In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

On November 14 in Kabul, The Asia Foundation released findings from Afghanistan in 2012: A Survey of the Afghan People – the broadest, most comprehensive public opinion poll in the country – covering all 34 provinces, with candid data gleaned from face-to-face interviews with nearly 6,300 Afghan citizens on security, corruption, women’s rights, the economy, [...]

> More

As the deadline for the transition of Afghanistan’s security from NATO-led forces to the government nears, many raise concerns over the country’s readiness to take on the challenges that the people of Afghanistan will face. On November 14 in Kabul and Washington, D.C., The Asia Foundation will shed light…

> More

My colleague Michelle Chang recently blogged about the promises of mobile money for Asia. It’s true that in many countries, like Pakistan and Afghanistan, where banking infrastructure is limited, mobile money represents a potential solution for the hundreds of millions of individuals who remain unbanked…

> More

The Asia Foundation’s Sam Taffer recently joined Mirza Amiri, former director and CEO of the Export Promotion Agency of Afghanistan, in a discussion on the challenges and opportunities for Afghanistan’s private sector. Mr. Amiri is the recipient of the Foundation’s prestigious Chang-Lin Tien Visiting Fellow Award…

> More

Last month, Afghan president Hamid Karzai announced a series of reforms aimed at addressing the nation’s corruption concerns. In this new paper, one of a series of analytical occasional papers on The Asia Foundation’s “Survey of the Afghan People,” Yama Torabi, founder and director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan, examines Afghan opinions about corruption, the challenges [...]

> More

At the opening day of the South Asia Women Parliamentarians’ Conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh, Dr. Miria Matembe, former member of parliament from Uganda, voiced an increasingly common theme: “The issue of women’s participation in politics is no longer in contention. What is central to the debate now is how to make their participation effective enough to influence the governance agenda and make it responsive to women’s interests, needs, and concerns.” But, despite what seems like a growing consensus around this idea, still just 19.5 percent of the world’s parliamentarians are women.

> More

“Afghanistan transition, 2014.” Ask citizens of countries engaged in Afghanistan since 2001 what this target date means, and the answer is likely to center on bringing home troops and resources. But ask the people of Afghanistan what 2014 means, and the answer is more likely to reflect anxiety…

> More

Although we may not always agree on the specifics – or the application of the concept given its political sensitivities – there is a degree of consensus on the general traits of state fragility.

> More

On July 8 in Tokyo, the governments of Japan and Afghanistan host a ministerial to set out sustainable development priorities for Afghanistan through 2014 and the “transformation decade” (2015-2024). The Asia Foundation co-hosts 30 representatives of Afghan civil society at the Afghan Civil Society Voices Conference just prior, on July 6-7. Read more.

> More

Today is World Refugee Day. This year’s commemoration coincides with ongoing ethnic violence targeting Rohingya Muslims in western Burma (also known as Myanmar). Ethnic clashes in Rakhine State have left at least 50 dead and 30,000 displaced.

> More