Image by Sasin Tipchai from Pixabay The APAC region is home to a curious phenomenon: both malnourishment and obesity strike just miles from each other, often in the same city. The same play area that houses more than 480 million undernourished people also houses some of the highest obesity rates in the world. How can such a state of affairs exist? The APAC region deals with many complexities that stress food systems: population expansion [Core: FEEDING THE BEAST], large, unsystematic influxes of migrants and climate change-related disasters impacting water supply and food production [Core: THE WRATH OF NATURE]. On the other hand, there is the rapid rise of the middle classes and the new demands they bring to markets.
Image by Michelle Maria from Pixabay Climate change debates and discussions around the world take different forms [Core: THE WRATH OF NATURE]. Some argue about what has caused it while some others discuss how best to navigate it without giving up many of the luxuries they already enjoy. The Pacific Islands lie at the front lines of the wrath of nature, and for them the time for such debate is past. In 2016, Fiji lost almost a third of its GDP when Winston – the worst cyclone recorded in the Southern Hemisphere – swirled over the country, leaving much havoc in its wake. A recent study commissioned by the US Department of Defense states that climate change will leave many Pacific Islands completely uninhabitable by mid-century.
Image by Rizwan Saeed from Pixabay Usually, climate change solutions involve highly technical solutions – carbon dioxide removal, greener energy production methods [Core: THE WRATH OF NATURE]. Pakistan is banking on a much simpler solution: planting trees. In 1947, when it gained independence, Pakistan had 33% forest cover, and by the end of 2015, it had dropped to 1.9%. In 2015, Imran Khan, the then head of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party governing Pakistan’s northwestern province, announced the “Billion Tree Tsunami”, a monumental challenge of planting one billion trees by the end of 2017.
Image by cinelina from Pixabay Closely related to food security, but with even more political overtones, is water [Core: FEEDING THE BEAST]. Key parts of the APAC seem to be heading full-tilt into a water crisis. The city of Chennai, India – home to nearly 10 million people – has almost run out of water. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, more than 3 million of the city’s slum dwellers face severe shortages of safe drinking water. In China, Beijing’s 21 million residents are running out of water and becoming increasingly dependent on water pumped in from the flood-prone south of the country.
Image by Johannes Plenio from Pixabay Fukushima was a truly unfortunate incident. It happened at the time when most countries in the APAC, looking to grow beyond coal, were considering the nuclear option. Today, the shadow of Fukushima – and that old ghost of Chernobyl – hang over every conversation around nuclear power. Yet this conversation must be had. The APAC needs to cater to the energy needs of a population experiencing rapid growth in urbanization, industrialization and economic growth [FEEDING THE BEAST].
“The only ones left in the city are street people, feeding off debris; immigrants, thrown out like shrapnel from the destruction of the Asian powers; young bohos; and the technomedia priesthood of Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong. Young smart people like Da5id and Hiro, who take the risk of living in the city because they like stimulation and they know they can handle it.” ― Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash One of the problems of increasing populations [Core: FEEDING THE BEAST] and increasing economic activity [Core: THE NEXT BIG ECONOMY] is that more and more people tend to flock to economic centers. This sparks urbanization, which forces these areas to grow both vertically and horizontally.
What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man, You cannot say, or guess, for you know only A heap of broken images, where the sun beats, And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief. – T.S. Eliot, the Waste Lands The scientific consensus is clear: climate change is real, and humans are the biggest driver of recent climate change.
“Every period of human development has had its own particular type of human conflict—its own variety of problem that, apparently, could be settled only by force. And each time, frustratingly enough, force never really settled the problem. Instead, it persisted through a series of conflicts, then vanished of itself—what’s the expression—ah, yes, ‘not with a bang, but a whimper,’ as the economic and social environment changed. And then, new problems, and a new series of wars.” – Isaac Asimov, I, Robot The elephant and the dragon No analysis of the APAC region is complete without an understanding of the tensions in the region.
“There’s no such things as survival of the fittest. Survival of the most adequate, maybe. It doesn’t matter whether a solution’s optimal. All that matters is whether it beats the alternative.” ― Peter Watts, Blindsight Let them eat cake One of the biggest concerns for the near future is the wave of progress dubbed “the 4th industrial revolution”.
However, the regional, near-future narrative is not so rosy. The world, in general, will hit 8.5 billion people by 2030. Today, the Asia Pacific region holds 60% of the world's population and the two most populous countries in the world - India and China - and a significant chunk of that future growth will come from this region.
“The future is already here. It’s just not evenly distributed.” – William Gibson In The Silk Roads: A New History of the World, Oxford scholar Peter Frankopan chronicles the birth of much of what we call civilization today – on the legendary trade network spanning from China to Persia. His history describes a past where decisions made in India and China shook the world, and ideas from the Mediterranean swept it. Post-Industrialization, these lofty roles belonged to the West – indeed, the economic center of gravity of the world has until now been between America and Western Europe, the economic powerhouses.
An exploration of megatrends within the Asia-Pacific region There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; Omitted, all the voyage of their life Is bound in shallows and in miseries. On such a full sea are we now afloat. – Julius Ceasar, ACT III Scene IV Introduction Throughout history, there have been sequences of events that are absolutely inevitable, beyond the control of any emperor or tyrant. If we, like Shakespeare, insist on seeing them as tides, one could say that the task of historians is to study little wavelets from the past and try to piece together the biggest tides that shaped the day; and what we manage to cobble together we call history, as we know and study it. 
Announcing a research internship opportunity open on our qualitative research project on persons with disabilities (PWDs) in Sri Lanka.
A list of selected media coverage on AfterAccess following dissemination of the Sri Lanka data and report
LIRNEasia's comments on the Framework for a Proposed Data Protection Legislation for Sri Lanka of June 2019