Dr. V. Bruce J. Tolentino, The Asia Foundation’s chief economist and director for Economic Reform and Development, will have a new post at the Foundation come July 2011: country representative in the Foundation’s Afghanistan office. As Tolentino prepares to head to Kabul this summer, he spoke with

Q: Having led programs for multiple agencies in challenging, conflict environments in Somalia, Cambodia, Southern Philippines, Aceh, and Burma, how will this on-the-ground experience influence your leadership as country representative in Afghanistan?

My experience in multi-cultural, multi-ethnic, and multi-faith settings has enabled me to be much more appreciative of those elements that bind communities together, rather than focus on those aspects that split us apart. I believe that recognition of co-existence, open communication, and joint effort toward shared goals and objectives are essential for building the peace and setting strong foundations for sustained development, not only in Afghanistan but across the globe.

Q: As you prepare for your new post in Kabul, where do you see positive development progress, and also the nation’s main challenges to come?

First, as findings in The Asia Foundation’s Survey of the Afghan People show, there is no going back. The Afghan people clearly indicate that their lives and welfare have definitely improved over the past decade, and they are weary of continuing warfare and isolation from the rest of the world. Of course there are subsets of the population that wish otherwise, particularly if these minor communities expect to lose power and influence as peace and development progresses in the country. For the nation and its leaders, the key challenge of governance is to be as inclusive as possible, so that the broad population is enabled to share in the gains from peace and growth.

Q: In the survey, Afghans gave a more optimistic assessment of their economic situation than in 2009, but these increases in financial well-being are not evenly shared with those in the lowest income brackets. How do you see this affecting Afghanistan’s economic development?

This is a serious problem, and the earlier it is addressed by the country’s leaders, the less likely it will worsen and thereby constrain further growth and development. International development experience has shown us that unless citizens have a sense that growth is being shared through inclusive policies and strategies, the growth will not result in greater citizen buy-in and support for the government. Inclusive policies and strategies are essentially those basic public services and actions that affect the broad population – peace and security, primary education, primary health care, roads, bridges, wells, telecommunications, electric power, irrigation, and honest, effective public administration. The maximum possible investments in these areas will be felt across all income levels, including the poorest of Afghans, through the medium and long-term future.

Q: Yesterday, the International Monetary Fund criticized how the Afghan government handled mismanagement and fraud at Kabul Bank, the country’s largest private bank, warning that such corruption could lead IMF to withdraw its support. What do you make of this?

It is to the benefit of all parties – Afghan and international – that good oversight and controls are installed in the Afghan banking system. Among the IMF staff are many skilled experts in central banking and bank oversight, and such capacity can contribute to the alleviation of the serious lack of banking expertise in Afghanistan. In addition, there ought to be continuous, healthy dialogue and collaboration between the government of Afghanistan and the international development community. The maintenance of open dialogue among the parties encourages collaboration and the sharing of vital information. Sporadic and spotty communication worsens misunderstanding and heightens tensions – even among partners.

Bruce Tolentino at The Asia Foundation's office in Kabul.

The latest Asian Development Bank Report predicts an “Asian Century,” and that billions in the region could be affluent by 2050.

Asian Development Bank’s report predicts that the global economy’s center of gravity is shifting toward the Asia-Pacific region. What is your reaction to this?

Indeed, in the current historical era, Asia is leading the global economy out of the recession brought about by the U.S. housing and financial crisis. And, as a result, the global economy’s center of gravity is shifting East, away from the Western economies, toward the large and faster-growing economies of Asia – primarily China and India.

Asia once led the world economy – when China, Japan, and India were at the forefront of world civilization and trade, while the West was way behind. This just shows that the global economy and the positions of the world’s powers shift in cycles. The real question is what is the amplitude of these cycles? The deepening of global integration, facilitated by IT, suggests that the amplitude of the cycles has become much more rapid and shallow – and sooner than later, the economies of the West will adjust and the world economy should move into a more positive, and interdependent, balance.

The same report cautions that in its march toward the “Asian Century,” the region must tackle daunting policy, institutional, and governance challenges along the way. Where do you see Asian nations heading in these areas?

Many Asian nations have shown that they do learn from experience. The fact that most Asian economies experienced less pain – relative to most Western economies – from the recent global financial crisis reflects the lessons learned from the Asian financial crisis in the late 1990s.

