In Asia editor Alma Freeman recently interviewed Philippine local governance leader Marcia Czarina Corazon Medina-Guce on President Aquino’s ambitious reform agenda and progress on poverty reduction and inclusive development. Medina-Guce, who was recently selected as one of 10 inaugural 2014 Asia Foundation Development Fellows, is the executive director of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines, the umbrella organization of the local government leagues composed of all locally elected officials in the Philippines.
What do you see as the biggest development success stories in the Philippines in the last decade and the most critical challenges that remain?
The past decade has been a long-running story of how demand for transparency and accountability in government came to be. The Philippines had a controversial national election in 2004, and proof of election fraud surfaced years later. Our last two presidents have been under great scrutiny for corruption, which gave rise to people electing a reform-oriented leader, current President Benigno Aquino III, in the 2010 elections. Since then, the government has successfully institutionalized platforms for more constructive engagement between government and civil society through transparency in reporting of expenditures, grassroots participatory budgeting, and incentives for financial soundness of government units. Because of these reforms, the national economy has boomed and our credit rating reached its highest in Philippine history. Public service delivery in the areas of health and finance, social welfare, poverty alleviation, and inclusive education has improved. The past decade has been a narrative for good governance for the Philippines – the fall and rise of public trust – and the Filipino people can be proud of how its demand on transparency and accountability have opened up government systems for greater and more meaningful government-civil society partnership.
The challenges that remain are two-fold. First, the public service reforms that government introduced have to address the “last mile” challenge; we need make sure that services are accessible to each Filipino household. The key is to reach the frontlines, and the frontlines are the realm of local governments. While local governments are doing their share of the reform work at the community-level, more harmonized planning, implementation, and monitoring systems must be established between national and local governments. Second, the reforms and the spirit that drives them need to be sustained. Six years is not enough to heal and rehabilitate government institutions. We do not want this reform-oriented mission to end when the president’s term expires. The Philippines made its mark in the world in its story of restoring democracy in the 1980s. I believe we can make a dent in history once more if we can institutionalize and sustain the democratic reforms that we are working very hard on right now.
While President Aquino has made poverty reduction a pillar of his presidency, the government announced earlier this year that the Philippines will miss its 2015 Millennium Development Goal (MDG) on poverty reduction. Why do you think this is such a stubborn, ongoing problem for the country?
Poverty reduction is a complex problem that requires equally complex responses, and the odds are not totally in our favor. As I mentioned, while we have programs to address different facets of poverty such as conditional subsidies, health financing for the poorest of the poor, and education that leads to job placement and livelihood, we have to contend with the difficulties of bringing these services to the frontlines. How do we reach a poor household in a remote, geographically isolated island municipality? How does government mobilize local alliances of private and civil society in rural villages when presence of these local development partners is scarce in those areas? How do we make policies more evidence-informed so we can cater to the wide range of needs per locality?
This is when the promise and potential of local governments for needs-based, community-level service delivery need to be harnessed. Harmonizing efforts and developing enabling policy and program environments pushing for more genuine local autonomy need to be strengthened. We have local government champions who have made significant outcomes in improving health, education, and local economic development in provinces, cities, and municipalities. But there needs to be greater work in mainstreaming local government innovations and best practices, and institutionalization through legislative support.
Given your experience working at the local-level, what are your thoughts on President Aquino’s geographical approach to defeating poverty by identifying 30 of the poorest provinces to receive increased funding and government support?
On a national strategy level, prioritizing the 30 poorest provinces makes sense. The national government acts as an agent of equitable distribution of resources by pooling public-private partnerships, both infrastructure and soft service delivery programs, in these poor areas so that the provinces can leverage national government resources to catch up on their development needs. Greater harmonization between the work of the national government and the provincial cluster (regional) and local government planning units on how the local governments can complement the national investments is needed. For instance, when new airports, seaports, and roads are built in an area, how can local governments pool their resources to maximize the opportunity for increased economic activity and job creation? How do we make social services like health and education more accessible to the people and encourage further productivity? Responding to these kinds of questions requires close and intense collaboration between national and local governments.
Local governments are moving toward streamlining their processes to encourage more small- and medium-sized enterprises to emerge. Opportunities for tapping migrants’ resources are also being mainstreamed in many provinces through developing investment and entrepreneurial platforms. We have seen how local governments – through more inclusive development – can curb incidences of armed conflict. There are provinces such as Albay and Bohol whose experiences in dealing with disaster preparedness and response are becoming benchmarks to secure the welfare of people, and in effect mitigating risks on productive activities. If we can put together the strategies of national government and the community needs-informed plans of the local governments, we can hopefully speed up collaborative action towards achieving inclusive growth.
