By Matthew Pendergast

Matthew Pendergast is The Asia Foundation’s Communications Assistant. He can be reached at mpendergast@asiafound.org. To watch a short film about the group of Mongolian educators discussed below, please click here.

Two weeks ago, I wrote a post on this blog about going to the Yosemite Valley with a group of Mongolian educators, and I talked about rivers and bugs and the importance of putting environmental monitoring tools directly in the hands of Mongolian citizens (click here to see a short film on the group visiting Yosemite).

After the Yosemite trip, I visited once more with the Mongolians before they returned home, this time along the shores of the Pacific Ocean at the Golden Gate National Recreation Area, where they were continuing their study of water quality monitoring.

Seemed strange to me ” isn’t Mongolia landlocked? What’s the point of teaching them about water quality in the ocean of all places? I posed the question to Chris Plante, The Asia Foundation’s Director for Environmental Programs.
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By Steven Rood

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in the Philippines.

On April 7 and 8, an important conference on the Philippines was held in Washington, D.C., titled “Can the Philippines Break Out of its Affliction: Prospects for Democratic Governance, Economic Development, and Philippine-U.S. Relations,” organized by Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Southeast Asia Studies Program and The Asia Foundation, with generous support from Exxon-Mobil Corporation.
This program was a chance to focus attention in Washington on the Philippines, and it was occasioned by the Visiting Professorship at SAIS of Noel Morada, immediate past Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of the Philippines. This piece is a follow-up to last week’s, which discusses panels I-III.
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By Steven Rood

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in the Philippines. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org.

On April 7 and 8, an important conference on the Philippines was held in Washington, D.C., titled “Can the Philippines Break Out of its Affliction? Prospects for Democratic Governance, Economic Development, and Philippine-US Relations,” organized by Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) Southeast Asia Studies Program and The Asia Foundation, with generous support from Exxon-Mobil Corporation.

This program was a chance to focus attention in Washington on the Philippines, and it was occasioned by the Visiting Professorship at SAIS of Noel Morada, immediate past Chair of the Political Science Department at the University of the Philippines.

Read more »

By Nick Langton

Nick Langton is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Nepal. He can be reached at nick@taf.org.np.

Nepalis go to the polls on April 10th for the most important election in their nation’s history, one that will choose a 601 member Constituent Assembly to rewrite Nepal’s constitution. The election has been a long time coming, and its success is crucial to Nepal’s immediate peace and democratic future.

Beginning as an unfulfilled promise by King Tribhuvan in the 1950s, the call for a Constituent Assembly reemerged in the 1990s as one of 40 demands by the Maoist insurgents. After a decade of armed conflict, in 2006 the Maoists and the government signed a comprehensive peace agreement that included as a key feature elections to a Constituent Assembly. The government scheduled polls in June 2007, and then again in November 2007, but both times the elections were postponed due to political maneuvers and unrest. Now, on the third attempt, the election is finally going forward.

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By John Karr

John Karr is The Asia Foundation’s Director for Digital Media. He is currently in Kathmandu filming the events unfolding around the April 10 elections, as well as acting as an elections observer. To contact him, please send an email to aovalle@asiafound.org.

In the last several days here in Kathmandu, despite real and threatened violence, a flurry of campaign activity has taken place in advance of Nepal’s critical Constituent Assembly election. Parties from across the political spectrum engage in planned and spontaneous rallies that snake through Kathmandu’s narrow lanes in a seemingly endless procession of colorful flags, banners, and percussive chants. Motorcycle caravans numbering in the hundreds, often with two or more riders astride each bike, chaotically rumble up and down the city’s wider thoroughfares, waving party flags and calling out to passersby for their support. In Kirtipur on Sunday, Prachanda, the leader of the decade-long Maoist insurgency and himself now a candidate, laid out his agenda for change: a passionate desire to bring education, fresh water, and new roads to Nepal’s most remote regions. Prachanda (a nom de guerre meaning “the fierce one”) appeared to have settled comfortably into his new role as “the candidate.” Speaking before a crowd of several thousand of his fellow countrymen, he respectfully requested their support.