In your new book, co-authored with Asia Foundation experts, “Innovations in Strengthening Local Economic Governance in Asia,” you say that the global financial crisis that shocked both East and West has left economic managers and political leaders “distressed and fearful” for the first time since the Great Depression.

The sense of hubris among Western economic managers and leaders of finance industries is gone – or at least considerably muted. In the mid-2000s, at the height of the boom, then Federal Reserve Chair Alan Greenspan was called the “maestro” of finance, and the best financial managers on Wall Street were the “masters of the universe.” In what is now 20-20 hindsight, Ireland and Iceland took extraordinary liberties in housing finance through the boom years. In the fallout of the global financial crisis, many leaders have been reminded of the very close interdependencies of the global economic system, and of their extreme volatility – either up or down.

Starting July 2011, you will bring your significant economic expertise to Afghanistan as the new country representative of The Asia Foundation’s office in Kabul. How much does Afghanistan’s economic future depend on better governance?

Good economic governance is the crucial element that will enable Afghanistan to weather the crises and challenges it now faces, and emerge into a future that promises sustained improvements in peace and welfare. While Afghanistan now receives a great deal of donor assistance, these resources have to be managed well for maximum, long-term health of the Afghan economy and people. The Asia Foundation has worked in Afghanistan since 1954, and expects to be of assistance to the country into the long-term, continuing to work with Afghan partners to formulate and implement Afghan solutions to Afghanistan’s challenges.

Do you agree that governance and institutional capacity are the Achilles heel for most Asian economies, as the ADB report suggests?

This is true not only in Asia, but across the globe. Weaknesses – particularly short-sightedness – in governance and institutional capacity largely explain the recent global financial crisis. Reforms and innovation can trigger progress, but it is strong governance and institutional capacity that can sustain growth.

In your book, you argue that local economies across Asia are failing to live up to their potential as engines of growth. How so?

In examining the growth experience of nations, it is not enough to be content with national averages, as these mask differences in economic health and human welfare across sub-national jurisdictions. Even in wealthy countries there exist poor localities. Not all localities grow at the same pace as others, and some sub-national areas are able to capture greater shares in the benefits of economic growth. Some localities have advantages that arise from superior natural endowments – such as access to a port or a river, better weather, and so forth. Effective economic governance can make up for some of these natural disadvantages and enable more people to share the benefits of overall positive growth.

V. Bruce J. Tolentino is The Asia Foundation’s director for Economic Reform and Development Programs. He can be reached at btolentino@asiafound.org.

[Below, Tolentino talks about The Asia Foundation's Economic Reform and Development program.]

In May 2010, the U.S. Government unveiled Feed the Future (FtF) as its global initiative to combat hunger and food security. And, at last week’s Millennium Development Goals Summit in New York, President Obama declared better agriculture production as a way to help developing nations on the long-term path to prosperity. Thus, President Barack Obama made good on the agreement made by G8 leaders in July 2009 to “act with the scale and urgency needed to achieve sustainable global food security.”

Whether or not President Obama's Feed the Future program is a success will depend largely on whether the U.S. Administration pays close attention not only to agricultural productivity, but also effective governance, which is critical to achieving food security. Photo by Karl Grobl.

President Obama’s pledge of at least $3.5 billion for agricultural development and food security over three years helped to leverage some $18.5 billion from other donors in support of a common approach to achieve sustainable food security – an approach that builds upon the Paris Declaration on Aid Effectiveness and the Accra Agenda for Action. Such investments embody international commitment to improve aid harmonization, alignment, and management in order to achieve long-lasting, high-impact development results.

However, Feed the Future’s success will depend largely on whether the U.S. Administration pays close attention not only to agricultural productivity, but also effective governance, which is critical to achieving food security. A key lesson that has emerged from decades of attention and donor assistance on food security, and again painfully re-emphasized from the food price crisis of 2008-09, is that food security is not just a matter of maintaining food and agricultural productivity.

We now know all too well that hunger, malnutrition, deprivation, and want can persist alongside an abundance of agricultural resources. Indeed, it is worth reiterating what all member-nations of the UN agreed upon at the World Food Summit of 1996, that food security must be understood as having been achieved only when “all people, at all times, have physical, social, and economic access to sufficient, safe, and nutritious food which meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life.”