Today in New York at the annual Lotus Leadership Awards, hosted by First U.S. Ambassador for Global Women’s Issues, Melanne Verveer, The Asia Foundation honored Nobel Peace Laureate Muhammad Yunus and Nani Zulminarni, and the Estée Lauder Companies for their commitment to improving the lives of young women in Asia. In this brand-new video, just premiered today in New York, Professor Yunus talks about his decades of work in pioneering microcredit, and the impact that access to credit has had on lifting thousands of women out of poverty. Awardee Nani Zulminarni, who heads the Indonesian organization PEKKA (which in Indonesian stands for “Women-Headed Household Empowerment”) discusses her work with women in conflict regions so they can gain access to finance and build their savings. Watch video.
Dr. Thant Thaw Kaung, prominent publisher and library advocate in Myanmar, has been awarded The Asia Foundation’s prestigious Chang-lin Tien Visiting Fellowship. In a program designed to share knowledge and perspectives between peers across the Pacific, Dr. Kaung is engaging with leaders in the U.S. publishing, library, and NGO fields during a three-week study tour this month. During his visit, he also received the prestigious 2014 Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award for his leading role in keeping literary life alive in Myanmar during decades of isolation. Read more.
While Mongolia has made important strides in achieving gender equality, it still has a long way to go when it comes to parity between women and men in business. Currently, it ranks 33rd out of 136 countries according to the World Economic Forum’s Global Gender Gap Index (2013), which constitutes a significant improvement compared to 2012 when it ranked 44th but still lower than in 2010 when it ranked 27th.
Mongolia’s 2011 Law on the Promotion of Gender Equality prohibits gender discrimination, including in the labor force. Compared to other countries, Mongolia, with a female-to-male labor force participation rate of 82 percent, does not rank that badly. Yet significant wage gaps still persist between women and men. In addition, women were excluded from working in specific sectors due to labor regulations in force until 2008 that barred them from working in the more dangerous, yet higher-growth and higher-paying mining sector in which women are today significantly underrepresented. Women are more frequently engaged in unpaid labor, with a third of women working as unpaid family workers, one of the highest rates of female unpaid laborers in East Asia. Women’s economic participation is further curtailed by the Labor Law which sets the voluntary retirement age for women at 55 – five years earlier than for men and 10 years earlier, at 45, if a woman has four or more children. While women can work longer than the retirement age if they want to, in practice many employers encourage women to leave early so they can be replaced with younger staff.
While women are better educated than men, with a female to male ratio of 145 percent in tertiary education, they are still under-represented in management and decision-making positions, especially in the private sector. Women from poorer backgrounds who want to establish a business also face challenges in terms of access to property, networks, and finance, as they are often unable to provide the necessary collateral to obtain a mortgage or loan for their business. In addition, traditional stereotypes and social norms as to the roles expected of women and men still prevail and women often face a doubled burden when it comes to having a career and taking care of the family.
On May 14, over 60 women representatives from parliament, ministries, the business sector, and civil society convened in the capital, Ulaanbaatar, for a consultative forum on women in business organized by the National Committee on Gender Equality (NCGE) of Mongolia and The Asia Foundation.
Ms. Bolormaa, secretary of the NCGE, opened the meeting and two women MPs, MP Erdenechimeg, head of the Women Caucus in Parliament, and MP Odontuya, both business women themselves, spoke about the current challenges women still face in Mongolia and about the actions needed to encourage and attract more women to pursue business entrepreneurship. Meloney Lindberg, the Foundation’s country representative in Mongolia, shared some of the findings of the recent study on “Access to Trade and Growth of Women’s SMEs in APEC Developing Economies,” conducted by The Asia Foundation, the Department of State, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), as well as some of the lessons learned from the Foundation’s other women’s entrepreneurship projects in Bangladesh and China.
As part of a series of panel discussions on business case studies, young and established women entrepreneurs from different sectors shared their experiences and provided advice to aspiring women entrepreneurs on how to capitalize on their strengths and seize business opportunities to advance their careers. In particular, one of the young women entrepreneurs, Ms. Nominzul Baldandorj, had participants in awe as she described her experience of working previously in the NGO sector and subsequently starting her own construction company. “In the beginning, I did not know anything about construction, so it took me three years to get my business started and as a woman in my twenties I had to prove myself double as hard,” she said. Panelists from government and city agencies, commercial banks, and civil society commented on the case studies and also presented their policies and programs in support of women’s economic participation.
In the afternoon, participants were divided into three thematic working groups to discuss strategies and identify potential solutions to overcome some of the challenges women face in terms of the legal and regulatory framework, social and cultural norms, and access to finance. During the plenary discussion, participants specifically highlighted the need to for closer networking among women entrepreneurs to help overcome the challenges. One of the immediate actions from the forum was to establish a Facebook group as a platform for further discussion and experience sharing.
