In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

While in Saudi Arabia this week for bilateral talks, Nepal’s finance minister, Barsha Man Pun, made a much-needed request to Saudi Arabia’s government to grant amnesty for at least six months for illegal Nepali migrant workers.

> More

To mark International Women’s Day, The Asia Foundation will host a panel discussion at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Washington, D.C., on “Women’s Changing Roles in Asia.” The March 13 event will feature a member of the Indonesian Parliament, the gender advisor to the prime minister of Nepal, president of the Cambodian Women’s [...]

> More

Global economic recovery in 2012 remains tenuous, with the World Bank recently downgrading its forecast for this year’s global growth from 3.6 percent to 2.5 percent. This slide in expectations and persistently high unemployment rates in many countries has sparked a resurgence of protectionist tendencies toward trade. These tendencies are couched in the language of “bringing jobs back,” while tariffs are euphemistically coined as “flexibility” needed to protect domestic producers. South Asia has suffered for decades from a low level of intraregional cooperation, both politically and economically.

> More

A global campaign is underway right now to bring attention to a pressing human rights issue which affects up to 60 percent women across the world. The 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence campaign – which falls between International Day Against Violence Against Women…

> More

Last week, Nepal’s political parties reached agreement on the future of 19,602 Maoist ex-combatants, breaking years of political log jam. In Asia spoke with Asia Foundation Nepal country representative, George Varughese…

> More

In this new video, Nepal Country Representative George Varughese describes The Asia Foundation’s approach to community mediation in Nepal, and includes footage of mediators and disputants engaged in an actual mediation session…

> More

Internal conflicts are a widespread and enduring problem for Asia – Afghanistan, Philippines, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Indonesia, Thailand, and Myanmar, among others. Ten of the 18 countries in South and Southeast Asia have protracted internal conflicts, and in a few, there are several. These internal conflicts last a very long time…

> More

Garbage left in streets and along riverbanks is a significant problem in Nepal and poses extreme health hazards to residents. Exasperated by this unsanitary “free disposal” system of waste, in 1992, 16 bold women from the Kathmandu Valley formed the country’s first NGO to address waste management…

> More

The phrase “gender equality as smart economics” has become the recent mantra of such powerful women leaders as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and UN Women Executive Director Michelle Bachelet. It is also the rallying cry of the World Bank’s 2012 World Development Report…

> More

As the world celebrates International Literacy Day on September 8, The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia officer in Nepal, Shameera Shrestha, caught up with the director of the American Library at the U.S. Embassy of Kathmandu, Prakash Thapa, on where he sees the future of Nepal’s library system…

> More