In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

The flooding that submerged one-third of Thailand this year was the worst the country had seen in 50 years. Sixty-five provinces and over 4 million people have been affected, tens of thousands have lost jobs, and nearly 700 were killed. Nine provinces remain underwater. Thailand’s National Economic and Social Development Board slashed its projected 2011 GDP to 1.5, down from its pre-flood projection of as much as 4 percent. The World Bank estimates that rehabilitation costs could reach $25 billion.

Primary and secondary schools were not spared from the destruction. A total of 2,237 schools were destroyed or damaged. According to the Ministry of Education, repairs will cost an estimated $44.2 million.

Floodwaters in Thailand damaged thousands of schools, including Angthong Temple Nursery School above, located on the shore of the Chao Phraya River north of Bangkok. Photo: Angthong Temple Nursery School.

Principals from four of the worst affected areas that I visited recently said students missed 25 or more class days on average, which were made up by staying an hour longer each day and, in some cases, coming in on Saturdays. Also, because their workplaces were flood-damaged, many parents could not work for a month or two, dramatically reducing household income and their ability to provide for their families. Even though tuition, lunch, and uniforms at public schools are free, students must pay for courses not required by the Ministry of Education. Ang Thong Nursery, located on the shore of the Chao Phraya River north of Bangkok, for example, offers computer classes and English and Chinese instruction with foreign teachers, totaling $33 per year. These skills are critical to the future success in Thailand’s highly populated and competitive job market but were disrupted due to the flood damage.

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In the 60 years since The Asia Foundation began, the global development landscape and accompanying aid architecture has changed dramatically. Tackling the challenge of global poverty reduction seems to be on track. In the early 1980s, more than half of people in developing countries lived in extreme poverty. Today, this figure is around 16 percent and falling. Asia is largely responsible for these dramatic figures. Asia has experienced one of the most rapid paces of development in human history and, hence, it is no wonder that political and economic pundits have dubbed this era “The Asian Century.”

Many countries in Asia also share the unique experience of being aid recipients and donors, often simultaneously. Asian countries as donors are now contributing to significant shifts in global aid architecture.

Alongside this success, however, the Asian Century faces looming challenges. These include climate change, the global financial crisis, food security, humanitarian crises resulting from devastating natural disasters, and persistent pockets of conflict and fragility. For many countries in Asia, the challenge is how to maintain a positive development trajectory, while tackling these challenges and avoiding the middle-income trap. It is fitting that the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness (HLF4) is being held in Asia. As host, South Korea provides a valuable, concrete example of how aid can be an effective catalyst of development.

Many countries in Asia also share the unique experience of being aid recipients and donors, often simultaneously. Asian countries as “donors” are now contributing to significant shifts in global aid architecture. Two decades ago, aid from the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development‘s (OECD) Development Assistance Committee (DAC) member countries constituted 80 percent of total aid. Today this amount is closer to 50 percent. Contributing to this change in composition of global development assistance is the significant increase in assistance from non-DAC countries, notably China and India.

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It is entirely appropriate that the Fourth High Level Forum on Aid Effectiveness is being held in the city of Busan, South Korea. In many ways, Busan symbolizes the story of Korea’s transition from poverty and aid dependence to aid donor and host of the most important global meeting on development cooperation. Forum participants from around the world are marveling at the glass and steel towers and the busy port. But go back a few decades and the picture was very different.

Thousands of delegates descended on Korea's major port town, Busan, this week for the HLF4. Photo: Flickr user: LWY

During the Korean War (1950-53), Busan was the only major port that did not quickly fall into North Korean hands. Through that port, war material and humanitarian supplies flowed into the devastated country. For many soldiers, aid workers, and journalists, Busan (then spelled Pusan) was their first view of this largely unknown country, and the first impression was almost universally negative. The surrounding hillsides were covered with the shanties of millions of refugees who flowed into the enclave. Nevertheless, with massive external assistance, Korea went on to recover its lost territory and begin the arduous task of rebuilding.

During the 1950s and 60s, the international community, especially the United States, stepped in to support Korea’s reconstruction and development with direct budget support and technical assistance. Then, aid flowed through the port of Busan in the form of the “three whites” (sugar, flour, cotton) that met the immediate needs of the people and helped re-start the economy.

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In a recent speech at the Overseas Development Institute, former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair stressed the important role that leadership plays in development.

Now, as the Forum draws to an end, the importance of leadership proves a crucial and timely message, and one that is closely tied into the growing debate about development “ownership”; for it is important to remember that ownership requires “owners.” Such owners, however, cannot be confined to the top leadership of central government, as ownership also requires action and support from leaders at the sub-national level, as well as across all sectors, including the private sector and wider interests in civil society. The new challenge for development that has been addressed in Busan – and will, hopefully, continue to be addressed beyond it – is how the international community can help to facilitate or broker processes through which these leaderships can work better together to share ownership of locally appropriate and legitimate institutions and policies.