The event builds on the International Women’s Leadership Forum (IWLF) organized in July 2012 by Mongolia’s Presidency of the Community of Democracies together with The Asia Foundation, the Zorig Foundation, and MonAme Scientific Research Center. The NCGE and the Foundation will be working together in the course of the coming months to implement some of the actions identified during the consultative meeting and the IWLF to support Mongolian women’s business leadership.
Naran Munkhbat and Robbie Paras are senior program officer and program associate respectively of The Asia Foundation in Mongolia. Tirza Theunissen is the deputy country representative and can be reached at [email protected]. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not necessarily those of The Asia Foundation.
by The Asia Foundation | April 23, 2014 | Blog | 1 comment
Just back from an intensive, nine-day leadership training workshop in Singapore and the Philippines, which kicked off The Asia Foundation’s Development Fellows program, In Asia editor Alma Freeman interviewed one of the 10 inaugural Fellows from Mongolia, Badruun Gardi, executive director of the Zorig Foundation in Ulaanbaatar.
Mongolia is one of the fastest growing economies in the world, and the resource boom has brought about rapid change. What do you think have been the most impactful changes in the last few years?
Unfortunately, I feel that the rapid transformation over the past few years has been more negative than positive as a whole. While the country’s economy has grown tremendously, wealth management has not been a strong point for Mongolia. As a result, there’s more concentration of wealth in the hands of few while levels of poverty and unemployment remain high. Many of the poorest households have not benefited much from the economic growth. Instead, many have gotten even poorer due to the constant double-digit rate of inflation over the past few years. It is important for Mongolia to learn from the experiences of other resource-rich countries so that we may avoid the resource curse. Mongolia certainly has potential to become a highly developed country but we need to take bold steps that may be unpopular for now but may lay the foundation for a bright future in the long run.
Founded in 1998 in memory of the late Zorig Sanjaasuren, a leader of Mongolia’s democratic revolution, the Zorig Foundation has played an important role in promoting good governance and engaging youth in decision-making. As its executive director, what are the most critical areas that the Zorig Foundation is focusing on today?
Our Foundation focuses its activities broadly in three main areas: good governance, community development, and youth and education. We are proud of the fact that we stay flexible and are able to adapt to the changing times as we are always re-evaluating our activities and how they align with gaps currently present in our society. Over the past three years, we have placed heavy emphasis on expanding our youth and education programs as well as developing a new policy research institute. We believe that the most important determinant for a highly developed Mongolia will be its level of informed, analytical citizens. Through our various projects for youth ranging from high schoolers to recent college graduates, we hope to develop critical thinking skills while presenting various perspectives on the most pressing issues facing our country. We are also in the process of developing a policy research institute. In such a complex political, economic, and social environment, it is crucial for policy decisions to be guided by high-quality research. There is currently a lot of space for improvement in this arena and we are working hard to establish an institute that will produce high-quality research in previously overlooked yet important areas.
Given Mongolia’s history under Soviet rule, legislation that supports citizens’ participation in policy-making and access to justice is still considered relatively nascent. What have been some of the advances in this area, and what challenges remain?
Mongolia has taken some strides in citizen participation and justice sector reform has been a key topic of the president and the government for the past few years. One great example for improving and ensuring citizen participation was the establishment of the Citizens’ Hall under the President of Mongolia. The number of Citizens’ Halls has increased since then with presence in some rural areas as well. The Citizens’ Hall provides a venue for citizen input through public hearings on proposed legislation. Since 2012, the Ministry of Justice has paid special attention to improving access to justice. Witness protection has been a concern in the past and a Marshals Service was established last year. This shows that our justice system is showing a trend of maturation as more specialized services are established to deal with the increasing intricacies of issues related to the access to justice. However, while Mongolia is good at having up-to-date, international standard laws and regulations, the problems usually stem from a lack of institutional capacity and clarity in implementation. There needs to be more focus placed on implementation if the legal changes are to truly bring about positive changes.
You said in an interview on the occasion of The Asia Foundation’s 20th anniversary in Mongolia that, “if you believe in democracy, you should be rooting for Mongolia.” Why is this the case, and can you talk about what this means for the region and the world?
Mongolia is a very unlikely democracy in many ways. When we became a democracy in 1990, we did not possess many of the prerequisites many scholars believed were necessary for democracy to exist. We did not have democratic neighbors or a history of democracy, and we were one of the poorest countries in the world. Yet after 24 years, although flawed, we stand as a beacon of democracy for the entire region. As Mongolia goes through tremendous changes, I believe we are at an important crossroads in our development. For Mongolia to maintain its democratic momentum, we must ensure our commitment to good governance practices. While internal actors must take charge, we need support and guidance from other democracies globally as we work to improve governance. Therefore, I would like to urge all those who believe in democracy to not only root for Mongolia as a spectator, but to also take an active role in working to support strengthening democracy through collaboration with on-the-ground actors. A vibrant democracy in Mongolia can bring stability and become a counterbalance in a region that is becoming increasingly powerful yet unstable.
