The increasing impacts of climate change and natural hazards continue to be the main drivers of humanitarian needs in the region, exacerbated by the increasing number of complex and protracted conflicts, and economic, political and social crises. Globally, some 70 per cent of people affected by natural disasters live in the Asia-Pacific region. From 2015 to 2021, natural disasters affected more than 800 million people across the region, resulting in 53,000 deaths, 3.5 million people losing their homes, and damages totalling US$397 billion. Asia-Pacific also remains the region most vulnerable to environmental degradation and climate change impacts due to its densely populated coastal areas and high rates of poverty, and its dependence on natural resources and agriculture sectors. Five sudden-onset humanitarian crisis response plans were issued in the past year, seeking $1.2 billion to aid and protect 15.1 million of 33.5 million people in need due to typhoons, floods, violence and multidimensional crises in Bangladesh, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines and Sri Lanka.
The frequency and severity of climate-related disasters of meteorological, climatological and hydrological nature, including heatwaves, droughts, floods and tropical cyclones, continue to intensify across the region. Notably, Super Typhoon Rai (Odette), which first made landfall in the Philippines in mid-December 2021, strengthened from Category 1 to Category 5 within just hours, precluding adequate preparedness efforts while swiftly creating immense humanitarian need through torrential rains, violent winds, floods, landslides and storm surges. The 2022 IDMC report indicates that disasters displaced 5.7 million people in the Philippines in 2021, just behind China (6 million people) and ahead of India (4.9 million people). In 2022, unprecedented rainfall due to severe monsoons caused the largest floods in Pakistan and Bangladesh in decades, including in areas typically more prone to drought and unprepared for flooding. This highlights the threat posed by increasing departures from usual seasonal weather patterns. These climate catastrophes have severe consequences: In Pakistan, the monsoon rains and floods affected 33 million people and damaged or destroyed 2.2 million houses, while flooding in Bangladesh affected another 7.2 million people.
Bamyan, Afghanistan
A woman with her child.
OCHAConflict, displacement and violence persist in the region, which hosts 4.2 million refugees and asylum-seekers and 4.7 million internally displaced people, including in the world’s largest refugee settlement in the Cox’s Bazar District of Bangladesh. Asia-Pacific is home to several protracted crises, and despite typically localized conflict contexts and limited cross-border impacts, these crises have intensified vulnerabilities and pushed millions of people into reliance on humanitarian assistance and protection. The most significant recent deteriorations in the region’s security situations occurred in Afghanistan and Myanmar in 2021, with humanitarian repercussions continuing to reverberate within the affected countries and in neighbouring nations. Smaller escalations in violence also continue to be observed, such as in Papua New Guinea from May to June 2022, and ongoing conflict in Mindanao, the Philippines, where over 110,000 people remain displaced at the end of September 2022, mainly due to cycles of armed conflict, generalized crime, and violence and natural disasters.
Multidimensional crises with drivers other than natural disasters and conflicts represent a growing concern in Asia and the Pacific. In 2022, economic collapse triggered humanitarian support needs for 7 million people in Sri Lanka in a crisis compounded by food insecurity, threatened livelihoods, shortages of vital and essential medicines, and rising protection concerns. Regional vulnerability to such crises is heightened by factors including rising global inflation and high food prices, as well as the impacts of shocks, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, which are eroding coping capacities and increasing people’s vulnerability to the effects of natural and human induced disasters.
The pandemic’s impact continued in 2022, with the socioeconomic impacts particularly felt in livelihoods, household income and poverty, food insecurity, health care and protection concerns. Following the pandemic declaration, countries in Asia-Pacific experienced some of the most severe mitigation measures, with a commensurately large impact on vulnerable communities that have yet to recover. By the end of 2022, pandemic-related restrictions had been relaxed in most of Asia-Pacific, restoring access to domestic and international travel in much of the region. Strict measures remain in place in some countries, including China and particularly the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK), where borders have remained closed since January 2020.
Rakhine State, Myanmar
A grandmother and her grandchildren sit in front of her temporary shelter.
UNHCR/Fabien FaivreProjected situation in 2023 and beyond
In 2023, it is likely that multidimensional compound disasters will continue to impact many countries in Asia and the Pacific, exacerbated by global inflation, global supply chain disruptions and mounting risk of recessions in major economies. A joint WFP and FAO report on global hunger hotspots highlights three Asia-Pacific countries as being hotspots for acute food insecurity: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Sri Lanka. In Lao PDR, the pandemic’s economic consequences and the recent global crisis of food, energy and financing have had a particularly severe impact on the most vulnerable groups. Acute food insecurity has increased in Lao PDR since early 2022 and is expected to continue into 2023. Other countries also identified as being at risk of increased food insecurity include Myanmar and DPRK. Economic crises are expected to drive worsening food insecurity in Pakistan and Sri Lanka and potentially in other countries facing commodity inflation and increasing debt.
The region also remains highly vulnerable to large-scale sudden-onset disasters that may overwhelm national and in-country response capacities and resources, requiring the provision of international humanitarian assistance. This could be in countries with lower existing in-country coping capacities, as well as in better-resourced countries struck by disasters of inordinate magnitude or impact. While preparatory actions are taken where possible, climate change-driven variations in seasonal weather patterns mean that disasters deviating from historical precedent in terms of location, scale, speed and intensity of occurrence may become increasingly common, increasing need and undermining traditional resilience.
