In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

The horrific collapse three weeks ago of an eight-story garment factory building in Savar, just outside of Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, took the lives of more than 1,100 people, and was followed just last week by a deadly fire in another garment factory that left at least eight dead. The tragedies have left a nation in mourning, shining a spotlight on the lack of safety for garment sector workers in Bangladesh. These incidents have drawn international attention on the urgent need for better working conditions for workers, starting with safer, more secure buildings.

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People were standing up and sitting down, intense negotiations were underway, funding decisions were being made, and a lot of commotion was coming from a crowd of over 300 policymakers, scientists, and practitioners from over 40 countries. We are gathered in Dhaka, Bangladesh…

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The Asia Foundation recently hosted U.S. Ambassador to Bangladesh, Dan W. Mozena, for an informal lunch discussion at its San Francisco headquarters, followed by a public event organized by the Foundation’s Washington, D.C., office.

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More than 75 percent of Asia-Pacific countries lack water security, according to a new report released last week by the Asian Development Bank. Compared to other regions, South Asia is a hot spot where inequity of access to water is the highest. The region supports more than 21 percent of the world’s population, but has access to just over 8 percent of global water resources. As rapid population growth and urbanization increase demand, water is increasingly a scarce and precious resource in South Asia. Even as the complex environmental consequences of climate change, deteriorating river ecology, and growing urbanization continue to unfold new challenges for the region, South Asia’s water woes could be significantly mitigated through improved water governance…

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As the world population approaches 9 billion by 2050 and demand for food rises, tackling food security and sustainability is one of the most critical challenges. In Asia editor Alma Freeman spoke with former Asia Foundation president and member of Congress, Douglas Bereuter…

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For International Women’s Day, the UN declared 2013 a “time for action to end violence against women,” as the theme of the annual global event. In the lead up to IWD, on February 14 tens of thousands of events were held in 207 countries across the globe…

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This year, spring arrived a few days early in Bangladesh’s capital, Dhaka, and its advent was a raging bloom. On February 5, a few Bangladeshi blogger-activists occupied the Shahbag intersection to protest against the mild sentence of life-imprisonment awarded to war criminal Abdul Quader Mollah…

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For the past 30 years, Asia has been urbanizing at a faster rate than any other region in the world. In 2011, Asia was home to roughly 61 percent of the world’s population, or 4.2 billion people. More than 40 percent of them now live in urban areas. By 2025, Asia will have 21 of the world’s 37 megacities…

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Season’s Greetings! On behalf of In Asia‘s editorial board and bloggers, we thank you for your engagement and continued readership throughout the year. We’ll be taking a short break, but will return on January 9 for a special “Forecast: Asia in 2013″ edition. In the meantime, catch up on a few must-read pieces and highlights on the most pressing events and issues in Asia throughout 2012.

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Yesterday, countries around the world marked International Migrants Day in recognition of the 214 million migrants on the move across the globe in search of better economic opportunity. No where is this recognition more important than in a place like Nepal…

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