Ahead of The Asia Foundation’s third annual Lotus Leadership Awards luncheon on June 6 in New York, which highlights work to end human trafficking in Asia,

Research indicates that human trafficking is among the fastest growing criminal industries in the world, with many Asian countries both the primary sources and destinations for the victims of trafficking. What are the root causes of this?

Political and economic marginalization along class, caste, and gender lines is forcing women and men to explore other livelihood options which entail internal and external migration. As migration processes are not always well managed by the state, it puts them at risk of exploitation and abuse. Lack of adequate safety nets in the migration process fueling trafficking of persons are common in most societies in the world; though more pronounced in societies where legal and political systems do not include gender sensitive policies and regulations.

Labor migration has become one of the core foreign currency earning sectors for Bangladesh and Nepal. You recently wrote in this blog that the development of this sector is being challenged by the lack of a rights-based approach and inadequate policies. Can you elaborate on the challenges and obstacles in this area?

Globalization has had many impacts, good and bad. One impact of globalized economies is the greater interdependence among countries for economic growth and development which has lead to integration of economies and societies with increased mobility of human capital. In essence, globalized open labor markets have created a global work force that has made employment less secure at home and mobility away from home risky, because open labor markets do not necessarily operate within the framework of good governance. This has created outsourcing and subcontracting chains which do not always work within the legal framework, and in the absence of effective monitoring and control, contribute to trafficking and labor exploitation.

In Nepal, where 42 percent of the population lives below the poverty line, and the unemployment rate is at a high of 46 percent, labor migration to places like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and Malaysia is emerging as a real economic option, particularly for women. What are the pros and cons to this?

Roughly 2.6 million Nepalese are working abroad right now, mostly in the Middle East. The Government of Nepal estimates indicate that remittance from labor migration makes up approximately 22 percent of the country’s GDP.  According to the Central Bank of Nepal projection for FY12/13 it is estimated that the approximately $4.23 billion will be received in remittance income. Unfortunately, despite huge economic contribution of labor migration there are numerous instances of abuse during the process of recruitment and in the destination country. The problem is aggravated when government policies become restrictive instead of protective. For example, the recent ban by the government of Nepal on women below 30 years from going to gulf states as domestic workers actually increased the likelihood of illegal migration. The  government perceives the ban as a way of protecting women from exploitation, but migration for domestic work to the gulf countries is an economic reality and need for many young women from Nepal. The ban has only proved counter productive as many women are now going through extralegal routes via India and therefore remain undocumented and even more vulnerable.

The Asia Foundation will soon publish a South Asia regional research study of Nepal, India, and Bangladesh to better understand what triggers or influences the choice and route of journey for the migrants. What are some of the biggest surprises that you discovered?

The study – “Labor Migration Policies and Practices in Nepal and Bangladesh Identifying Gaps and Challenges” – found that migrants are mostly driven by what they perceive as ease of movement. They rarely weigh their choices against available information on legal or illegal migration. For example, we found that many Nepali migrants are using India as an exit point to circumvent delays or obstacles related to legality of their movement. They find that it is easier and cheaper to exit through India and there are more organized operations that can facilitate extralegal migration. The issue is to see if countries can collectively address the gaps and loopholes that support illegal or extralegal migration. How do we strengthen the policies and operational structures within the country that support legal migration? We need to reverse the lens through which we are looking at the issues. Instead of focusing solely on reducing illegal migration we are focusing on promoting legal migration – a shift from a restrictive approach to a more positive approach which recognizes the reality of labor migration.

In recent years, the global fight against human trafficking has been criticized for focusing only on issues surrounding women victims of trafficking in the sex industry. While this obviously remains critical, what do you think has been missing in the fight?

Traditionally anti-trafficking work has focused mainly on sex trafficking or trafficking for prostitution which involved movement of women and girls into certain demarcated sites of sexual exploitation, and the trajectory of movement and intent was predefined for the trafficker at the onset. However, more recently, with the rapid growth in globalized markets and economies, trafficking has become a more fluid and less easily definable process, and it involves both men and women. The one clear and consistent aspect is the intent to profit through movement and exploitation of people. Today there is even greater need and opportunity for labor mobility. But if this need and opportunity is not supported by equitable socio-economic and political process and systems then it will increase risks and vulnerabilities toward trafficking. In this context we need to look at anti-trafficking interventions that go beyond addressing just the criminal context of trafficking and focus on strengthening the related socio-economic and cultural constructs that contribute to trafficking in the first place.