The FtF program expects to support the governments and technical agencies of some 20 “focus countries,” including Bangladesh, Cambodia, and Nepal in Asia, in programs focused on:

1. Production technology: R&D to enhance the availability of high and optimum-yielding germplasm (seeds, varieties, and breeds), extension of improved production practices, pest control, and soil and water management;
2. Irrigation and water use improvement, such as rehabilitation and construction of new structures and wells;
3. Post-harvest technology, including primary processing, handling, drying, and storage; and
4. Extension (training and communication) of agricultural extension workers and farmers in the above topics.

But these productivity-focused approaches neglect daunting impediments to achieving food security, such as persistent policy and regulatory constraints to food trade, (including the continued prevalence of inefficient state enterprises accorded with exclusive controls over key food commodities). Indeed, the efficiency and productivity of the food and agriculture sector has immense bearing on the welfare of entire populations – thus necessitating governance that promotes the interests of the whole, not just the few.

In this globalized age, effective governance must recognize cross-border interdependencies in food supply chains that demand collaboration and cooperation among countries for mutual benefit. Open global trade is crucial for shared food security across nations with different natural resources and endowments that determine their agricultural production capacities. Unnecessary and unexpected constraints on trade disrupt food supply chains and cause price spirals that hurt either consumers or producers.

Thus, the stalled Doha multilateral talks on international agricultural trade should be revived, and regional associations such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) should be mobilized as platforms for sharing crucial intelligence, including food stocks and production forecasts.

Inclusive and participatory governance is crucial to effective agricultural sector planning and resource allocation. Organized producers need to be able to participate in sector development planning and budget allocation processes at the local and national levels. Inclusive governance also promotes market access for the rural poor, particularly when small entrepreneurs, producers, and other agriculture-based groups collaborate on structured activities to assess demand, supply, and value chains of various agricultural inputs and products.

Moreover, inclusive governance enables appropriate attention to the important role of women in all facets of food security: production, delivery of support services, and nutrition. Across Asia, women perform a significant proportion of field tasks, comprise at least half of all extension workers, and serve as a crucial bridge in transforming agricultural commodities into nutrition, particularly for the young.

Good governance is also necessary for the rational allocation and management of land and other natural resources. Producers, especially small-scale producers, can only focus on high-productivity agriculture when their continued access to farmland is assured, particularly when they cultivate long-gestating and high-value crops. Producers whose security of land tenure is assured tend to take better and longer-term care of their land, contributing to long-term farm productivity and thereby sustained food security for all.

V. Bruce J. Tolentino is The Asia Foundation’s director for Economic Reform and Development Programs. He can be reached at btolentino@asiafound.org. On Thursday, September 30, Tolentino will moderate the West Coast release of the long-anticipated IRRI (International Rice Research Institute) Task Force Report on Food Security and Sustainability in Asia. Co-hosted by The Asia Foundation, Give2Asia, and The Asia Society, who sponsored the IRRI report, the event – “Never an Empty Bowl” – will include Peter Timmer, Duncan Macintosh, and Jeremy Zwinger, in discussion with Tolentino. Register for the event.

Speakers will include principal advisor on the task force Dr. Peter Timmer and prominent food security experts, IRII Head of Development in the Philippines Duncan Macintosh and President and CEO of the Rice Trader Jeremy Zwinger, in discussion with Dr. Tolentino, from 6-7:30 p.m. at The Asia Foundation in San Francisco.

Visit The Asia Foundation’s website to register and to learn more about the event.

One year ago in this blog, Asia Foundation chief economist Bruce Tolentino expressed “cautious optimism” about the prospects for global recovery and Asian growth in 2010. His positive prediction for Asia was more than fulfilled, in spite of a dispiriting lag in U.S. recovery and severe economic crises in the Eurozone.

Vietnam is expected to lead Southeast Asia in economic growth in 2011. However, much like its neighbors, the nation remains heavily dependent on export demand from the West. Photo by Justin Mott/Getty Images.

In 2010, Asia’s diverse economies demonstrated an impressive rebound from the global economic crisis. The first quarter saw booming overall growth across Asia, despite some lingering problems in weaker countries. This resilience was no doubt forged during the pain of the Asian Financial Crisis a decade ago, and reemerged in 2010 with robust Asian consumer spending, effective fiscal and monetary stimulus programs, and a boost to exports in response to gradual recovery in major industrial economies.

