In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

“Just because they are poor and isolated doesn’t mean they don’t have the potential to be the next Bill Gates,” said Shahed Keyes, the founder of Subornogram Foundation in Bangladesh, while introducing me to lively students at a school he started on the remote island of Mayadip.

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March 8 marks the 101st celebration of International Women’s Day. A century of history has seen this global occasion imbued with varying levels of political, economic, social, and cultural significance in diverse cultures around the globe. The United Nations has declared this year’s International Women’s Day theme, “Empower Rural Women – End Hunger and Poverty.” According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 578 of the world’s 925 million chronically hungry people live in the Asia-Pacific region.

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From January 25-29, the world’s most powerful leaders from the public and private sectors gather in the Swiss town of Davos to try to agree on measures that will eventually impact billions of people across the world. The event is being held against an unprecedentedly gloomy global economic picture. The World Bank
recently reported that the world economy will grow by only 2.5 percent in 2012, far below initial estimates of 3.6 percent. In Europe, leaders have yet to come up with a comprehensive solution to the eurozone crisis.

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On Monday, Malaysia’s High Court acquitted opposition leader Anwar Ibrahim of sodomy charges after a highly publicized and controversial 2-year trial. As Malaysia looks to elections in 2013, which are widely expected to be called later this year, In Asia‘s editor, Alma Freeman, interviews Herizal Hazri and Nurshafenath Shaharuddin in The Asia Foundation’s Malaysia office for insight into how the verdict could affect elections, Prime Minister Najib Razak’s recent democratic reforms, what this says about the independence of Malaysia’s judiciary, and more.

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For much of the past two decades, many Southeast Asians have expressed frustration that U.S. policy treated their region with benign neglect or indifference, and that the United States’ attention was episodic rather than consistent. In 2011, the Obama administration announced that the U.S. needed to make “a strategic pivot” in its foreign policy…

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In 2011, Asia grappled with a host of devastating shocks, both natural and man-made. As challenging and economically harsh as they have been, they have provided an opportunity for Asia’s emerging economies to dramatically assert their economic resilience and regional influence.

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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.

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This story is one that I have shared many times before. Years ago, I found myself walking through a stunning village in Bazarak, Panjshir Valley – home of the late Ahmad Shah Massoud – over 50 miles from Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul. I was there to help monitor preparations for the 2004 presidential elections.

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On the eve of Malaysia Day (Sept 16), Malaysia’s Prime Minister Najib Razak made his boldest political move to date. In a nationally televised address to the nation, the Prime Minister announced his intention to repeal the controversial Internal Security Act (ISA) along with several other restrictive laws. “The time has come for us to take another step forward, not only in economics and education, but also in upholding democratic principles,” the PM said.

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On July 25, 2011, Australia and Malaysia signed an agreement on the transfer and resettlement of refugees and asylum seekers. Over the next four years under the arrangement, Australia will send 800 unprocessed asylum seekers who land on its shores to Malaysia where they will be administered by the United Nations.

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