Twenty years after the revolution, Mongolia now has a generation of youth that grew up in a changing democracy. What are your thoughts on today’s youth? Are they engaged in issues such as good governance, environment, and human rights?
Mongolia is a very young country – 70 percent of the population is under 35. A high number of leaders within the civil society, private, and government sectors are quite young. Mongolia also enjoys a 98 percent literacy rate and a very technologically savvy population. All of these factors point to the ability, or at least the potential, of the youth to influence Mongolia’s development path. The youth of today seem to understand the unique opportunities provided to them by the rapid economic growth and are actively engaged and integrated with the economic system. However, I see a general sense of apathy when it comes to governance, environment, and human rights issues. It is crucial for youth to be actively engaged and feel empowered to affect change in these areas. The Zorig Foundation devotes a lot of energy to increase youth engagement with these issues. We believe that the best way to empower youth to take action is to support the creation of strong social ties amongst youth and to facilitate open, safe, and thoughtful discussion on these important topics. This creates actively engaged and empowered youth willing to work together to have a positive impact on the development of Mongolia.
As we prepare for the long-awaited March 27 signing in Manila between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, one of the striking things of the peace process as it stretches back over more than a decade is the extent to which both negotiating parties tried to learn from past mistakes in striving for peace and development in Mindanao.
On March 27, the government of the Philippines and the MILF will sign the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro which aims to bring to close a decades-old armed conflict in Mindanao. Photo/Karl Grobl
After the 1996 “Final Peace Agreement” with the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), the MNLF moved directly and abruptly into positions of leadership in the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) and other institutions under the leadership of MNLF Founding Chairman Nur Misuari. MNLF members had little to no experience in government office and development practice, which many feel contributed to the “failure” of ARMM. In the MILF peace process institutions were put into place to already begin the transition even before the Comprehensive Agreement was completed. Thus, in 2003 the Bangsamoro Development Agency was created to “manage and implement reconstruction and development,” and has been doing so with funding from various agencies, in particular the Mindanao Trust Fund set up by several donors and managed by the World Bank. In 2005, the Bangsamoro Leadership and Management Institute was set up to help train those who will work after the agreement is finished.
This idea of getting ready beforehand has extended to one of the truly novel parts of the peace agreement, the setting up of a “ministerial” form of government for the Bangsamoro. In this parliamentary setting, voters will choose members of the regional assembly, and those members in turn will choose the chief minister to head the executive branch of the Bangsamoro. This is in contrast to the pattern throughout the rest of the Philippine government, from the national government down to provinces, cities, municipalities, and villages, where citizens vote directly for both branches of government – the executive (president, governor, mayor, barangay captain) and the legislature.
The issue of parliamentary governance has come up repeatedly in Philippine politics during periodic discussions of changes to the 1987 Constitution, but the average citizen is at best unenthusiastic and generally they reject the idea: they want to be able to vote directly for the president. However, two special “autonomous” regions are provided for in the constitution for areas “sharing common and distinctive historical and cultural heritage” and a parliamentary form of government was proposed in 1989 by the Cordillera Regional Consultative Commission (CRCC), set up to draft an Organic Act for the Cordillera Autonomous. The CRCC felt that a parliamentary system was more in consonance with the indigenous way of governing through the Council of Elders in each highland village. However, when the Philippine Congress took the CRCC draft and enacted it into law this provision was changed back to a “presidential separation of powers” system to be in line with all the other levels of government in the Philippines. (When the autonomy law was put to a plebiscite, it failed so there is no autonomous region for the Cordillera.) Similarly, the MNLF during negotiations for the 1996 Final Peace Agreement strove for a parliamentary form of government but was told that it was unconstitutional.
The current administration and its negotiating team certainly believe it is constitutional. The president’s instructions to the negotiating panel included exploring the flexibility of the current constitution, inasmuch as President Aquino has repeatedly stressed that he is against amending the constitution. The head of the negotiating panel when the ministerial form was included in the Framework Agreement on the Bangsamoro, Marvic Leonen, has since been elevated to the Supreme Court. While we can confidently predict that some will try to argue the unconstitutionality of the ministerial form of government, it seems unlikely that this provision would be sufficient to have the agreement declared invalid.
In the spirit of getting ready for the transition, there have been a number of different efforts to explore what having a ministerial form of government means in the Philippine context, particularly in conjunction with both elements of the MILF and with the Bangsamoro Transition Commission tasked (like the CRCC was) with drafting a law for consideration by Congress. Focusing on the system of elections in sessions with MILF cadre, Konrad Adenaur Stiftung laid out options and produced a paper that endorsed proportional representation as the best system for handling the various ethnic and religious minorities in the Bangsamoro. International Foundation for Election Systems undertook similar analysis, simulated the outcomes under different counting systems, and pointed out that a parallel system of voting both by district for members of the assembly and a proportional representation system for parties helps balance accountability to the citizenry with representation of minorities. Local organization, DemokraXXIa, similarly canvassed various electoral systems, and reviewed the experience of political parties in majority Muslim countries.