Standout Economic Performances in 2010:

• China surpassed Japan as the world’s second-largest economy.
• India grew at 8.2 percent in 2010, (even stronger than the 7.5 percent predicted in last year’s In Asia forecast).
• South Asia as a whole performed well in 2010, growing at 7.8 percent.
• Southeast Asia grew at 7.4 percent.
• East Asia grew at 8.6 percent.

Asian Consumerism Drives 2011 Forecasts

Positive growth forecasts for 2011 are driven largely by expectations of emerging Asian consumerism. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) forecast average Asian growth of 7-7.3 percent, with the IMF showing the region’s greatest growth centering around the large domestic-demand-driven economies: China, India, and Indonesia.

China is expected to continue growing at just above 9 percent, while South Korea is expected to have just 3.9 percent growth in 2011, down from 2010′s 6.1 percent. While Japan’s growth improved in the third quarter of 2010, the country – heavily reliant on exports to the United States – will see its growth dampen from last year’s 3.5 percent to only 1.2 percent in 2011, reflecting both the effects of the global downturn and a strong yen.

In East Asia, Mongolia is a shining light. The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) predicts a dazzling 13.4 percent growth as the agricultural sector recovers from the 2009-10 summer drought, investment in the mining sector grows, and trade ties with China strengthen.

In South Asia, Indian growth is estimated to be around 8.7 percent, driven by high savings and investment rates, and a fast growing labor force. Bangladesh is set to grow at 6-7.5 percent. Sri Lanka, driven by private consumption, will grow at 6.8 percent. Nepal is forecasted to grow at a slower 3.8 percent due to the country’s continuing political impasse.

Experts predict that Southeast Asia, heavily reliant on exports, will grow at a relatively lower 5.4 percent. Vietnam will lead the region at 7 percent, followed closely by Indonesia at 6.3 percent (a result of its robust private consumption and recent boost in foreign direct investment). Malaysia is projected to grow at 4.3 percent, down from 6.8 percent in 2010 due to an expected shrinking of external demand in 2011.

Growth in the Philippines, which experienced a recovery in exports and strong consumption throughout 2010, will drop from 6.2 percent to 4.8 percent in 2011. Thailand is set to grow at a meager 4.3 percent and a recovering Cambodia will see 5.1 percent growth. Growth in Laos will slow slightly from 8 percent in 2010 to still a respectable 7.7 percent, due to the global surge in mineral prices.

Export Demand from the West

As the forecasts above indicate, dwindling global recovery – and even the prospect, albeit distant, of a double dip recession among major industrial economies – will contribute to slower overall Asian growth in 2011. IMF projected U.S. and EU domestic demand to be about 1.75 percent and noted they are “unlikely to return to pre-crisis trends in the foreseeable future.” Low growth rates among the world’s richest economies will hold down demand for exports from Korea, Japan, and Thailand, among others. Garment sector growth, crucial for countries like Cambodia, Bangladesh, and Vietnam, will depend heavily on U.S. conditions.

Coupled with fears over declining external demand for Asia’s exports are worries over currency appreciation – most notably in emerging economies like India, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, where currency values compared to the dollar neared 10-year highs by August 2010.

Regional Trade and Economic Cooperation

Fortunately, external demand from the West is only part of the Asian equation, as the majority of merchandise export destinations lie mostly within the region itself. In fact, according to the IMF, intraregional exports – mostly to China – took off during the recovery, rising twice as fast as Asian exports to the U.S. and the EU. Much of the Philippines’ growth will continue to be driven by demand for its exports to China. The EIU reports that China is soon likely to overtake Singapore as Malaysia’s largest export market.

However, Asia’s intraregional trade is still mostly made up of intermediate products; two-thirds of final product demand for Asia’s exports originates outside the region. It would be premature to rely on this trade to fuel Asian exports. Moreover, China’s domestic demand slowed in the latter half of 2010, hurting neighboring exporters. In general, Chinese growth is still being driven overwhelmingly by investment –contributing to nearly 60 percent of GDP in the first half of 2010 – so it’s too soon to count on Chinese consumption alone to feed Asia’s exporters.

2011 and Beyond

With a slower pace of recovery among major industrial economies anticipated in 2011, it is crucial for Asia to leverage alternative sources of growth through deepened intraregional trade and increased domestic consumption. The region’s recovery in 2010 has already illustrated the benefits of doing so. The World Bank’s first yearly assessment of the economies in South Asia identifies both the openness of Asian economies and their governments’ policy responses as having played a key role in boosting confidence and accelerating recovery in South Asia.

