Asia has over 35 countries with over 600,000 communities and numerous subcultures. As 2009 draws to a close, 

ensuring sustained recovery in the new global economic panorama has brought greater prominence to the role of regional 

cooperation in Asia and the Pacific, and of the need for the region to drive its own development in order to act as an anchor for 

global recovery in the future, according to a year-end update of the United Nations Economic and Social Survey of Asia and 

the Pacific 2009.

Source: UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, UNESCAP