Can you describe The Asia Foundation’s approach to anti-trafficking? What are its signature strengths?

In all of our anti trafficking interventions, we take a multi-pronged approach to addressing human trafficking. The Foundation is looking at addressing trafficking within the larger context of gender-based violence and socio-political and cultural context of the countries and regions we are working in. We do not limit ourselves to addressing trafficking from a crime reduction perspective, but instead focus on both systems building and perspective building. For example, we work with law enforcement agencies to build specific crime investigation skills, and we back that up strongly with training on gender and jurisprudence that enables a victim a humane, rights-based prosecutorial process. We have worked with governments in Nepal and Cambodia to create an engendered and rights-based policy environment by developing National Minimum Standards for Victim Protection and Care and Standard Operating Procedures. We back these up with direct support to survivors of trafficking and by working with different community-level stakeholders to address issues of stigma and discrimination so that reintegration of survivors back into the mainstream community is possible.

While working on trafficking we also have to be cognizant of the real-time aspirations and desires of the people from economically less privileged or marginalized classes to have the same opportunities and economic benefits as those well off classes. Our work aims to help them actualize that aspiration without the risk of exploitation and fear of failure. To ensure this, we also provide requisite professional and educational skills to vulnerable populations to economically and socially empower them and reduce their risk of exploitation.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino secured big wins in the May midterm elections, which were seen as vital to his ambitious reform agenda. Aquino now marks the midpoint of his single six-year term as president, and while it might be clear that politics has yet to change in the last three years, it’s less clear the extent to which changes in governance may point to longer-term political changes.

Philippine President Benigno Aquino marks the midway point in his term since he was elected in 2010. Midterm elections this month were seen as a test to his ambitious reform agenda. Photo/Flickr user thepocnews

As early as the 2010 presidential campaign, then presidential candidate Benigno Aquino III together with his vice-presidential running mate, Mar Roxas, had governance reforms in mind when they said that it would take two presidential terms (of six years each) to transform the country from a regime of bad to good governance, to demonstrate that “Kung Walang Kurupt, Walang Mahirap” (“if there is no corruption, there will be no poverty”). The notion was that corruption was so ingrained in the system that six years would be needed just to initiate the key strategic reforms and another six years needed to institutionalize them.

Many discussions of reform list as examples the well-publicized change in the ombudsman, the arrest of former President Arroyo, and the impeachment conviction of the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. While these efforts required considerable political capital, Aquino was inevitably subject to criticism of the sincerity and wisdom of his good governance campaign. As Peter Koeppinger, Resident Representative of the Konrad Adenauer Foundation in the Philippines, aptly put it: “Corruption is everywhere. In many public agencies, it is organized in networks, making it difficult to break up. The government needs a much more comprehensive strategy to reduce the endemic corruption.”

One of the most significant strategic reforms to which the government itself has committed so far is the Philippine Government Action Plan, entitled “Institutionalizing People Power in Governance to Ensure Direct, Immediate, and Substantial Benefits for the Poor.” The plan is anchored upon transparent, accountable, and participatory governance as a key ingredient to achieving poverty reduction and economic expansion. In this plan, the government is committed to undertake 19 initiatives: two in transparency (including disclosing budget information of all major departments and a roadmap for improving public access to information); five in citizen participation (including expanding participatory budgeting and bottom-up budgeting, establishing an empowerment fund and undertaking participatory audits); four in accountability (including the Results-Based Performance Management System); and eight in technology and innovation. Thus, the Action Plan combines both greater involvement of the citizenry in governance affairs with internal changes in how the bureaucracy operates.

