Event

Climate change, health and well-being in urbanising Southeast Asia

This event unites key regional and international partners to focus on the most climate-vulnerable yet under-represented groups in research and policy.

Event time:

26th February 2025 04:15 GMT – 05:30 GMT
Format:

online

NatCen International is pleased to be hosting this side event at the 12th Asia-Pacific Forum on Sustainable Development (APFSD). This session is co-organised with the Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), Vietnam Medical Association, SocialLife Research Institute (Vietnam), University of Bristol (UK) and the Asia Development Alliance, and will be broadcast online between 11.15-12.30 (Asia/Bangkok timezone).

This event will bring together key regional and international partners to focus on the most climate-vulnerable yet under-represented groups in research and policy—precarious outdoor workers and rural communities across Southeast Asia. The session will highlight their (in)visible vulnerabilities and diverse health risks exacerbated by climate change, using case studies from the Mekong sub-region, particularly Vietnam and Thailand.

We will showcase cutting-edge evidence developed through equitable partnerships with worker and rural communities, and partners, offering a robust, evidence-based understanding of the lived experiences, health risks, and adaptive capacities of vulnerable groups.

Aligned with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) focusing on good health and well-being, gender equality, decent work and economic growth, and partnerships for the goals, the session will generate localised, actionable strategies that prioritise health in climate change adaptation and mitigation, ensuring no-one is left behind.

This event directly contributes to the APFSD’s mission by fostering regional dialogue on sustainable, inclusive climate-health interventions, advancing science- and evidence-based solutions essential to achieving the 2030 Agenda for vulnerable populations across Southeast Asia.

Speakers

Zia Rehman

Founder and Chief Executive AwazCDS-Pakistan

Zia ur REHMAN is the mathematician turned human rights actor and defender, who founded AwazCDS-Pakistan in 1995. As veteran development advocate and lobbyists, he led the Pakistan Development Alliance and promoted better governance and accountability towards the achievement of SDGs. Currently he has been leading Asia Development Alliance- ADA as its first Director and Secretary General. ADA is groundbreaking regional network that empowers the civil society as a catalyst for social change. It brings together 33 national CSO platforms representing over 10000 organizations from south, southeast, northeast, southwest and Central Asia. Asia Development Alliance strives for strengthening, localization, enabling environment, sustainable development, and climate & development financing through its regional and global advocacy, lobbying civil society mobilization & engagement efforts.
Petchpilai Lattanan

Lecturer at Geography Department Chulalongkorn University

Petchpilai Lattanan is a full-time lecturer of human geography at the Department of Geography, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University. She graduated with a doctoral degree in geography from the Department of Geography, University College London (UCL) in 2017. She has been working as a full-time lecturer at the Department of Geography, Chulalongkorn University since 2017. Her research interest focuses mainly on urban development, smart city, resilience city, community resilience, and middle class in Southeast Asia, particularly in Thailand.
Jonathan Rigg

Professor University of Bristol

Jonathan Rigg is professor of human geography in the School of Geographical Sciences at the University of Bristol. He was formerly Director of the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) Asia Research Institute (ARI). He has been working on livelihoods, vulnerability, agrarian and urban transitions, environmental change, and migration in Asia since the early 1980s, and has undertaken fieldwork in Laos, Thailand, Nepal, Sri Lanka, as well as in Vietnam.
Dr Nguyen Duc Loc

President Social Life Research Institute

Assoc. Prof. Dr. Nguyen Duc Loc is an anthropologist and sociologist, currently serving as President of the Social Life Research Institute and a lecturer at Ho Chi Minh City Open University. Throughout his career, he has worked on critical social issues in Vietnam, focusing on disadvantaged groups, labor and the Catholic community. His expertise encompasses practical aspects of social life, using research, surveys, policy advice and social forecasting for positive change. He has led several high impact projects on labor rights, migration, social welfare and Catholic community dynamics, demonstrating his commitment to social improvement. Driven by a passion for improving lives, his extensive research portfolio underscores his commitment to making a difference. His contributions in both social science research and policy-making, embodying his unwavering commitment to a better society.
Khanh Le Nguyen

Research Staff SocialLife Research Institute

Nguyen Khanh Le is currently pursuing her Master’s degree in Southeast Asia and Taiwan Studies at National Cheng Kung University, Taiwan. She works as a research staff at the SocialLife Research Institute, where she coordinates the Life Story Lab and serves as a Project Assistant for the project "Developing a GIS-Integrated Worker Health Application to Connect Precarious Outdoor Workers with the Application in Urban Megacities in Vietnam." Her research interests include gender, migration, community development, and the dynamics of labor mobility between Taiwan and Vietnam.
Vo Thi Thuy An

Research Staff SocialLife Research Institute

Vo Thi Thuy An is currently a research staff at the Institute for Social Life Research (SocialLife Institute) and serves as the coordinator of the SocialLife Policy Research Lab (PoliLab), SocialLife Institute. She graduated with a degree in International Relations from the University of Social Sciences and Humanities, Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City. Her research interests focus on theories of welfare state models and social mobility theory, particularly emphasizing intergenerational mobility in Vietnam.

Chair

Dr Anh Vu

Research Director National Centre for Social Research

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Dr Anh Vu is a political ecologist and interdisciplinary scholar with over two decades of experience at the forefront of both development practice and academic research. Anh currently leads a £1.3 million Wellcome Trust-funded research project examining the health impacts of climate change on precarious outdoor workers in major cities across Vietnam. She is Research Director/ Climate Change at NatCen International, National Centre for Social Research (UK). Her research focuses on three key areas that address critical climate challenges: the climate-health nexus, the political economy of climate change, and the sustainability of delta social-ecological systems. She has collaborated extensively with major multilateral and bilateral institutions (e.g., UNDP, UN Statistics Division, the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung) while also providing expert consultancy to governments, and inter/national NGOs (e.g., Asia Development Alliance, Oxfam, Transparency International, Global Philanthropy Indices, Management and Sustainable Development Institute). Her scholarly work is widely published in high-impact peer-reviewed journals such as World Development, Sustainability Science, Contemporary Politics, Community Development, VOLUNTAS, World Development Perspectives, and International Development Planning and Review. In particular, her two decades of research on civil society and authoritarianism has been acclaimed by Southeast Asian scholars for making "high-order" contributions to the field."