By Davaasuren Baasankhuu

Last week – February 15 – marked the deadline for Mongolia’s highest-level officials and civil servants to reveal all: all of their financial and material worth, that is. Civil servants and officials were required to submit Asset and Income Disclosure (AID) statements by that deadline, with disclosures from the top 270 officials posted on a public website. Collecting the statements is one of the main responsibilities of the Independent Authority Against Corruption (IAAC) of Mongolia, established soon after the passage of the Anti-Corruption Law in 2006. The legislation requires that the president of Mongolia, all Parliament members, judges, central bank governors, auditors, prosecutors, civil servants of ministries, implementing and regulatory agencies, local government authorities, and state-owned entities must submit their AIDs every year.
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By Mir Rakib Ahsan and Jerome Sayre

In late 2003, when The Asia Foundation first sought to introduce community-oriented policing in Bangladesh to help address security issues at the local level, the welcome was not warm. The idea was brand new, and, naturally, police were unsure of the process and at a loss as to the expected outcomes. Some feared it would evolve into a separate law enforcement unit gradually taking over some police responsibilities. Others resisted changes that might forever alter the way things were done. Police also responded negatively to our proposals to involve civil society organizations. On the community side, citizens showed little enthusiasm for working directly with the police.
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By Nilan Fernando and Maria Merla Aquino

Although the civil war in Sri Lanka’s Northern Province ended in May 2009, decades of armed conflict have damaged the relationship between state and civil society, between the government and the governed.

Because of the war, elections for municipal councils, urban councils, and pradeshiya sabhas (local authorities that mostly govern in rural areas) in the North have been few and far between. Nevertheless, administrative staff of these local authorities remained in place and – despite limited capacity and resources – worked to provide necessary services for a semblance of local governance; but clearly much has been neglected. With the war’s end, the Province is beginning to recover. The first local authority elections since the war ended were held in 2009 for the Jaffna Municipal Council (won by the government party, the United Peoples Freedom Alliance) and the Vavuniya Urban Council (won by the Tamil National Alliance). It was the first election to the Jaffna MC since 1998 and the first election to the Vavuniya UC since 1994. Elections for the 32 other local councils in the North as well as for the provincial council are likely be held in late 2010.
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The prospect of forging a final peace agreement between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) within the current Arroyo administration is getting slimmer as the national May 2010 presidential elections draw nearer. Talks have resumed, but only after a tumultuous 18 months that threatened to shatter every single gain that these peace talks have managed to build. Now they face the challenge of forging something concrete and actionable within three months. The idea of an interim agreement has been floated to reflect the need to transition the talks safely from the current to the next administration. How durable is this peace process? What can be done to sustain it?

In this critical period, The Asia Foundation organized an open forum this week with the Institute of Bangsamoro Studies to convene representatives from other regions experiencing conflict and share possible answers to such questions and explore common challenges and solutions.
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As we head into a new decade, what do you see changing in Asia? The Asia Foundation is looking for compelling photos from readers that exemplify change – large or small – in Asia: whether on your travels, in your country, neighborhood, or on your street; socially, economically, culturally, or in global affairs. In three days, The Asia Foundation will select five photos, which will then be turned over to our Facebook fans for a final vote. The selected photo will be featured on the homepage of The Asia Foundation’s global website and in our 2010 Flickr Photography Contest album. Visit our Flickr page to learn how to participate.

Photo by Karl Grobl.

By Maribel Buenaobra and Steven Rood

It’s SHOWTIME!  In the Philippines, politics is entertainment and elections are fiestas. This proved to be true once again with the start of the official campaign season on February 9.

At campaign kick-offs in various parts of the country, presidential candidates were joined with celebrities, singers, and dancers at the campaign sorties. Manny Villar of the Nationalista Party had skimpily-clad dancers gyrating on the stage; Noynoy Aquino had Coco Martin (respected actor and current heartthrob of stage and screen) join his motorcade in Tarlac; administration candidate Gilbert Teodoro has actor Eduardo Manzano as vice-presidential candidate; and, of course, ex-President Joseph Estrada started his career as a well-known film actor himself, became president, returned to acting, and is now running for president again.

Presidential campaign posters, such as this one for candidate Gilberto "G1BO" Teodoro, are ubiquitous during election season in the Philippines.

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By V. Bruce J. Tolentino and Davaasuren Baasankhuu

With four-fifths of its export income dependent on mining exports, Mongolia was hit particularly hard by the recent international economic crisis. A recent New York Times article goes so far as to say that Mongolia is arguably Asia’s hardest hit country. For a nation experiencing a period of rapid growth averaging 9 percent per year from 2004 to 2008, such a plunge is disappointing and unsettling, to say the least.
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By Scott A. Snyder

In an interview with Bloomberg Business Week last Thursday, President Obama stated that he would like to complete pending trade agreements with South Korea, Columbia, and Panama, but there’s a catch. Although his State of the Union Address provided a potentially powerful strategic rationale for passing these free trade agreements (FTAs) as part of the administration’s effort to double exports over the next five years, the president’s statement in his interview with Bloomberg was actually a step backwards.
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Over the last two decades, Asia has been the fastest growing region in the world, explains Bruce Tolentino, Asia Foundation’s Director of Economic Reform and Development Programs. Yet even in these fast-growing countries, poverty and inequality has persisted. In a new video, Tolentino explains some of the key impediments to broad-based economic growth and how the Foundation’s programs address continuing poverty and inequity. Watch the video below to learn more. This week, Tolentino blogs about one fast-growing nation, Mongolia, and its push to recover from the global recession.

As we head into a new decade, what do you see changing in Asia? The Asia Foundation is looking for compelling photos from readers that exemplify change – large or small – in Asia: whether on your travels, in your country, neighborhood, or on your street; socially, economically, culturally, or in global affairs. In just over a week, The Asia Foundation will select five photos, which will then be turned over to our Facebook fans for a final vote. The selected photo will be featured on the homepage of The Asia Foundation’s global website and in our 2010 Flickr Photography Contest album. Visit our Flickr page to learn how to participate.

Despite a period of rapid growth, Mongolia, pictured above, is struggling to recover from the global recession.