Regional overview
Asia and the Pacific is the most disaster-prone region in the world, home to 75 per cent of people affected by disasters globally. The region is highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and natural hazards. From January to October 2024, over 140 disasters struck the Asia Pacific region, affecting over 87 million people and leading to nearly 6,000 deaths.
In 2024, the Asia-Pacific region was severely impacted by a range of natural disasters, including floods, cyclones, landslides, heatwaves, and earthquakes. These events caused widespread destruction across multiple countries, leading to significant loss of life and extensive damage to infrastructure, agriculture, and livelihoods. The region experienced record-breaking rainfall, powerful storms, and extreme temperatures, all of which disrupted daily life, displaced millions of people, increased vulnerabilities, strained local economies and threatened resilience and development gains. Last year alone, the disaster in the region caused economic damages estimated at $85 billion.
Ghor Province, Afghanistan
Nine-year-old Mohammad stands beside farmland wiped out by flooding.
OCHA/Sayed Habib BidellAs of mid-October 2024, the Asia-Pacific region also remains deeply affected by ongoing conflicts and protracted crises, hosting approximately 7.5 million refugees and asylum seekers, along with 6.9 million internally displaced persons (IDPs). In Bangladesh, nearly 1 million Rohingya refugees reside in the Cox’s Bazar District, relying entirely on humanitarian assistance for essential services. The humanitarian situations in Afghanistan and Myanmar have further deteriorated, with significant impacts on the humanitarian situation in both countries, and the potential for repercussions across the region as civilians continue to flee conflict and instability. Additionally, localized conflicts persist in countries such as Papua New Guinea and the Philippines, resulting in significant humanitarian impacts.
Humanitarian needs and vulnerabilities in the region are increasingly complex, driven by economic downturns and rising living costs that intensify the impacts of climate-induced disasters, ongoing conflicts, and the lasting effects of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Kachin, Myanmar
A woman holds a young child in an IDP camp in March 2024.
OCHA/Christina PowellIn 2024, requirements for the region’s eight response plans reached over $6 billion to assist 34.8 million of 59.5 million people in need across multiple countries including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mongolia, Myanmar, Nepal, Philippines and Viet Nam addressing both familiar and emerging disaster-prone areas. Increasingly focused on climate-induced crises, in 2024, the region faced unprecedented events, such as severe floods in Bangladesh, flash floods in the Philippines and the impact of Typhoon Yagi in Viet Nam. These events highlight the shifting nature and intensity of climate related disasters and demand adaptive strategies that consider vulnerabilities and capacities among women, men, children, elderly, persons with disabilities and other marginalized communities. The OCHA Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (ROAP) plays a vital role in setting these priorities to ensure an agile, inclusive, and climate-responsive approach.
Currently, the Asia-Pacific region is experiencing significant impacts from the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), with forecasts indicating a transition from El Niño to La Niña conditions in the coming months. This shift is expected to bring extreme weather events, including increased rainfall and flooding in some areas and droughts in others. These conditions may lead to water stress, ocean temperature changes, heightened risks of forest fires, and increased incidences of disease. The compounded effects of these events are likely to erode coping capacities and exacerbate vulnerabilities, such as food insecurity. In 2025, multiple and compound disasters will again affect several countries across the region which will increase pre-existing vulnerabilities of communities and will result in increased need for humanitarian assistance.
In 2024, building on the Listen, Discover and Enhance (LDE) methodology developed the previous year, two innovative tools were piloted to strengthen community engagement for the flagship initiative: the Resilience-Based Participatory Appraisal (ReBPCA) and the Community Priority Assessment (CPA).
The ReBPCA acts as a listening tool, allowing community members to share unfiltered priorities, perceptions, and aspirations. The CPA guides communities in a decision-making process based on their abilities and assets. This approach moves beyond the traditional way of asking predefined questions, by using open-ended enquiry to better capture genuine community priorities. These tools were trialled in seven municipalities by local government, NGOs, and UN agencies, revealing key community priorities, such as safeguarding livelihood assets and supporting locally led initiatives through community cash grants.
In 2025, the initiative will focus on supporting humanitarian and development partners integrate these context-specific tools and lessons into regular programming. Where possible, elements of these approaches will be incorporated into existing accountability mechanisms. Additionally, advocacy with government entities will be undertaken to adopt some of the learnings into area–based and community-led planning and response mechanisms, including anticipatory action.