Watchdog functions are not new in the Philippines. Myriad coalitions have organized to monitor the delivery of various government services and public processes. However, the collaborative implementation of the bottom-up-budgeting (BUB) between municipal governments and citizen groups, abetted by a system of national government incentives and disincentives, has the makings of real radical reform. The BUB, first introduced in the 2012 budget process and now on its second budget cycle, is the government’s new approach to the preparation of the national budget to reduce poverty and achieve the country’s MDG targets. It begins with proposals from a participatory planning process between local government officials and constituent citizen’s groups as a starting point for national government agency budgeting to achieve what the government calls “a people-centric budget.” It seeks to ensure that critical and priority local development projects are increasingly funded by the national budget and less dependent on arbitrary and capricious pork barrel spending. The approach strengthens  responsiveness of national and local government programs and processes while encouraging a “me-too mentality” among local leaders for a more transparent and participatory governance. It can be argued that providing incentives for the national government, local governments, and the citizenry, as they all benefit from this new process, makes it more difficult to roll back this reform.

The rearrangement of incentives seems to be the implicit formula for other key reforms. The Performance Challenge Fund and Seal of Good Housekeeping for local governments are complementary programs that set up transparency and accountability standards for LGU and provide incentives for local governments that achieve them. These typify the governance-through-CSO-engagement approach that the current administration has undertaken in a major way. Indeed, it will go even further with the soon-to-be-released Empowerment Fund, a well-resourced private and public fund allotted to projects that strengthen CSO capacity to participate in these reforms and, in turn, build communities’ capacity to demand the continuity of reforms. The fund will be composed of counterpart contributions from both government funds and funds from local financing institutions (LFIs). The fund is seen as critical for the institutionalization of CSO engagement in governance reform. This of course would follow the logic that CSO engagement is critical to the success of citizen involvement in transforming our public institutions.

When it comes to the internal bureaucratic reform, the Department of Budget and Management is effectively the process-keeper of important institution-building elements of the program. These include fiscal discipline (e.g., doing away with undue budget discretion and lump sum funds and enforcing transparency and accountability among “sacred cows” including the military, national security, and the judiciary), as well as allocative and operational efficiency via the Organizational Performance Indicator Framework (OPIF), zero-based budgeting (ZBB), and the Results-Based Performance Management System (RBPMS), three examples of complementary results-based approaches to strengthen and rationalize the government’s public expenditure management.

The administration thus has a strong emphasis on both the supply side (bureaucratic reform) and the demand side (citizen involvement) of the reform equation.

So, is governance in fact changing for the better? While reformers in key leadership positions who know how to use both the technical and political leverage provided by these positions, represent a significant factor that cannot be overstated, the challenge of winning over the middle-level bureaucrats is where the battle will ultimately be won. Needless to say, the challenge of institutionalizing these programs and initiatives remains.

Conscious of the tenuousness of the reform situation, Department of Budget and Management Secretary Florencio Abad has identified the task of resisting policy reversal as one half of the core agenda for the next three years (the other being achieving inclusive growth). In the end, institutionalized change remains inextricably linked to Aquino’s successor, and therefore very much in the hands of the electorate.

Jose Maria M. Mendoza is program leader for the Coalitions for Change Program, an activity under the AusAID-Asia Foundation Partnership in the Philippines, and Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative there. They can be reached at jmendoza@asiafound.org and srood@asiafound.org, respectively. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation.

There has been some controversy about the quality of the May 2013 general elections in the Philippines, during which some 18,000 local and national positions were elected. But the fairest verdict of this exercise in electronic voting would seem to be that, like in May 2010, elections changed, but politics didn’t. As always, discussing the May elections inevitably involves talking about families and personalities but not political parties.

Manny Pacquiao’s wife Jinkee Pacquiao files her certificate of candidacy on Tuesday, October 2. Photo by Cocoy Sexcion.

When it comes to the nationally elected upper house of the legislature – the Senate – much has been made of the fact that nine of the 12 winners came from President Aquino’s slate, dubbed “Team PNoy.” It’s important to note that from the start, this was not a group of Liberal Party (LP) members – only three candidates were Liberal Party members (and of those, only one had been a Liberal Party member for more than a few months). The rest are from the LP’s coalition partners, the Nacionalista Party, Nationalist People’s Coalition, Partido Demokratiko Pilipino-Lakas ng Bayan (PDP-Laban), and Laban ng Demokratikong Pilipino.

