Asia and the Pacific face a daunting unfinished development agenda when the Millennium Development Goals expire in 2015. The focus in this fast growing region should be on the glaring gaps in its MDG achievements: eradicating extreme poverty and making better progress on human development, especially reducing infant deaths and improving maternal health.

The growing incidence of natural disasters in Asia and the Pacific—where four of five cities globally classified as at extreme risk are located—threatens to undermine seriously rapid economic progress, calling for a much stronger focus among governments on disaster prevention, says a new study from Independent Evaluation at ADB.