Expanding Partnerships for a More Resilient Asia

The World Bank Group Institute for Economic Development (IED) connects local and global expertise to foster sustainable, evidence-based development across multiple regions. From November 4 -6, 2025, the IED’s Tokyo Center led a consultative visit that brought together a cross-section of Japanese stakeholders, building relationships and identifying opportunities for collaboration under the World Bank’s Resilience workstream.

Funded by Japan’s Ministry of Finance — a steadfast champion of evidence-based development strategies in the region and beyond — the visit reflected Japan’s ongoing partnership with the World Bank to advance applied research for global public good. The delegation included Deon Filmer, Director of the World Bank Development Research Group; Florence Kondylis, Research Manager in the World Bank Development Research Group; and Kerina Wang, Head of the IED Tokyo Center.

Fulfilling its mission of improving development outcomes through programs, platforms, and partnerships, the IED Tokyo Center and representatives from the World Bank’s Development Economics Vice Presidency (DEC) strengthened the initiative’s partnership footprint through consultative meetings on resilience at the University of Tokyo, the Overseas Environmental Cooperation Center, the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies, the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies, the Japanese Association of Development Economics and the United Nations University. Japan’s leadership in environmental policy, innovation in public management, and its deep commitment to knowledge-sharing position it as a pivotal partner in advancing resilience across Asia.

A key highlight from these conversations was the shared focus on agriculture—how to help farmers increase yields, manage risks, and withstand extreme weather. The discussions also created an opportunity to reflect on the World Bank’s new Policy Research Report, Rethinking Resilience: Adapting to a Changing Climate, which examines how countries can strengthen their capacity to prepare for and recover from climate shocks.

For the world’s poorest people, climate change doesn’t appear as parts per million—it arrives as a ruined harvest, a flooded shopfront, or a child missing school. 

As the report observes, for the world’s poorest people, climate change doesn’t appear as parts per million—it arrives as a ruined harvest, a flooded shopfront, or a child missing school. The central challenge for economies is to ensure that people, businesses, and governments can adapt quickly when disruptions occur. Resilience, in this sense, is the most practical and immediate form of climate action.

The discussions also revealed several promising areas for collaboration. Each engagement explored a different facet of resilience, ranging from climate adaptation and agricultural development to water-related disaster risk management and sustainable urban development. Together, they outlined a vision in which Japan’s local expertise, rooted in decades of rebuilding, environmental stewardship, and policy experimentation, converges with the World Bank’s global research capabilities. The result, when realized, would be a new body of knowledge shaped jointly by empirical rigor and lived experience, offering Asia fresh insights into how resilience can be designed, measured, and sustained.

As the IED Tokyo Hub continues to cultivate partnerships, these engagements will inform future initiatives — from joint research and policy dialogues to capacity-building efforts across Asia — providing an actionable framework for a more resilient, inclusive, and knowledge-driven regional economy.