But, while policy-makers recognize that leadership matters, they are also prone to ask the questions: “So what?” and “What can we do about it?” In light of such unanswered questions, the Developmental Leadership Program (DLP), an international policy initiative directed by an independent steering committee of partner organizations, including The Asia Foundation, funded primarily by AusAID,  works to better understand and promote the role developmental leadership plays in fostering sustainable economic growth, political stability, and inclusive social development.

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When times are tough, it’s difficult to settle into a charitable mood. At the mention of global aid, people grumble that we can’t even afford to care for our needy at home. But as with individual lives, a nation needs to look beyond immediate concerns in forging a path for the future. The tougher times are, the bolder and more resolute we must be in upholding our responsibilities. Having ascended to donor country status, we cannot sidestep or neglect our role of offering aid to countries that lag behind in economic progress.

We live in a borderless global community interlinked by networks created by globalization, not to mention our connectivity in terms of computers and communication. No countries can survive cut off from these global fetters. A country’s problems and challenges are no longer restricted to its own borders. They become global problems and concerns that require regional or international solutions.

War and peace, struggles for democratization, sustainable economic development, and environmental challenges are common endeavors members of the entire world community in the 21st century must address together for the viability of the planet, regardless of where they live. We learned from our own experience a century ago that self-exile and estrangement from the global mainstream can cost a country its very sovereignty. This is why we have endeavored over the years so desperately to get into the front-runners’ group in global society.

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Just yesterday, on November 15 in Kabul and Washington, D.C., The Asia Foundation released the results of its 2011 Survey of the Afghan People.

The annual Survey of the Afghan People is the most comprehensive and credible nationwide poll of public opinion on topics related to national mood, governance, security, and development in Afghanistan. In 2011, the survey polled over 6,300 respondents from all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.

The Asia Foundation interviewed 6,348 adult Afghans, across all 34 provinces of Afghanistan in face-to-face interviews for the 2011 Survey. Above, surveyors poll a resident in Bamyan Province.

With funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), The Asia Foundation has implemented the survey since 2004. Over this period, the survey has generated a treasure trove of data and information, and the changes over time in the views and mindset of the people of Afghanistan.

The opinions of average Afghans matter a great deal in a country that continues to face enormous challenges in governance, security, and livelihoods. Good understanding among national leaders and international “influencers” of the views of the general population are also crucial as the struggling nation attempts to define its national vision while being buffeted by the inconstant waves of international intervention and regional competition.

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On November 19, leaders of the 18 nations that comprise the East Asia Summit (EAS) will meet in Bali, Indonesia, to discuss a broad array of political, security, and economic issues. For the first time, the United States will participate as a full-fledged member. For much of the post-Cold War period, the U.S. approach to institution-building in Asia has been episodic at best and distant throughout. However, since President Obama’s inauguration in 2009, his administration has sought to develop a more comprehensive and integrated approach toward the Asia-Pacific, and the United States joining the EAS represents a “forward-deployed diplomacy” where it can increase its involvement in, and influence over, traditional and non-traditional security issues of common concern where all member countries pursue rules-based, pragmatic solutions to these challenges – from maritime security, nuclear non-proliferation, disaster management, and humanitarian relief to energy and food security, environmental protection, infectious diseases, and trafficking-in-persons.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in her recent article in Foreign Policy: “Just as Asia is critical to America’s future, an engaged America is vital to Asia’s future.” So in what framework will the United States be operating in at the EAS? The Obama administration made a clear decision that it wanted to be involved in regional architecture where the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) served as the “fulcrum,” to borrow Secretary Clinton’s word. This served ASEAN’s purpose of wanting to engage all extra-regional powers (including the United States) peacefully within the framework where the association is at the core of Asian regional architecture.  Moreover, U.S. participation in EAS serves as an opportunity to balance an increasingly perceived Chinese assertiveness in regional affairs. As some astute Southeast Asian observers have commented to me: “We want the U.S. to lead from behind as it did in Libya and is currently doing in Myanmar.” Some Americans may take exception to the idea of the U.S. “leading from behind,” but one should think that the United States is being discreet, not desultory.

The United States’ desire to be more involved in Asian multilateral institutions comes at a time when it has been strengthening treaty alliances with Japan, Korea, Australia, and the Philippines, as well as expanding and deepening its bilateral relations with Indonesia, Vietnam, Malaysia, and Cambodia. By engaging Asian nations both multilaterally and bilaterally, the United States has helped dissipate, but not completely dispel, a widespread belief in the region that it does not have an enduring commitment to the region.

But, over time, ASEAN’s centrality to Asian regional architecture will need to translate into results. A key challenge in the coming years will be for ASEAN to manage increasing demands from the United States, China, and others. The United States wants the EAS to focus exclusively on political/security issues and let APEC address economic and trade issues. However, China wants the EAS to deal with both economic cooperation and security questions, and insists that all discussion be handled according to principles of mutual respect and non-interference in each other’s internal affairs. How will ASEAN, as the “fulcrum of regional architecture” in Asia, form a common position on important issues facing the EAS, APEC, and other regional architecture that may or may not include the United States?

Answers to these questions will not be resolved on November 19. But, hopefully, the summit in Bali will begin a process for fostering cooperation on issues that constructively address significant regional needs throughout the Asia-Pacific.

