad for your health. Neuroscientist Jamil Zaki describes the three ways to conquer your inner cynic to boost your well-being

There are several evidence-backed ways of calming an anxious mind – from eating specific foods to adding certain exercises to your routine

Promising new vaccines are designed to be given to patients at risk of developing Alzheimer's disease. If they perform well in clinical trials, they have the potential to one day rid society of dementia

They fight invaders, clear debris and tend neural connections, but sometimes microglia go rogue. Preventing this malfunction may offer new treatments for brain conditions including Alzheimer's

Artificial intelligence has more in common with ants than humans, says Neil Lawrence. Only by taking a more nuanced view of intelligence can we see how machines will truly transform society

Simple words like "force" and "particle" can mislead us as to what reality is actually like. Physicist Matt Strassler unpacks how to see things more clearly

Astronomer Jo Dunkley is planning to use the Simons Observatory to snare evidence for inflation, the theory that the universe expanded at incredible speed after its birth

How did the supermassive black holes we’re now seeing in the early universe get so big so fast? Astrophysicist Sophie Koudmani is using sophisticated galaxy simulations to figure it out