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By Matthew Pendergast

Matthew Pendergast is based in San Francisco at The Asia Foundation’s headquarters, where he works in Communications. He can be reached at mpendergast@asiafound.org.

“Everything is connected. John Muir explored these very mountains and came to that same conclusion. That’s how we approach the environment in Mongolia ” by understanding that everything is part of a system.”

We’re in the car descending into the magnificent Yosemite Valley in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains. Chris Plante, The Asia Foundation’s Director for Environmental Programs, is explaining to me why we’ve brought a group of Mongolian educators here ” 13,000 miles from the arid steppes of Central Asia to lush rolling hills, almond orchards, old mining towns, and fir-lined granite mountains still packed high with snow. These teachers are here to learn about the importance of water quality monitoring, and how they can introduce simple experiential learning into their own classrooms in some of Mongolia’s most remote areas.

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By Ruangrawee Ketphol

Ruengrawee Ketphol is a Senior Program Coordinator for The Asia Foundation’s Tsunami Rights & Legal Aid Referral Center (T-LAC) project in Thailand. To contact her, please write to dfelix@asiafound.org.

Last week, just before dawn on Tuesday morning, six boats loaded with over 120 people left the island of Sin Hai and sailed for the mainland. Elsewhere along the coast of Ranong province, hundreds of other people climbed into buses and pickup trucks to travel to Ranong city for an event held by The Asia Foundation in conjunction with the provincial government. The long-awaited day was the culmination of a program organized by the Foundation’s Tsunami Rights and Legal Aid Referral Center (T-LAC) to provide free DNA tests which enabled unrecognized Thai citizens to prove their nationality and obtain ID cards.

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By Jon Summers and Shabir Chandio

Jon Summers is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Pakistan, and can be reached at jsummers@asiafound.org; Dr. Shabir Chandio is a Senior Program Officer at the Foundation in Pakistan.

While it’s easy for the dramatic events of the last year in Pakistan to overshadow other issues, the stories that do not get told often tend to have the largest, daily impact on people’s lives. Pakistan’s very recent history has been full of tremendous highs and lows ” Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, the ongoing struggle over the judiciary, and elections, while imperfect, were widely recognized as democratic ” just to name a few. While all of this has been going on, so has constant work to campaign against a well-known and predictable foe: tuberculosis.

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Hosted by SAIS Southeast Asia Studies Program and The Asia Foundation with generous support from Exxon-Mobil Corporation

This one and a half-day conference brings together American and Filipino government officials, scholars, experts, and watchers of Philippine affairs, providing a venue for exchange ideas on the prospects for political reform, economic development, and peace and security in Southeast Asia’s oldest democracy. Specifically, the meeting will look into the issues and problems concerning democratic consolidation, reform of the Armed Forces of the Philippines, economic development, internal armed conflicts, and the future of bilateral partnership between the Philippines and the United States.

In addition to major speakers, the conference will have five panel sessions with three panelists each and an open forum for discussion and exchange of ideas among presenters and participants. The conference agenda and registration information will be available on March 14, 2008. Below is an outline of the conference program

Schedule:

Monday, 7 April 2008

8:15-8:45 AM Continental Breakfast available

8:45-9:00 AM Welcome Remarks

Dr. Karl D. Jackson, Director, Southeast Asia Studies, SAIS

Dr. Noel M. Morada, Visiting Professor of Southeast Asia Studies, SAIS

9:00-10:30 AM Panel I: The Philippine Economy: How Can the Philippines Sustain Economic Growth and Development? .

Chair: Dr. Veronique Salze-Lozac’h, The Asia Foundation

Panelists:

Mr. Brett Decker, Senior Vice President, ExIm Bank

Dr. Felipe Medalla, School of Economics, University of the Philippines (UP) Diliman

World Bank Representative (tbi)

10:30-10:45 AM Break

10:45 AM-12:15 PM Panel II: Transforming Philippine Politics: How Can the Philippines Get Democratic Good Governance?