In the end, the only LP winner was the newly minted member Bam Aquino, a first cousin of President Aquino with a distinguished NGO career. Other newcomers to the Senate were topnotcher Grace Poe (daughter of the late Fernando Poe Jr., defeated 2004 presidential candidate), Nancy Binay (daughter of Vice President Jejomar Binay), Sonny Angara (son of outgoing Senator Eduardo Angara), Cynthia Villar (wife of outgoing Senator Manual Villar), and JV Ejercito (son of former president, and newly elected Manila Mayor Joseph “Erap” Estrada). The pattern is obvious, and replicated throughout the archipelago for many offices – mayors and governors, members of Congress, and local council members.

In a post on this blog last year, I examined the fate of political families in Philippine history. One of those examined was the Dimaporos of Lanao del Norte, which in 2013 continued their unbroken hold on the province with husband Abdullah (the second generation of the dynasty) and wife Imelda being the two elected representatives, and their son Khalid the governor. Another was the Durano clan of Danao City in Cebu, which in 2013 continued their bewildering internecine competition as brother bested brother and nephew defeated uncle.

As witness the Durano imbroglio, being a political family is not necessarily a secure position. Some prominent political clans suffered a more crushing blow in May elections, with only one of the Villafuertes of Carmarines Sur winning a seat, and that winner defeated his grandfather, clan patriarch Luis. In the Zamboanga peninsula, the expansionist Jalosjos clan, which in 2010 spread from Zamboanga Norte to Zamboanga del Sur and Zamboanga Sibuguey, was rolled back to its one bastion of Dapitan City by allies of the president. Naturally, however, these allies were also established political families, such as the Hofers of Sibuguey and the Cerilles of Zamboanga del Sur.  One scion of a political clan, General Santos City mayor Darlene Antonino-Custodio, lost her re-election bid to a candidate supported by a nascent political force – boxing champion and Congressman Manny Pacquiao. An example of how new political families arise (almost half of all political clans originated after the restoration of electoral democracy in 1986), Pacquiao fielded his brother in another congressional race (the brother lost) and his wife, Jinkee, for vice-governor (she won).

Given this emphasis on families not political parties, on personalities not policy, we should view with skepticism any assertion that these election results, which do indeed demonstrate the continued popularity and drawing power of President Aquino, represent a surge for general reform. The organization of Philippine politics by clans and personalities makes it harder for the president to pursue his central theme of “if there is no corruption there is no poverty.” As explained by corruption scholar Michael Johnston, elections do induce uncertainty in political families (since they are not certain to win) who are appealing to citizens on the basis of favors and personal services. The incentive to accumulate irregular resources is increased since not only do they finance bids for power but they must be accumulated while in power:  “make hay while the sun shines,” as the saying goes. In this climate, where almost all politicking is conducted in this fashion, even anti-corruption efforts can be portrayed as “partisan,” as the insincere attempt by one faction to persecute another.

Reform is in fact possible in the Philippines. For example, the recent passage of tobacco tax increases in the teeth of fierce opposition of some in the industry, will allow better financing of health care for average citizens. But the more general question is, if politics is not changing, can governance patterns change in any sustainable fashion?  That is the topic of next week’s post.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in the Philippines. He can be reached at srood@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

These were the elections which many did not expect to see in Pakistan. Despite persistent and widespread rumors right up until the actual day of elections that they would be cancelled or postponed, Pakistan’s General Elections took place as scheduled on May 11. Around 50 million citizens took part in this historical event: the first time (with the new federal government expected to assume office at the beginning of June) that a successful transition from one democratically elected government to another has taken place. The turnout was the highest since 1970, as millions defied terrorist threats of polling day violence, already the bloodiest election campaign in the country’s history, and bravely waited in line to vote. Violence did disrupt elections in a few parts of the country, notably in Karachi, and contests in some polling stations will be re-run. But in the great majority of constituencies, polling took place peacefully.