In the Philippines as a whole, political parties are notoriously weak, being largely vehicles cobbled together among disparate individuals for the purpose of contesting particular elections. For a ministerial form of government to work to adequately represent the citizenry in any form of proportional representation, parties must mean something. The Asia Foundation has published an assessment of parties for the Bangsamoro laying out what might be done to strengthen the ability of parties to serve citizen interests. Both DemokraXXIa and the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies worked with the MILF to develop an understanding of what is involved in setting up principled, disciplined parties – going to the main camp in Darapanan Maguindanao and to other camps to explore with MILF cadres a roadmap forward. As a result, the MILF plans to establish a party to contest the regional elections at the general elections in May 2016.
President Aquino’s ruling Liberal Party could clearly contest in 2016, as the current governor of the ARMM and all provincial governors are members of that party. Akbayan Citizens Party is also active in the area, and SIMCARRD explored the notion of establishing an Akbayan sister party for the Bangsamoro as a way both to ensure regional representation but also avoid excessive domination by a national-level political organization.
Considerable attention will be focused during the signing of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro on whether this effort will indeed “solve the Moro problem” and contribute to peace and development in Mindanao. But there are many other exciting details in the implementation of the Bangsamoro that may hold lessons for the Philippines as a whole, including how to reform the police as a new police force for the Bangsamoro is set up, what are the new roles for the Armed Forces of the Philippines as they turn over law enforcement functions and focus on national security and defense, and how to deal with private armies that exist throughout the country, not just in the Bangsamoro. Creation of the Bangsamoro offers opportunities to learn how to improve governance. Establishment of a ministerial form of government and the strengthening of political parties can be watched by all Filipino citizens, not just Moros, to see whether these innovations help promote good government.
Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in the Philippines and was research director of the Cordillera Studies Center before becoming country representative. He can be reached at [email protected]. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.
The Asia Foundation’s director of Regional Cooperation Programs, John J. Brandon, speaks with Thailand’s Ambassador to the U.S. Vijavat Isarabhakdi, who served as a Congressional Fellow sponsored by The Asia Foundation.
As an accomplished diplomat for over two decades, looking back, what do you consider the highlight or most remarkable moment in your career in Thailand’s government?
The highlight of my diplomatic career so far must certainly be my appointment in 2013 as Ambassador of Thailand to the United States. This is one of the most important bilateral relationships for Thailand since relations between our two countries stretch back over 180 years and encompass virtually every area. There is therefore a great deal that we can achieve and cooperate on together. Personally, it is highly gratifying for me since much of my life has dealt with the United States, including studying in Boston on a Fulbright scholarship, being posted at the Royal Thai Embassy in the 1990s and serving as a Congressional Fellow on Capitol Hill.
In your view, what are the biggest challenges and opportunities that the future holds for Thailand?
A major challenge for Thailand at present is for all sides in the political arena to rise above their differences and join together for the greater good of the country. There is a need to eradicate the mistrust and lack of confidence that seem to prevail at present. Another challenge will be to chart a path toward sustainable development for the Thai people, leading to a higher quality of life, while also along a route that is in harmony with the environment.
The opportunities for Thailand are tremendous since the country is blessed with a strategic geographical location, a diverse and dynamic economy, a hard-working and capable workforce, and strong economic fundamentals. It is up to the country to make full use of its potential. Another opportunity is for Thailand to play a proactive and constructive role in the region and the international community at large. This is the path that Thailand has been heading toward and aspires to.
Based on your leadership experience, what advice would you give to young leaders in Thailand today?
I would tell them that much about leadership involves leading by example. Young leaders cannot expect to command the support of their followers if they do not lead the way through actions. Dedication and sacrifice are essential elements. Also, they should try to look beyond national interests and focus on the greater good of the region and the international community at large.
As a Congressional Fellow sponsored by The Asia Foundation, what are your recollections about that experience and how did it help shape your diplomatic career?
I recall that it was one of the most enjoyable and rewarding periods in my life. We were very well taken care of by The Asia Foundation and the American Political Science Association. The Fellows were a great mix of Americans with diverse backgrounds plus a number of foreigners such as myself. The experience was greatly edifying and helped me to understand more, not only about Congress, but also the American political system as a whole.