John J. Brandon is The Asia Foundation’s director of the Regional Cooperation Program in Washington, D.C. He can be reached at jbrandon@asiafound-dc.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

President Barack Obama will be the first U.S. president ever to attend an East Asia Summit (EAS), to be chaired by Indonesia in Bali on November 19. This summit comes at the end of a major Asia-Pacific tour for President Obama, beginning with APEC in Honolulu, a visit to Australia, and continuing on with the 19th ASEAN Summit and EAS in Bali – in what is a clear effort to shore up American presence in the region. This Obama tour, and particularly the EAS component, is strategically significant for both Indonesia and the United States. Indonesia has actively supported the addition of Russia and the United States to the EAS. Their induction last year, followed by Obama’s presence at the EAS this year, indicates not only the increasing importance of East Asia globally, but also serves to strengthen the political clout of the EAS as a regional forum.

Diplomatically, Indonesia is playing a bit of a balancing game – seeking to broaden the perimeters of ASEAN influence to include global players like the United States and Russia, while at the same time trying to keep ASEAN (especially during this year when Indonesia is chair) firmly in the driver’s seat. Indonesia’s motivation to broaden the stakeholders in the region is not simply about giving regional architectures more heft, but is also driven by the imperative to balance China’s dominance in the region.

The China factor appears to be prominent among U.S. policymakers’ thinking as well. The Obama administration has been visibly playing catch-up in seeking to establish a more active U.S. presence in East Asia, and particularly in Southeast Asia. Obama signed the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in 2009 which paved the way for the United States to join the EAS; his administration has held multiple high-level bilateral meetings with ASEAN leaders over the past three years, and of course, Obama himself visited Indonesia in November of last year.

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As world population reached 7 billion last week, stories about the implications of population growth saturated the media. While total population counts offer broad “sound bite” appeal, the underlying structure of population has far greater socio-economic, political, and environmental implications.

The population of India is expected to eclipse that of China around the year 2025. Photo by Karl Grobl.

Population composition by sex, age, ethnicity, educational attainment, political orientation, or geography matters for everything from school planning to environmental management and even to political stability. It has been 25 years since the widespread adoption of sex-selective abortion, and pockets of developing countries around the world are now contending with a dearth of women which precludes a generation of young men from marrying and starting a family. The absence of this stabilizing social institution has already had a notable impact on crime rates, political organization, and migration patterns.

Variance in age structure has similar ramifications, and a comparison of India and China offers an illustrative example. As noted in last week’s blog piece, “7 Billion and Counting,” the population of India is expected to eclipse that of China around the year 2025. But the sheer size of the world’s two most populous countries masks stark underlying differences in population age structure. In the year 2000, China’s total fertility rate was just 1.6 births per woman, falling well below the “replacement rate” of about 2.1 needed to sustain a stationary population. So is China’s population shrinking? Not yet. This is partly because a total fertility rate of 2.1 will only maintain a constant population size under a stable mortality rate while China is making substantial gains in public health. Life expectancy at birth was already 71 in 2000 but is expected to reach 81 by 2050. In fact, China will still be growing when the population of India surpasses it. However, sometime around 2030, the population-shrinking influence of low fertility will overtake the population-growing effect of reduced mortality, and the population will begin to decline. This expectation is of course contingent on the assumption that fertility rates will not rebound and that longevity improvements fall along a similarly predictable trajectory.

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Last week, Nepal’s political parties reached agreement on the future of 19,602 Maoist ex-combatants, breaking years of political log jam. In Asia spoke with Asia Foundation Nepal country representative, George Varughese, on the implications for political progress, reactions on the street, and how this agreement rescued the peace process from collapse.

What effect will this agreement – which some observers describe as “historic” – have on moving Nepal’s peace process forward?

This agreement is indeed historic for some important reasons. First, the Maoist party had been living with a strategic contradiction over whether to fully embrace the course of peace and a new constitution while also hewing to revolutionary rhetoric and dogma. With this agreement, the Maoist party establishment overcame this internal dilemma despite serious resistance from its radical faction. Second, given that November 21 will be the five-year anniversary of the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement, and that the Constituent Assembly will have exceeded its original mandate of two years by one and half years by then, the original enthusiasm for negotiations, ownership over the peace process, and people’s general faith in the political process has gradually eroded. If this agreement had not taken place when it did, there was a real risk of collapse of the peace process and of the constitution drafting exercise. The November 1 agreement has rescued the process from potential collapse and rekindled hope in the average Nepali.

Agreement on the numbers for integration, norms, modality, and rehabilitation packages constituted one of the most contentious issues of the peace process. The effect will be far-reaching on both the progress of the peace process as well as on holding the parties accountable.

The latest deadline for a new constitution is up in less than a month. Does this deal bring the nation closer to a constitution?

Despite last week’s 7-point agreement, the parties are not likely to come up with a new constitution by the November 30 deadline. At best, they will have resolved the manner in which to deal with the most contentious issues in constitutional deliberations while tendering a less-than-complete draft constitution. This means the parties are likely to extend the tenure of the Constituent Assembly for another six months or so in order to have a complete draft available for debate within and outside the Assembly.

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