According to early figures, almost 60 percent of the 86 million registered voters cast their votes in the 2013 elections, and while detailed gender disaggregated data are not yet available, female participation in the electoral process is reportedly higher than in the past. Photo/DFID

According to the Election Commission of Pakistan (ECP), almost 60 percent of the 86 million registered voters cast their votes in the 2013 General Elections, and while detailed gender disaggregated data are not yet available, female participation in the electoral process, both as candidates and voters, is reportedly higher than in the past. Overall, the elections attracted double the number of candidates compared to 2008, and although pre-poll violence targeted some parties more than others, hampering their campaigning and throwing the “level playing field” into doubt, the issues at stake in today’s Pakistan clearly galvanized an unexpectedly large number of citizens to cast their votes. Civil society organizations supplemented official efforts to register voters, particularly women, and spearheaded voter education.

A young Pakistani voter displays the distinct ink-mark that signifies she voted.

But the greater engagement of the electorate in the polls, the large participation of younger and other first-time voters, the official recognition, among the most marginalized of groups, of transgender voters and the many debates and discussions among friends, workmates and even family members, attest to the increasing interest among the citizens of Pakistan in the political process and to more serious efforts by the political parties to reach out to them. Of course, there are still improvements that can be made to ensure that future elections are run more smoothly and engage an even greater range and diversity of Pakistan’s population. For example, more needs to be done to enable and encourage women to vote – there are still polling stations where no female votes were recorded, reports that women were actively barred in a few areas, and the number of successful female candidates remains very small.

Allegations of poll rigging have been made, and at the time of writing, a large number of cases are before the ECP. It may take time to resolve these, but the evidence of the 41,000 observers deployed throughout the country by member organizations of the Free & Fair Elections Network (FAFEN), currently being sifted and collated, will be crucial in determining just how free and fair the elections have been. But as voters proudly display the indelible ink-mark on their thumbs which prove that they have voted, and many have their individual stories to tell about how they came to vote as they did, one voice lingers vividly in the mind:  “Today I am a proud Pakistani –in spite of all the difficulties, these elections did take place, and that gives ground for hope.”

Gareth Aicken is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Pakistan and Ameena Ilahi is the deputy country representative there. They can be reached at gaicken@asiafound.org and ailahi@asiafound.org, respectively. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation.

On May 6, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak took the oath of office as Malaysia’s 7th prime minister before King Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah at the National Palace. Prime Minister Najib’s coalition, Barisan Nasional, returned to power when it won 133 of the 222 parliamentary seats to form the Federal Government.

After a violent campaign period, Malaysians headed to the polls to elect the 7th prime minister. Photo/Flickr user alanalew

For many Malaysians, there were mixed feelings on the result. On the one hand, they are tired of politicking and want to move on with their daily lives. On the other hand, one cannot help but to be upset with how the elections were conducted in general. Among a myriad of other issues,  the “indelible ink” marked on voters’ index fingers, a new procedure to prevent people from voting twice was easily washable, party workers continued to campaign on Election Day, and various reports of phantom voters persists. While many observers have reminded the Malaysian public that the Election Commission must not be blamed in full for the shortcomings in the electoral process, many still question its credibility, which has in turn put the result of the election in question.

Despite this, brave young Malaysians saw this election as a new beginning for Malaysian politics.

When interviewed, a young voter said: “Leading up to the GE13, in my mind, I did not think the opposition would win. While I felt that they could win more seats in the parliament, I had a feeling that they would not be able to get the seats needed to form a government. And because it wasn’t a change in government, it is currently being viewed as a total loss, especially by the younger generation of voters. With the result of this general election, the government has a lot more work to do to convince the public that they deserve to be in power. As part of the younger generation of Malaysia, I do hope for better transparency and fairness on the elections and the voting process and information that is being put forward from it. There should be more equality between incumbent and opposition parties, in terms of freedom of speech and expression and rights to a fair campaign especially in the press and media. These are all being championed by Pakatan Rakyat with the help of the Bersih movement. I do want to see this change happen, and I believe that our aspirations will be carried on beyond this elections.”