I recall being worried at first about having to compete for a position in the offices of the U.S. congress members and senators with other very well qualified Americans who were also seeking the same position. However, in the end, everything turned out fine and I was able to get jobs with Congressman Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) and Senator Hank Brown (R-Colorado). Both were very kind to me and taught me much about their work. I also had the pleasure of following Congressman Rohrabacher to his district and to see him in action with his constituents.
The experience played an important part in shaping my diplomatic career because I was subsequently posted to the Royal Thai Embassy in Washington, D.C., as First Secretary in the 1990s. As a political officer there, I was able to put into practice the things that I learned as a Congressional Fellow. The combination of serving as a Congressional Fellow and my experience at the Embassy probably had a significant role leading to my appointment as ambassador in Washington almost 20 years later.
As The Asia Foundation marks its 60th anniversary, what do you regard as the Foundation’s main contribution toward improving lives and expanding opportunities in Thailand, and what role might the Foundation play to best support Thailand’s progress going forward?
Over the past 60 years, The Asia Foundation has played a very important and highly commendable role in improving lives and expanding opportunities, not only in Thailand but throughout the region. The Foundation has funded a large number of educational programs and international exchanges that have created greater career opportunities for many Thais. The Foundation’s women’s empowerment programs have helped create greater opportunities for women in Thailand, while its economic development programs have also empowered entrepreneurs and improved business environments.
The Asia Foundation can continue to support Thailand’s progress and advancement in these same areas as well as in finding new fields of cooperation for Thailand to meet the new challenges of the 21st century. These might include, for example, areas such as the environment, climate change, water resource management, and disaster preparedness.
by The Asia Foundation | March 5, 2014 | Blog | 6 comments
Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, In Asia editor Alma Freeman interviewed Nepali radio journalist and women’s rights advocate, Jaya Luintel, on women’s changing role in politics and society in Nepal, the country’s wide gender gap, and hopes of democratic momentum. Luintel, who was recently selected as one of 10 inaugural 2014 Asia Foundation Development Fellows, is the founder of the organization, The Story Kitchen, and last month organized the first ever national-level conference of women radio producers and broadcasters in Nepal, as part of World Radio Day.
Your career as a journalist began with Radio Sagarmatha in 1999, when you started the radio’s first show on gender equality and women’s rights. What motivated you to start this show?
One morning in early 2002, during our editorial meeting, the station manager came to the newsroom and told us that Oxfam in Nepal was interested in supporting Radio Sagarmatha to produce a radio show on gender issues. He asked if anyone was interested in leading the production team, and I was the only one to raise my hand. I knew very little about gender issues or Oxfam’s work, but spent a great deal of time researching gender issues, and was heavily influence by the book “Half the World Half a Chance,” by Julia C. Moose. Together with Oxfam, we came up with the name for the program “Saha-Astittwa,” which means “co-existence.”
Our first broadcast was on Saturday, Feb. 2, 2002, when we launched our hour-long weekly program. At that time there were very few radio programs focused on women’s rights. Most “women’s programs” focused on making pickles at home, cooking, knitting, and so on. Saha-Astittwa introduced the issues of gender equality, women’s rights, and co-existence, with a focus on social justice, women’s identity, and treatment of women in public.
This exposed me to hundreds of women’s stories. Every time I talked to women and girls, I asked them what their dream was. I later realized that we Nepali women were never taught to dream for our own future. As a daughter we followed our father’s dream, as a wife we fulfill our husband’s dream, and when we get old, we have to live up to our son’s dream. For me, having my own dream to help other women dream for their own future through radio programming was very challenging yet very exciting.
As a women’s rights advocate in Nepal, what are some of the biggest changes that you’ve noticed in the areas of gender equality and women’s participation in society?
The three biggest changes I’ve noticed in Nepali society for women over the last 20 years are: women are now capable of raising their voice, more girls are attending school, and women are becoming more independent economically.
According to the 2011 national census, the literacy rate for women is 57.4 percent, up from 42.8 percent in 2001. Similarly, the percentage of women’s ownership of fixed property (land and homes) has increased from 11.7 percent in 2001 to 19.7 percent in 2011. According to the World Bank, the maternal mortality ratio in last five years (per 100,000 live births) has reduced to 170 from 250. Though statistics show that more girls and women are becoming literate, there is still a high school drop-out rate for girls, and the quality of education they get compared to boys and men – even from the same family – is not equal. Deeply rooted patriarchal norms, beliefs, and values also create barriers for women to exercise their freedoms and rights in reality.
In the World Economic Forum’s latest Global Gender Gap report, Nepal ranks very low – 121st out of 136 countries in terms of gender gap overall. What are the major factors contributing to such a wide gender gap?
In 1956, the first formal development plan and policy was introduced in Nepal. In 1980, 10 years before the restoration of democracy, the sixth “Five-Year Plan” included women in the development efforts for the first time. After this move, development plans and policies in Nepal were increasingly geared toward addressing the issue of gender disparity. Later, the ninth and tenth plans were quite vocal to end gender disparity. A separate ministry for women in Nepal was established in 1995 right after Fourth World Conference of Women in Beijing.
