In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Tens of thousands are gathering in Brazil this week for the 2012 UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20), which is expected to be the largest event in the history of the United Nations. World leaders will discuss the advances that have been made over the past two decades…

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The first Rio Convention on Sustainable Development in 1992 called for businesses to adopt a new blueprint for economic development – to incorporate social, environmental, and economic considerations into business operations. Over the last two decades, some international corporations…

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Real GDP growth in Malaysia has slowed considerably over the past decade and domestic investment, measured as a percentage of GDP, has also decreased. These trends raise doubts about whether Malaysia can attain its goal of reaching developed nation status by the year 2020…

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In January, I took a break from research for the just-released Malaysia Business Environment Index (BEI), which measures perceptions of district-level firms on their business environments, to get a broader perspective…

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On May 8, The Asia Foundation launched a new data visualization tool to help policy-makers and citizens explore the findings of the new 2012 Malaysia Business Environment Index (BEI), the only diagnostic tool designed to measure the business-friendliness of local governments in the country.

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On April 28, Bersih 3.0 – a movement in Malaysia that is supported by 64 NGOs as well as the opposition party components – organized what turned out to be the largest street demonstration in Malaysia in a decade. Bersih in Malay means clean, and tens of thousands of Malaysians thronged the streets…

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The roads leading to the Kuala Lumpur’s Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square) were jammed with people instead of cars on Saturday, April 28. Easily tens of thousands, though later estimates put the total figure somewhere between 200 to 300,000…

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On May 8, The Asia Foundation launched the first-ever Business Environment Index (BEI) that measures local business managers and owners’ perceptions about the business environment at the district level. The findings reveal issues and challenges that are relevant to local economic growth in Malaysia, such as transparency, regulatory costs, crime and security, and land access. [...]

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On Monday night, April 2, Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced to the nation that the country was on track to achieve its goal of high-income developed nation status by 2020. Unveiling the results of the first 2-year phase of the Government Transformation Programme (GTP) and Economic Transformation Programme (ETP), Najib proudly stated that the list of achievements has been “nothing short of astounding.”

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Last week, Asia Foundation trustee and Stimson Center president Ellen Laipson joined veteran journalist Robin Wright in a discussion moderated by new Asia Foundation executive vice president, Suzanne Siskel, on “After the Arab Spring: Prospects for Change.” The panel was part of the World Affairs Council’s annual 2-day conference in San Francisco.

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