One thing was clear: the real winner in the Malaysia’s 13th general elections is the people. They have firmly entrenched a two-coalition system in the country and have given the opposition votes that would enable them to solidify their partnership and play a meaningful check and balance role in the parliament. More importantly, the voters have decided to end the days where Barisan Nasional enjoyed unfettered power. The younger generation of voters have stood up, and are showing that their voices are equally as important and that they carry weight no matter where, who, and how old they are. And if this trend continues we can look forward to a better Malaysia.

Amir Shariff is The Asia Foundation’s senior program officer in Malaysia. He can be reached at amir@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Recent reforms in legislation and institutions have helped demonstrate Mongolia’s strong commitment to combating corruption, and the effects are noticeable in some areas: in Transparency International’s 2012 Corruption Perceptions Index, Mongolia’s ranking improved from 120 to 94, up 26 places from 2011. Still, corruption remains an area of great concern, and, according to a new survey released on April 3 by The Asia Foundation in Ulaanbaatar, a significant threat to the quality of governance.

The “Survey on Perceptions and Knowledge of Corruption” (SPEAK), conducted in partnership with the Sant Maral Foundation, surveyed 1,360 households in seven districts of Ulaanbaatar and 21 soums (districts) of 6 aimags (provinces) representing the four regions of Mongolia. The survey measured corruption levels in Mongolia by capturing data on public perceptions and grand corruption, institutional behaviors, as well as people’s actual experience with corruption at the household level. Importantly, the survey for the first time included questions on grand corruption, and builds on earlier benchmarking studies started by the Foundation in 2006 and conducted 11 time since then. As such, the survey serves as a barometer of people’s perceptions and experiences over time, and will provide useful input for policy deliberations as Mongolia prepares to revise its mid-term anti-corruption strategy (the draft of which is now under discussion). The findings will also help to develop a more contextual understanding of corruption and its damaging consequences, as well as build political consensus on the challenges and obstacles ahead.

According to the survey findings, while 89 percent of the respondents say corruption is a common occurrence in the country, corruption has clearly declined as a matter of concern among respondents. Back in 2006, 29 percent of respondents ranked corruption as one of the top concerns, making it the second most important issue, while in 2012, just 8 percent did, making it the fifth most important concern after unemployment, poverty, ecological degeneration, and inflation.

The majority of the respondents said that using official positions to collect gifts or money and help friends or relatives are the most common types of corruption (83 and 84%, respectively). Yet 28 percent of respondents said distributing gifts and money during election campaigning does not constitute corruption, despite the practice being prohibited by the new law on elections.

Respondents said the two most corrupt sectors are “land and property” and “mining.” Among government institutions, findings indicate that citizens have gained more confidence in the Independent Authority Against Corruption (IAAC). The number of people who said they preferred the IAAC as the leader in fighting corruption increased from 35.8 percent in an April 2011 survey to 44 percent in November 2012. Sixty percent of respondents said they would report a corruption case if their identities were kept anonymous, while only 17 percent would do so regardless of such protection. This indicates that if the current law (which requires people who report corruption to reveal their identities) were revised, that there would likely be a substantial increase in the number of corruption cases reported.

Eighty-one percent of respondents said that corruption impacted their personal or family life in one form or another, such as their standard of living and the rising price of commodities. The survey also found that 93 percent of respondents said that they should “do something” about corruption. At the same time, the majority said they were unaware of important anti-corruption measures in place. For example, only 29 percent of respondents were aware of the IAAC’s anti-corruption telephone hotline, which normally plays a major role in prompting citizens’ actions. Similarly, when asked whether they would pay a bribe if approached, while many said they would not pay, or in fact they would report it (35 and 17%, respectively), there were still many (24%) who said they would pay one if they had the money. These responses have remained more or less consistent since 2006.

Based on the respondents’ reported experience, it seems that fewer people are now paying bribes. Only 12 percent of the people surveyed said they paid some form of bribe in 2012, a significant decline from 2006, when it was 28 percent. However, while there are fewer bribes, the average size of the bribe has increased from MNT 136,000 ($97) in 2006 to 391,000 ($280) in 2012. Of those who paid a bribe in 2012, 56 percent said they did so to obtain the services they are already entitled to and 25 percent paid to overcome bureaucratic hurdles.