Chair: Dr. Steven Rood, The Asia Foundation-Manila

Panelists:

Dr. Paul Hutchcroft, University of Wisconsin Madison

Prof. Alexander R. Magno, Department of Political Science, UP Diliman

12:15-1:45 PM Luncheon: “Asian Development Outlook”

Briefing: Dr. Ifzal Ali, Chief Economist, Asian Development Bank
Moderator: Dr. Michael Plummer, Resident Professor of International Economics, SAIS Bologna Center

1:45-2:00 PM Break

2:00-3:30 PM Panel III: Is Military Reform Possible?

Chair: Prof. William Wise, Associate Director Southeast Asia Studies, SAIS

Panelists:

Mr. James Clad, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, Department of Defense

Col. Gregorio Catapang, Department of National Defense

Mr. Ed Ross, President, EWRoss International LLC

3:30-3:45 PM Break

3:45-5:15 PM Panel IV: Armed Challenges: How Can the Philippines Manage Internal Conflict?

Chair: Mr. Eugene Martin, Executive Director, Hopkins Nanjing Center

Panelists:Mr. F. Augusto J. Mier, National Security Council of the Philippines
Dr. Susan Russell, Northern Illinois University

5:15 PM End of Day 1 of the Conference

Tuesday, 8 April 2008

8:30-9:00 AM Continental Breakfast available

9:00-11:00 AM Panel V: Beyond the Security Alliance: Philippine-US Relations in the 21st Century

Chair: Dr. Karl D. Jackson, Director, Southeast Asia Studies, SAIS

Panelists:

Mr. Scot Marciel, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State, East Asia and Pacific Affairs, State Department

Mr. Carlos Sorreta, Deputy Chief of Mission, Philippine Embassy Washington DC

Dr. Steven Rood, The Asia Foundation-Manila

Dr. Noel M. Morada, Visiting Professor of Southeast Asia Studies, SAIS

11:00 AM End of Conference

Location: Kenney Auditorium, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University

1740 Massachusetts Avenue, NW, Washington, DC

For more information, please contact: Noel M. Morada, Ph.D.

Visiting Professor of Southeast Asia Studies, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, Washington D.C.

Tel: (202) 663-5815

Email: nmorada1@jhu.edu, nmorada@gmail.com

San Francisco and Washington, D.C.
Berkeley, CA – March 26, 2008
Palo Alto, CA – March 27, 2008
San Francisco, CA – March 28, 2008
Washington, D.C. – April 1, 2008

The Asia Foundation has pioneered a tool called the local “Economic Governance Index” (EGI) as a way to measure business-friendliness of local governments in Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Sri Lanka, and the Philippines. The EGI highlights the provinces that are most open to private enterprise and least encumbered by red-tape when it comes to business start-up, for example: entry and licensing costs, inspections and registration waiting periods, transparency, and access to training and legal institutions.

The governments of these provinces have embraced the EGI as a tool to help them measure local reforms and government performance, and there has been  increased public attention when index standings are announced, resulting in healthy competition among provinces. As a result, businesses and entrepreneurs have begun to see the index as a useful means of deciding where to put businesses. A team of economic experts are hosting a series of programs this Spring on this important effort to support increased business activity through the use of the Economic Governance Index. We hope you are able to join one of the presentations.

Expert Speakers:
Bruce Tolentino, Director of Economic Reform and Development Programs at The Asia Foundation, San Francisco
Edmund Malesky, Asia Foundation partner and Assistant Professor, University of California, San Diego
Veronique Salze-Lozac’h, Regional Director of Economic Reform and Development Programs, The Asia Foundation, Cambodia
Neil McCulloch, Director of Economic Programs, The Asia Foundation, Indonesia

RSVP: Please contact info@asiafound-dc.org for more information with your name, affiliation, and contact information.