In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

In the farmland regions of Pakistan’s southern Punjab, what used to be fields are now covered with water. Acknowledged as the worst humanitarian crisis in Pakistan’s history, flooding that began three weeks ago in northwestern Pakistan has now displaced more than 20 million people.

Pakistani families carry their belongs in search of higher ground. Over the past three weeks, more than 20 million people have been displaced from flooding. Photo credit: Daniel Berehulak/Getty Images

Bringing together Give2Asia‘s private donor community and The Asia Foundation’s program expertise in Pakistan, the two organizations are working to attract much-needed philanthropy and aid for flood survivors.

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Last week, the Malaysian Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development reported three more incidents of “baby dumping” in a 24-hour period, bringing the total to 60 abandoned babies this year. Many of these children have been found in dumpsters and toilets.

In hopes of deterring such incidents, Malaysia’s Cabinet has recently requested that the police start classifying baby dumping investigations as attempted murder, or if found with intent, murder.

But critics say capital punishment is not the answer. Rather, says Women’s Aid Organisation President Ivy Josiah, sex education and better access to help for pregnant mothers is what’s needed.

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Recently I attended the Shanghai Expo, which has been labeled as “the biggest expo ever.” China spared no expense spending $55 billion – more than twice the amount Beijing spent on the 2008 Olympics – to ensure that people could get to the Expo by adding metro lines, airport terminals, railway stations, and other infrastructure.

China's pavilion at the Shanghai 2010 Expo is three times taller than any other country pavilion. Photo used under a Creative Commons license.

By the time it ends in October, Chinese officials anticipate 70 million people will have passed through the Expo’s turnstiles. Even if there were no long lines, it is absolutely impossible to see everything in one day. With 192 countries represented, one could easily spend a week at the Shanghai Expo.

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On Sunday, the world watched while the Taliban executed a young couple who had eloped by stoning them to death. The couple said they’d eloped because the young woman was promised in an arranged marriage to a relative of her lover, and she did not want to marry him. Nader Nadery, a senior commissioner on the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said in the New York Times, “We’ve seen a big increase in intimidation of women and more strict rules on women.” A recent Time Magazine cover story about a young woman maimed by the Taliban and recent opinion-editorials published by Human Rights Watch’s Rachel Reid and Tom Malinowski, have also served as reminders of the precarious status and future of Afghan women. Following the overthrow of the misogynistic Taliban regime in Afghanistan, the situation for women seemed to enter a promising era. A Ministry of Women was established, and a new constitution guaranteed women 25-percent representation in the legislature. But progress has been stymied in Afghanistan.

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Last week, two separate quantitative studies on the May 10 elections underscored the striking gains demonstrated by automating the elections; however, evidence remains of serious deficiencies in the electoral process. Some entertain more fundamental doubts, but survey readings of the opinions of ordinary voters, systematic study of the experience of poll workers, and an official parallel “random manual audit” all show gains.

June SWS surveys declared the first automated elections in the Philippines a success, despite some glitches with the new scanning machines, above.

Social Weather Stations, the leading non-governmental polling organization in the Philippines, on July 28 released the results of June surveys sponsored by The Asia Foundation on experience of both citizens and (separately) poll workers, known as BEIs (for Board of Election Inspectors).

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Two months ago, the sinking of the South Korean corvette Cheonan appeared to mark a turning point in inter-Korean relations. The South Korean interim investigation identified a North Korean torpedo as the cause of the sinking, providing South Korea and the United States with a strong case to take the issue to the UN Security Council and hold North Korea accountable for its actions. But the July 10 UN Presidential Statement failed to explicitly hold North Korea accountable. This series of events has turned out to represent a setback for all concerned.

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Last week, after much anticipation, the Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia (ECCC) issued the verdict in case 001 in the Khmer Rouge Tribunal. The trial found Kaing Guek Eav, commonly known under his alias “Duch” – the warden of Tuol Sleng prison, or S-21 – guilty of war crimes and crimes against humanity. The guilty verdict was not a surprise, but the sentence – 35 years, reduced for time served to 19 years – surprised some, and enraged others who said it wasn’t long enough for someone who had admitted to overseeing the torture and deaths of 16,000 people.

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“The U.S.-China relationship is fundamentally stable and will remain so for the foreseeable future,” begins David Lampton, Asia Foundation trustee and director of China Studies at The Johns Hopkins School for Advanced International Studies, in his new paper “Power Constrained: Sources of Mutual Strategic Suspicion in U.S-China Relations.” “This is so because the relationship is anchored in the two societies’ respective preoccupations with their own domestic problems, the United States’ draining commitments elsewhere, and the requirement for cooperation on transnational issues such as proliferation, global production chain security, energy, the environment, stabilizing the world economy, and many other positive-sum opportunities.”

Dr. Lampton was recently awarded the prestigious Scalapino Prize for this landmark paper in recognition of his contributions to America’s understanding of the vast changes underway in Asia from the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR) and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars at the Asia Policy Assembly.

A full version of Dr. Lampton’s paper can be downloaded from NBR’s website.

The impact of international development assistance depends, to a large extent, on the ability and willingness of development actors to factor the political landscape into aid programs. It is not uncommon to hear of carefully conceived development programs, meticulously and thoughtfully designed with ample funding, that have been undermined by powerful local actors with other agendas. This same story is heard across the whole spectrum of development work. Programs that mobilize civil society or grass roots community groups to advocate for pro-poor reforms often fall short when faced with heavy resistance by powerful elite actors. In post-conflict environments, newly established state institutions that are designed with world class technical assistance to reflect state-of-the-art best practice do not function the way they were intended.

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Any casual observer walking through the heart of a district capital like Bangladesh’s northeastern city of Sylhet or Rangpur, further north, would be impressed by the bustling economic activity. In the early morning, streets are filled with colorful trucks honking their way toward the market place. Their paths are crossed by overloaded rickshaws delivering raw materials to nearby tailors and small manufacturers. Despite such signs of a vibrant economy, doing business in Bangladesh is far from easy.

In Bangladesh, business people, such as this shop worker, face basic challenges that stunt their growth potential, including cumbersome administrative procedures and lack of transparency from authorities.

In Bangladesh, where The Asia Foundation works with micro, small, and medium enterprises (MSMEs) at the district level, business people often complain about cumbersome administrative procedures, unfair tax administrations, obsolete regulations, and an overall lack of transparency from authorities.

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