In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Over the years, international development assistance in Asia, as in other parts of the world, has included a focus on law and justice as a means for addressing a range of development goals, including poverty reduction, economic growth, and the advancement of human rights. A variety of rationales have been used to try to explain how law and justice interventions contribute to these broader development objectives, including asserted links to peace and stability, state legitimacy, and citizen empowerment. Most recently, the World Development Report 2011 highlighted the role of justice in breaking the cycles of violence, conflict, and fragility that continue to undermine our collective development efforts.

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Last week, research fellow for the London-based Overseas Development Institute Pilar Domingo joined development experts for an expert roundtable discussion on law and justice in conflict-affected and fragile regions, hosted by The Asia Foundation. In Asia editor Alma Freeman spoke with Domingo immediately following the event…

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The latest draft electoral rolls in Pakistan include 48 million Pakistani men and 38 million Pakistani women. Given the roughly equal gender division among the population, this is a clear discrepancy: approximately 10 million Pakistani women are unaccounted for in these figures, and consequently, are not entitled to vote in the upcoming General Elections.

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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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In Afghanistan, physicians at training hospitals across the country struggle to update their skills and provide adequate care to patients because of a lack of equipment, materials, and up-to-date medical texts and reference materials. In 2011, The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia provided over 4,000 medical texts…

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Three years after the end of decades-long armed conflict in Sri Lanka, there are new government-sponsored efforts afoot to encourage people to speak both national languages – Sinhala and Tamil – and to promote English as a common link language.

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As Sri Lanka emerges from a decades-long civil war, employment opportunities are rapidly shifting from the public to the private and technology sectors, where speaking English is required. But, for many Sri Lankans living in impoverished outskirts or the war-torn North, English-language books are a luxury and remain out of reach.

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Climate change combined with rapid population growth and urbanization is placing intense pressure on South Asia’s most precious resource: water. Per capita water availability in the region has decreased by 70 percent since 1950, according to the Asian Development Bank.

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Tomorrow is World Water Day. Tragically, by the end of the day, 4,300 children somewhere in the world will have died because of contaminated water and poor sanitation. That’s one child every every 20 seconds. This is an appalling statistic, but still represents a marked improvement from 12 years ago…

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For over half a century, every period of strong U.S.-Pakistan partnership has relied on lofty but ambiguous promises to create the impression of a strategic bond. The U.S. and Pakistan now need less soaring rhetoric and more understanding of their mutual expectations. Where expectations are unrealistic…

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