There have been other positive changes both in laws and policies. Despite these changes at the legal and policy level, there are many obstacles in turning gender equality into a reality as gender biases have been firmly rooted in the legal, economic, cultural, and social framework of Nepali society. For example, the percentage of girls attending school is increasing, both at the primary and secondary level, but when it comes to tertiary (university or college) level, the number of female students is less than half that of men. In many cases, women are forced to leave school because daughters are seen as a burden for the family and they want to shift this burden to another family by marrying her off. Nepal has some of the highest child marriage rates in the world.
Meanwhile, Nepal has the highest women representation in parliament (33 percent) in South Asia.
It’s true that the representation of women in Nepal’s parliament is the highest in South Asia. But while the female-to-male ratio of women’s representation in parliament is 0.50, the female-to-male ratio in ministerial positions is 0.08. This shows that women are still not chosen for key leadership positions.
I just re-listened to an interview that I did back in 2006 with then Maoist leader Ms. Onsari Gharti who was recently elected as a vice-chair of the Constituent Assembly. That was her first radio interview after Nepal’s government and the Maoists signed the Comprehensive Peace Accord, and the Maoists began to come out from underground life. She was also one of the female Maoist combatants. I bring her up as an example of how women’s representation in parliament also represents women of diverse communities, political background, education, social status, caste, and ethnic groups.
Unfortunately, while the number of women in parliament has increased, they are still lacking in meaningful participation. The interim constitution of Nepal explicitly says that in every state body, women’s participation should be at least 33 percent. This was the case in the previous Constituent Assembly, but we don’t yet know the final percentage of women who will be in the newly elected CA.
For some, Nepal’s new prime minister raises hopes of democratic momentum for the country, long stalemated by political conflict. What do you see as the biggest priorities in terms of securing women’s rights in the coming decade?
Education, access to economic resources, and health are definitely major issues for women. In my opinion, by improving these areas, women’s lives will be enhanced but won’t be transformed. If the government is really willing to transform the lives of Nepali women, efforts to change our current social and political structure – which is patriarchal – is essential. While laws, policies, and programs that include women’s rights and equality are important, we also need more effective implementation and monitoring of these laws.
Nepal’s issue of citizenship carries a legacy of discrimination and marginalization of women. Nepal’s citizenship law does not recognize women as independent individuals. For example, a Nepali woman after reaching the age of 18 can get a citizenship certificate only if she gets recommended by her father (if not married) or by her husband (if married). The interim constitution of Nepal says that the recommendation of her mother is also valid, but this is not being implemented effectively. In many cases officials don’t take the document forward from a woman unless it was submitted by her father or her husband’s copy of citizenship certificate. So, if a father or husband is unhappy with his daughter or wife, he can simply deny his recommendation for citizenship. During one of the interviews that I conducted for The Story Kitchen, sociologist Dr. Meena Poudel said: “The new legal provision in the new constitution should allow the state, not a father, husband, or any other individual to recommend citizenship for both men and women in Nepal.” If this kind of legal provision could be formulated and implemented it would help women to establish their own autonomy, and increase their ability to participate more fully in society.
It is perhaps unusual for survey research to provoke demonstrations denouncing the results, but that is precisely what happened last month when Social Weather Stations issued a survey release showing that victims of Typhoon Haiyan, “Yolanda” in the Philippines, were more satisfied with President Aquino than were other Filipinos (who already gave Aquino a “good” satisfaction rating). This finding flew in the face of media narratives about the government’s failure to adequately respond to the disaster.
Tacloban City was the most urbanized area struck by Typhoon Haiyan, which killed close to 6,000 people. Photo/flickr user DFAT http://bit.ly/1cVW0YV
The dominant political family in Tacloban City, the most urbanized area struck by the storm, was the first to mount a critique. Tacloban’s mayor, Alfred Romualdez, who has been feuding with Department of Interior and Local Government Secretary Mar Roxas since the beginning of relief operations, had just made up with the government when his cousin, Congressman Martin Romualdez, denounced the survey. A demonstration was held in Tacloban, joined by the leftist Makabayan political bloc, to belie the results.
This is perhaps an indicator of how important periodic public surveys are to the Philippine political discourse. High-quality probability samples are regularly taken and made public by Pulse Asia and Social Weather Stations, hitting the front pages of newspapers and airing on television. This is not to say that all political actors actually believe in the magic of surveys. A prominent recent example of skepticism was embodied in the 2010 presidential candidacy of Gilberto Teodoro, Jr., the anointed successor of outgoing President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo. His survey results were always low – in multiple rounds, neither Pulse Asia nor Social Weather Stations had his standing above 10 percent – but his backers were confident of a win. In the end, he got 11.36 percent of the vote (coming in fourth), which is one more demonstration of the ability of scientific surveys to accurately reflect public sentiment.