The survey did not find major variations statistically when data were segregated by gender or urban-rural categories. That said, female respondents were more inclined to choose the “I don’t know” or “neutral” categories and avoided answers to strong statements or questions such as “will you report?” The overall good news is that there has been a tremendous sense of hope and optimism among respondents that the fight against corruption will succeed rather than fail. Only a small number of those surveyed (8%) responded that corruption will increase in the next three years. Some progress to prevent and combat corruption is evident and the credit should be given to the political leadership and anti-corruption institutions for their strong commitment to address the issue.

The Survey on Perceptions and Knowledge of Corruption (SPEAK) was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as part of The Asia Foundation’s Strengthening Transparency and Governance in Mongolia (STAGE) program, which aims to strengthen democratic governance by building a more transparent and accountable regulatory and legislative environment while promoting principles of checks and balances. Read more about the program.

Basanta Pokharel is The Asia Foundation’s chief of party for the STAGE program in Mongolia. He can be reached at bpokharel@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Over the last few weeks, in our blog, our studies, in well-respected surveys, at think tanks and other organizations, and the media, the topic of corruption and transparency seems to be everywhere you look. However, there seems no clear consensus on the extent of the problem in various countries, from Mongolia to Indonesia to Afghanistan, nor what corruption and transparency actually mean for a country’s well being.

For example, a just-released Open Budget Survey from the International Budget Partnership ranks Afghanistan as the second greatest improved country out of 100 in budget transparency. That survey also places Indonesia in the top 25 percent in the ranking. At the same time, a World Bank analyst Peter Blunt, published a piece declaring that patronage remains a defining feature of governance in Indonesia. And a new UN report on Afghanistan found that corruption had dropped nine percent since 2009. It also found that the amount paid in bribes has risen by 40 percent to $3.9 billion, twice the country’s domestic revenue. Here are recent excerpts and analysis from In Asia:

Asia Foundation deputy representative in Indonesia, Laurel MacLaren, reacted to the new Open Budget Survey findings last week: “The survey certainly present good news for Indonesia, which is one of only 17 countries – with peers that include Germany, South Korea, and the United States – categorized as providing ‘significant information’ about the government budget to citizens.” But, she goes on: “Just as we were to let out a collective cheer, however, a copy of the article by World Bank’s Peter Blunt, “Patronage’s Progress in Post-Soeharto Indonesia,” reminded us of the many battles to come. Blunt’s paper credibly argues that patronage remains a defining feature of governance in Indonesia.”

Mongolia was again ranked the world’s fastest growing economy this year, and moved up 26 spots from 120 to 94 in Transparency International’s 2012 “Corruption Perceptions Index,” and up from 88 to 76 in the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business Index.” But, at the same time, local businesses still struggle under rampant corruption, according to a just-released Asia Foundation report. Foundation experts blogged about the direct impact on businesses in the country: “Over 17 percent of large businesses spent over 50 percent of their time overcoming non-productive obstacles, such as obtaining or renewing licenses, facing temporary prohibitions, and navigating an unstable regulatory environment.”

Also, in the Philippines, a new agreement brings two unlikely sides together – the media and political parties – that marks a step toward curbing rampant corruption in the media: “The covenant commits the signatories – both media practitioners and political parties and candidates – to reject engaging in acts that contribute to corruption in the media, which has consistently marred Philippine elections.” Read more from Maribel Buenaobra and Jerryll Reyes in Manila.

And, to the disappointment (but perhaps not surprise) of billions of soccer fans, investigators came out this week and declared soccer to be the world’s most corrupt sport, with the “epicenter of the global corruption in Asia.”

Taken together, this information seems to prompt the age-old question: To what extent does corruption really determine a nation’s economic and social livelihood? Join the discussion.

Alma Freeman is The Asia Foundation’s global communications manager and editor of this blog. She can be reached at afreeman@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

This week, the International Policy, Development and Practice Speaker Series [at UC Berkeley] welcomed David D. Arnold, the President of The Asia Foundation. Seen through the lens of his work at The Asia Foundation, Mr. Arnold delivered a talk on “Asia’s Development Challenges.” He identified three major challenges for Asia and the Asia-Pacific area.

Sub-national conflicts, such as the decades-long one in Southern Thailand that reignited this week, continue to hold back development and growth.

