In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Afghanistan has been through increasingly difficult times in the 12 months since The Asia Foundation conducted its last survey of Afghan public opinion in the summer of 2007. Amidst slow but steady gains in vital basic amenities and services and some successes in reconstruction efforts across the country, the conflict resulted in significantly higher civilian and military casualties; food shortages in many regions became severe, with several million Afghans facing near-starvation this coming winter; and inflation and unemployment continued to rise. The country and the international community now confront presidential and other elections in 2009 and 2010.

In this context, The Asia Foundation conducted its fourth annual nationwide survey of Afghan public opinion in summer 2008.

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Despite rapid economic progress over the past thirty years, many of Asia’s most critical development challenges persist.  More than 600 million Asian people earn less than $1 per day, and hundreds of millions more live in poverty. Institutional, economic, and social incentives inadvertently support polluting and environmentally destructive practices while inconsistent policies and widespread corruption hinder change. It is no surprise that rapidly industrializing nations in Asia face some of the highest rates of air and water pollution in the world.

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From 1985 to 1989 I was a Senior Fulbright Scholar and a law consultant to The Asia Foundation’s office in Colombo, Sri Lanka.  During that time, I also taught in Sri Lanka’s law schools. Last December, I was back in Sri Lanka and learned that a book I wrote during my days there, An Introduction to International Law from a Sri Lankan Perspective (Open University Press: 1989), was still the standard text.  I suppose that I should have been flattered, but I was disappointed and saddened that they weren’t using a newer, updated text.  There have been no updates to the book in nearly twenty years, two decades in which incredible developments in international law have taken place.

The Asia Foundation is deeply concerned about the quality of legal education across the developing world. 

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The XXIX Beijing Olympiad, an event that had preoccupied Chinese leaders for almost a decade as they sought to utilize the games to project to domestic and international audiences China’s accomplishments on an international stage, has framed many issues in Sino-Korean relations, especially given the many resonances between the 1988 Olympics in Seoul and the Beijing Olympics two decades later. But now that the Olympics are over, Chinese leaders may adopt a different frame for viewing the world and the Korean peninsula, the details of which have begun to emerge in the “post-Olympics era.”

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On October 20th, The Asia Foundation Ambassador Karl “Rick” Inderfurth, Asia Foundation trustee and former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, spoke at  Stanford University, along with other Asia Foundation trustees, Ted Eliot, Jr., former Ambassador to Afghanistan, and Teresita Schaffer, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs, in a conversation called  “Awaiting the Next U.S. Administration: Seizing New Opportunities in India–Addressing Growing Challenges  With Pakistan and Afghanistan.” All three wrote chapters in the just-published volume, America’s Role in Asia. More about the discussion can be read in the article “India, U.S. on Track for More Accords: Inderfurth.”

For more information, please contact Amy Ovalle in San Francisco at aovalle@asiafound.org or 415.743.3340; or Katherine Brown in New York & Washington at kbrown@asiafound.org or 202.271.1751.

At 12a.m. Eastern Standard Time (8:30am Kabul Time) on Tuesday, October 28th, The Asia Foundation will release findings from its most recent public opinion poll in Afghanistan, which covers the largest population sample ever surveyed at one time in all 34 of Afghanistan’s provinces. “Afghanistan in 2008: A Survey of the Afghan People” is the fourth poll conducted by the Foundation, which released previous polls in 2004, 2006, and 2007. Collectively, the four surveys establish an accurate, long-term barometer of public opinion across Afghanistan to help assess the direction in which the country is moving in the post-Taliban era.

A copy of the 2008 survey will be available in its entirety at www.asiafoundation.org.

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Earlier this week Thailand’s Supreme Court found former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra guilty on charges of abuse of power.  Although one protester occupying Government House proclaimed “we won!” upon hearing the Supreme Court’s ruling, the fact is the country’s political paralysis remains.  Tensions are indeed mounting.  Last week Thai army chief, General Anupong Paochinda, spoke on national television saying Prime Minister Somchai Wongsawat (who coincidentally is Thaksin’s brother-in-law) should resign.  The thousands of protestors occupying Government House under the banner of the People’s Alliance for Democracy are saying they will settle for nothing less.  Prime Minister Somchai has ignored these demands saying he is too busy doing his job.

This comes at a time when Thailand is facing the threat of a border war with Cambodia over a disputed area around the 11th century Prear Vihar temple.

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The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Vietnam, Kim Ninh, is featured in PBS’s Frontline World’s, “Forgive and Forget?: America Inside the Vietnamese Soul” in which she offers her insight as a returned expat to Hanoi. She tells reporter Nguyen Qui Duc, “Vietnam is a place that has tremendous affection for America, and I find myself explaining America to my Vietnamese friends and colleagues. In that process, I can recall the good things about America and what makes me feel American: the openness of mind, the generosity of spirit, the willingness to experiment, and the mix of people and institutions that allow for such extraordinary creativity. America is truly a special place.” She can be reached at kninh@asiafound.org.

The below was originally posted this week by the Sierra Club of California.

Sierra Club California got a rare opportunity to take part in a landmark international effort today. Representatives of China’s Hunan Province came to Sacramento with The Asia Foundation to learn about how California makes information available to the public. They wanted to know how California public interest groups ” including Sierra Club California and the Public Policy Institute of California ” interact with the government to obtain information, particularly environmental information.

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“Human Development” as a concept stands at the center of a vast array of development funding and policy initiatives — and in its broadest sense encompasses indicators of life expectancy, education, gross national product etc.., as well as environmental quality, effective governance, and freedom. For a full elaboration I refer you to the excellent discussion paper on this topic produced by Hady Amr for the 2008 Doha US-Islamic World Forum.

Let’s look at education, because, when one looks at Islamic schools and Islamic education in the region, one can observe a fascinating dualism: in many areas, Islamic education is the poorest in quality and serves the poorest demographics; at the same time, there are Islamic schools and institutions that are centers of excellence, which function as a bridge or vehicle for lifting the human development indicators of entire communities around them.

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