It is with this in mind that The Asia Foundation in the Philippines funded a special sampling strategy for the regular Social Weather Stations quarterly survey. Generally, SWS has a total sample size of 1,200: 300 people each for Metro Manila, the rest of Luzon, the Visayas in central Philippines, and the southern Mindanao region. In the December 2013 round, our support enabled another 350 people to be added to the Visayas sample size since that was where the majority of the typhoon damage occurred. As a result, SWS was able to gather a statistically representative sample of victims of Haiyan.
The results made it clear that the victims of Haiyan had their own voice, and one that surprised many observers. Since the area devastated by Haiyan was already one of the poorest in the country, it is not surprising that 72 percent of victims rated themselves as “poor” (whereas 52 percent of the rest of the citizenry did so). Similarly, 20 percent reported having gone hungry in the past three months compared to 15 percent of other Filipinos. Yet, as I pointed out earlier, Haiyan victims gave President Aquino a net satisfaction rating of +54 while non-victims gave him +48.
Another finding that caught the attention of the media is that respondents rated help from foreign countries and private agencies more highly than assistance from the national government. Of course, this depends on what spin is applied – as SWS reports, the rating for national and local government was “very good,” behind the “excellent” of the foreign countries and private agencies.
The special sample allowed victims of Typhoon Haiyan to not only express their views of the national government and relief efforts, but also to describe their experiences and what they suffered, including injuries, psychological trauma, and loss of possessions. The questionnaire also included their experiences with the collective efforts to help them. The Asia Foundation will be working with Social Weather Stations to produce a publication that explores all of these topics.
But perhaps it is best to end this brief blog post on a truly hopeful note: 96 percent of victims and 95 percent of non-victims are hopeful that areas devastated by Haiyan will recover. It is no wonder that international assistance providers praise the resilience of Filipinos in the face of disaster.
Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in the Philippines. He can be reached at [email protected]. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.
On January 24, 2014 The Asia Foundation hosted a roundtable discussion on its economic development programs, led by Veronique Salze-Lozac’h, the Foundation’s chief economist and senior director of economic development programs.
The Asia Foundation’s economic development work focuses on three distinct areas: creating business environments that allow for private sector growth, promoting regional economic cooperation, and entrepreneurship development focused at a business level.
Ms. Salze-Lozac’h highlighted the example of Bangladesh’s leather sector to illustrate the importance of public-private dialogue and partnerships. The leather industry has historically been located in downtown Dhaka, where it was unable to expand due to space restrictions and environmental concerns. Thanks to a discussion between leather industry workers and Dhaka government officials mediated by The Asia Foundation, an agreement was reached to relocate leather factories outside of central Dhaka.
To promote regional economic cooperation, the Foundation has studied barriers to regional trading, advocated for policies at national and regional levels to promote trade, and worked with regional coalitions like ASEAN and SAARC to remove impediments to trade. Ms. Salze-Lozac’h cited the cost of noncooperation for consumers in South Asia, noting that there is a $2 billion loss to consumer welfare as a result of tariff barriers, and an additional $4 billion loss due to other restrictions. These numbers indicate that economic cooperation would be beneficial to consumers in India, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. The nations of Southeast Asia understand and agree upon the benefits of regional economic cooperation, a consensus that is evident in the countries’ commitment to building a thriving ASEAN Economic Community.
Ms. Salze-Lozac’h was able to focus Foundation efforts on building capacity and connectivity for entrepreneurs on the micro level. In collaboration with APEC, the Foundation completed a study on women entrepreneurs and small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand.
Ms. Salze-Lozac’h also touched on the Foundation’s recent study on middle income countries, noting that the key challenges preventing countries such as Thailand and Malaysia from advancing to upper class nations lies in inadequate education and workforce training.
poverty reduction and inclusive development. Medina-Guce, who was recently selected as one of 10 inaugural 2014 Asia Foundation Development Fellows, is the executive director of the Union of Local Authorities of the Philippines, the umbrella organization of the local government leagues composed of all locally elected officials in the Philippines.
Dr. Thant Thaw Kaung, prominent publisher and library advocate in Myanmar, has been awarded The Asia Foundation’s prestigious 
inaugural Fellows from Mongolia, Badruun Gardi, executive director of the Zorig Foundation in Ulaanbaatar.
The Asia Foundation’s director of Regional Cooperation Programs, 
Ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8, In Asia editor Alma Freeman interviewed Nepali radio journalist and women’s rights advocate, Jaya Luintel, on women’s changing role in politics and society in Nepal, the country’s wide gender gap, and hopes of democratic momentum. Luintel, who was recently selected as one of 10 inaugural 2014 