In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

President Obama’s overnight visit to Afghanistan underscores the long-term security and financial commitment of the United States to this country in advance of the NATO Summit later this month.

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In recent years, a revolution in data analytics has changed the way both public and private sector institutions share, manage, and analyze information – and it’s a revolution now reaching developing nations. In Timor-Leste, the Ministry of Finance has just made current, real-time national budget statistics available online.

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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 [...]

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The Afghanistan Presidential election being held this week, with a possible October run-off, will have a winner. But, whoever that winner is and whatever policy redirection may be in store, dramatic changes on the ground are unlikely. Despite the political rhetoric inherent in all democratic electioneering, the next President – whether Hamid Karzai, Abdullah Abdullah, [...]

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