01 Jan 2023 he Asia-Pacific region faced multiple challenges in its development trajectory in 2022. Emerging from the Covid-19 pandemic, the diverse countries across Asia and the Pacific were buffeted by the knock-on effects of the war in Ukraine, inflationary pressures and pandemic-related weak economic growth prospects1, fiscal pressures, increasing public debt and a series of climate-related disasters. The convergence of these multiple crises had militating impacts on the prospects for Sustainable Development Goals achievement and for United Nations (UN) efforts to address the most pressing development needs of the most vulnerable and those most at risk of being left behind.