Even if growth in Asia is unlikely to reach its full pre-crisis levels in 2011, the case for optimism is significant. Increased regional interaction, led by China’s economic activity, with increased circulation of goods, more FDI, and the distributional effects of remittances, is likely to continue to support Asia’s resilience and capacity to recover. Improving business environments across the region are also encouraging local entrepreneurs to invest at home and create products and services for their domestic markets.

Asia’s future growth depends on regional economic integration as well as sustained domestic demand. Indeed, in 2011 and beyond, growth in Asia will need to be increasingly fueled by Asia itself.

The Asia Foundation’s Economic Reform and Development team can be reached via Director Bruce Tolentino, at btolentino@asiafound.org.

Across the globe, food prices have soared. Between 2006 and 2007, the price of rice doubled in Bangladesh. In Mexico, corn meal prices are up 60 percent since 2006. At the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, wheat hit $24 per bushel in early 2008, in contrast to just $3 to $7 in 2003. On Monday, March 24th, the United Nation’s World Food Program issued an emergency appeal for additional funds to cope with the “aggressive rise in grains prices” which now constrain their relief and anti-hunger operations. UN Food and Agricultural Organization statistics show that across the globe the price of rice has more than doubled over the last six years.

Unusual World Food Price Trends

These trends are unusual. Between the late 1970s and up to the late 1990s food prices generally, and cereal prices particularly, were stable or even going down.

In the last few years, however, a confluence of factors has driven food prices rapidly upward, including: (a) production shortfalls in major producing countries such as Australia and China, (b) major increases in demand arising from growing populations with improved spending power particularly in India, China and Vietnam, (c) the production-dampening impacts of natural disasters and changing weather patterns, and (d) major shifts in agricultural production toward biofuels such as corn for use in ethanol production, encouraged by the high and rising world oil prices.

The rapid rise in food commodity prices is encouraging production, but due to natural constraints and cycles in agriculture, production responses tend to lag well behind the current price increases. The International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) estimates that between 2000 and 2006, world demand for cereals increased by eight percent, while cereal prices increased by about 50 percent.

Food price increases impact the poor most heavily, because the poor devote a much greater proportion of their income to food. Asian farmers have benefited somewhat from the increases in food prices, although the benefits have been muted by increases in production costs such as fertilizers and farm wage labor ” both of which have been impacted by rising oil prices. Higher food prices have already contributed to substantial increases in living costs across developing Asia, exacerbating recent restiveness among urban populations. This has major implications on governance, particularly in countries currently undergoing political transitions or rapid socio-economic change such as Bangladesh, China, India, Nepal, Pakistan, the Philippines, Timor Leste and Vietnam.

The Case in the Philippines

Let’s take the example of the Philippines. The surge in food prices, particularly rice, has important implications for the Philippines. The world price of rice has increased dramatically. Lower quality rice averaged US$167 per ton in 2003, but by early 2008, it fetched more than double at US$393 per ton. High quality rice was exported at US$284 in 2003, but brought US$558 in February 2008.

Alone among developing Asian countries, the Philippines retains a state monopoly on the international trade of rice. Since the 1970s low world rice prices have allowed successive administrations to avoid freeing up international trade in rice, reserving trade rights to the state-owned and managed corporation, the National Food Authority (NFA).

Due to long-term neglect of productivity-enhancing public investments originating from the waning years (the late 1970s to the mid-1980s) of martial rule, domestic rice production has not kept pace with domestic demand. Thus the NFA has imported ever-growing supplies of rice at previously low world prices and distributed the imports at relatively high domestic prices which on average have been at least double world rice prices.

The recent trends in rice prices have severely eroded the margins heretofore enjoyed by the NFA. Domestic rice prices have also begun to rise rapidly, and the NFA has been unable to moderate the increases due to its inability to secure greater import volumes from its traditional suppliers, Vietnam and Thailand, who have now restricted their exports due to their own domestic rice pressures. Recent news reports have indicated that President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo has directly appealed to Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung to increase Vietnam’s exports to the Philippines from a million metric tons to 1.5 million, out of a total expected import volume in excess of 2.0 million MT.

