In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Widespread hunger now threatens the developing world, especially in Asia. The knee-jerk reactions of individual countries are worsening the situation. Unilateral actions by certain countries have exacerbated the problem of food price increases. Countries and economies are inextricably and unavoidably ever more linked; actions in one nation impact all. For example, the Indian government imposed [...]

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Across the globe, food prices have soared. Between 2006 and 2007, the price of rice doubled in Bangladesh. In Mexico, corn meal prices are up 60 percent since 2006. At the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, wheat hit $24 per bushel in early 2008, in contrast to just $3 to $7 in 2003. On Monday, March 24th, [...]

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Senhor Arnaldo Sombico, the Elder from the enclave district of Oecussi, smiled ruefully as he spoke of the unexpected impact of Timor-Leste’s independence from Indonesia. “This independence gave me a headache!” At independence in 2002, the domestic boundary of Oecussi District was transformed into an international border, part of the demarcation between Indonesia and the [...]

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“While great advances have been made in reducing poverty in Asia, there remain stubborn pockets of deprivation,” said Dr. Arsenio Balisacan, speaking at a recent economic and reform seminar organized by The Asia Foundation in San Francisco. Dr. Balisacan is a noted poverty analyst from the Philippines, the current Director of the Southeast Asian Regional [...]

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Recently, on a visit to the town of Cimahi in Western Java, Indonesia, The Asia Foundation’s economic experts met Pak Itoj Tochija, Cimahi’s Mayor. He was eager to show us their One Stop Shop (OSS): an initiative that facilitates the growth of small and medium businesses by vastly decreasing the time and cost of obtaining [...]

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Economic policy reform is inherently political. Economic policies are codified into public laws, regulations, ordinances and other legal instruments that establish the “rules of the game” and allocate access and assets among various members of the body politic. Changes in economic policy affect the status or welfare of communities in varying ways, often evoking resistance [...]

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