In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

The conference in the Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation dialogue series convened in Seoul, South Korea, this month, and brought together development experts and senior government officials to discuss climate change mitigation, green growth, and adapting to and building resilience to natural disasters. This dialogue series, co-organized by The Asia Foundation and the Korea Development Institute (KDI), brings together both “emerging” and “traditional” development actors to discuss international development challenges. This year’s focus on effective cooperation for deterring the impacts of climate change was launched in Seoul, fittingly, as South Korea is playing a leading role in low-carbon development in the Asia-Pacific region.

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As discussions on the federal budget and sequestration continue here in Washington, D.C., The Asia Foundation’s Washington office sponsored an event
to discuss how various Asian nations are approaching and, in some cases, expanding their development assistance programs.

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With a special focus on climate change, The Asia Foundation and the Korea Development Institute last week convened 25 government officials, policy specialists, and development experts from more than 10 countries in Seoul for the 8th meeting of the Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation (AADC) dialogue series. Stay tuned for analysis in next week’s blog [...]

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The inauguration ceremony of South Korea’s new president, Park Geun-hye, was held on February 25 with mixed feelings among Koreans about her election. She is the daughter of the controversial former president, Park Chung Hee…

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South Korea’s new President Park Geun-hye took the oath of office [on February 25] as South Korea’s first female president, the first Korean president to have previously lived in the Blue House, and the first Korean president to have visited North Korea prior to her term in office.

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The just-released Open Budget Survey 2012 ranks Afghanistan as the second greatest improver out of 100 countries in budget transparency. South Korea leads among Asian countries as having the most transparent budget, followed by India, Indonesia, and Afghanistan. The Survey also reveals that the national budgets of 77 of the 100 countries assessed fail to [...]

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Following an early ambassadorial visit and a courtesy call on President-elect Park Geun-hye from China’s special envoy Vice Minister Zhang Zhijun, Park has decided to reciprocate by sending her first special envoys to Beijing during the transition.

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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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South Koreans proved once again why they have one of the most vibrant democracies in Asia by narrowly electing the first woman as president of the country on December 19. Even though exit polls showed that she would lose, five-term lawmaker Park Geun-hye secured 51.6 percent…

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Former Korean prime minister and Asia Foundation trustee, Lee Hong-koo, examines issues that loomed large in the  2012 presidential campaign in Korea, including an economy struggling with the global crisis, a young generation adrift with a desire for change, and a budding civil reform movement, known as the Ahn Cheol-soo phenomenon, that is driving Korea’s [...]

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