But even if the NFA can import additional rice it will come at a much higher price ” with recent quotes exceeding US$500 per MT. The NFA is already one of the largest drains on the fiscal resources of the country, since it borrows commercially to finance its imports. Furthermore, the NFA’s borrowings have traditionally carried the sovereign guarantee of the Philippine government. Can the vulnerable fiscal status of the economy bear this additional burden, or will the fiscal strain finally lead the government to abandon the NFA’s monopoly?

In 2007 the government almost reached a balanced budget, but there remain doubts about the sustainability of its fiscal performance since the increase in revenues was based partly on the privatization of state assets as tax collections fell below target. As it strives to stay on the path of fiscal consolidation, the government clearly does not welcome an additional challenge. Yet the dramatic spike in food prices, combined with long-running neglect in productivity-enhancing public investments, and exacerbated by the state’s monopoly policy on rice trade, are challenges that won’t be resolved using short-term measures. The best analysis indicates that the Philippines’ food supply challenges can only be satisfactorily and sustainably met through determined, long-term effort to rebuild domestic agricultural productivity, coupled with market-based trade policies.

Bruce Tolentino is The Asia Foundation’s Director for Economic Reform and Development Programs; Thupten Norbu is an Economic Reform and Development Program Assistant for the Foundation. Bruce Tolentino can be reached at btolentino@asiafound.org.

After rapidly rising from poverty to the ranks of advanced industrial economies, Korea is now committed to becoming an important contributor to the economic development and stability of the less developed countries of the world. In January, the Korean government submitted its formal application for membership in the Development Assistance Committee (DAC), the group of member countries of the OECD committed to increasing and improving aid to emerging nations. Korea already provides some $800 million in official development assistance and aims to increase this to over $3 billion by 2015. The Asia Foundation is cooperating with the Korean government to support its efforts to rapidly improve the effectiveness of its aid programs.

The Korean International Cooperation Agency, or KOICA, recently invited Asia Foundation experts to organize a seminar for Korean government aid agency staff focusing on a critical element in improving aid effectiveness, and the process of developing and using Country Assistance Strategies (CAS) to plan and guide country-level aid implementation. The all-day seminar, held January 18, was attended by some 80 development specialists from KOICA, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Strategy and Finance and other ministries, as well as academic advisors and NGO leaders. There was also a separate in-house workshop for working level KOICA staff.

Dr. Bruce Tolentino, the Foundation’s Director for Economic Development and Reform programs, led the team. He was joined by Anthea Mulakala, the Foundation’s Country Representative in Malaysia, and Erman Rahman, our Director of Economic Programs in Indonesia. In his keynote talk, Dr. Tolentino went straight to the most pressing questions: what are the challenges posed to development aid during this global economic downturn and why is a focus on aid effectiveness even more critical under these circumstances? Other presentations focused on assessing the practices of major multilateral and bilateral aid agencies-the World Bank, The Asian Development Bank, the UK’s Department for International Development, and others-in using Country Assistance Strategies to improve the targeting, design, coordination, and evaluation of their aid programs. Staff of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade and of KOICA presented papers on Korea’s current approach and challenges associated with problem assessment and program design.

A wide-ranging and open discussion followed about how Korea could improve its effectiveness by building on some of the best practices of other aid agencies. Key lessons focused on using the CAS to coordinate the separate programs of several Korean agencies, harmonize Korea’s programs with other aid agencies operating in each country, and integrate Korea’s aid efforts with the development plans of recipient countries.

Cooperation between KOICA and the Foundation is expected to continue. In 2008, KOICA placed five junior staff in several Foundation field offices for periods ranging from one week to two months as part of its staff development program, and this initiative will be expanded in 2009. A KOICA representative has been invited to participate in The Asia Foundation’s in-house workshop on economic reform and development to be held in Singapore, February 24-27.

For over 50 years, The Asia Foundation has been a partner with Korea to help strengthen institutions for accelerating economic development and good governance in Korea. We are continuing this cooperation, as Korea prepares to enter the ranks of the major aid donor countries. Korea is expanding its programs for sharing its rich development experience as well as critical resources and expertise. The Foundation is ready to engage Korea in exchanges of practical knowledge and methods as well as through active cooperation in the field, making us true partners for Asian development.

Edward Reed is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Korea. He can be reached at ereed@tafko.or.kr.

Dr. Tolentino can be reached at btolentino@asiafound.org.