First, he described the weakness of governance impeding economic growth and progress. However, interesting experiments to fight corruption have also begun. In Mongolia, for example, The Asia Foundation is helping to develop special courts to try corruption cases, as well as developing a website in India where people text information about bribes they paid to a server and a map of bribes is drawn from these texts. Secondly, he disaggregated the positive growth at the macro-level of Asian economies from the negative growth in income gaps and increasing inequality.

Finally, the third major development challenge he identified was an increasing prevalence of sub-national conflicts. He stated that if you look at the duration of these sub-national conflicts, the average duration is 32 years. The ongoing conflicts are taking their toll on development in Asia; conflict is estimated to retard growth and progress towards the Millennium Development Goals 1-3 percent per year.

When asked about the role of private institutions, Mr. Arnold emphasized that the value-added of foundations and NGOs is not monetary. Instead, private institutions can forge meaningful partnerships with civil society organizations within the countries they operate in, creating what he calls the “software” of development through which the hardware development (such as dams, etc.) can both take place and fit within. Secondly, private institutions have a strong value-driven approach. These two things combine to help private institutions play a catalytic and innovative role in development.

Mr. Arnold was also asked about the rise of “indigenous non-profits,” or the creation of foundations and NGOs funded by donors within Asia. He explained that most of these private institutions are doing singular, project-driven work, such as building schools or providing books, and are not oriented towards social justice and broader change. However, he predicts this will slowly change over the next two decades.

Mr. Arnold, in addition to his substantive comments on Asia, gave the crowd good professional advice. “Learn when to say yes,” he encouraged the room. He explained that learning when to say yes takes you to more interesting places and more fascinating jobs. He also explained that one who works in development needs to be a “cock-eyed optimist;” there are success stories and progress, and it is important to see and highlight them to encourage future good work.

Ashley Clark is a MPP/MA-IAS student at the University of California Berkeley. This piece originally appeared on Policy Matters, a blog published by the University’s Goldman School of Public Policy. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Mongolia’s economy is booming, with growth trajectories showing it will be one of the world’s fastest growing economies again this year. It is consistently advancing in global rankings on governance and investment climate. Thanks in part to the passage last year of the new Law on Conflict of Interest, Mongolia moved 26 spots from 120 to 94 in Transparency International’s 2012 “Corruption Perceptions Index,” and up from 88 to 76 in the World Bank’s “Ease of Doing Business Index.”

These are impressive and tangible markers of progress, especially considering Mongolia’s nascent democratic institutions and legal system. However, when you talk to people from the civil society and business sectors in Mongolia, you often hear a more nuanced and less rosy side of the story. The new report, “Study of Private Perceptions of Corruption,” commissioned by The Asia Foundation and conducted by Mongolian NGO Sant Maral Foundation, shows that the perception among Ulaanbaatar-based Mongolian businesses is that there are significant steps still needed to curb corruption in Mongolia. The study captures the experiences of 330 members of the business community in their interface with government service providers, and within their own business service sector.

According to the report, over 17 percent of large businesses (with transactions of more than 200 million Tugriks, or $144,000) spent over 50 percent of their time overcoming non-productive obstacles, such as obtaining or renewing licenses, facing temporary prohibitions, and navigating an unstable regulatory environment . The 11 percent of businesses able to overcome these obstacles have been able to accomplish this by using 25 percent of their company resources.

Similarly, 16 percent of respondents reported they had observed instances of corruption in the last month, and nearly 50 percent reported they had personal knowledge of corrupt transactions in the past seven months. A total of 75 percent of businesses reported they “always” or “often” encountered corruption in public tenders and contracting. Construction is the top sector in which corruption was most widely witnessed.

In fact, there is a strong commitment among state and non-state actors to work together and improve coordination to combat corruption. Surprisingly, despite the government anti-corruption efforts such as the enactment of the Freedom of Information Law (2011) and Conflict of Interest Law (2012), and presence of the Independent Authority Against Corruption, an overwhelming number of respondents from the business community (73 percent) reported they have little or almost no knowledge of government anti-corruption efforts. Only 2 percent reported that these anti-corruption efforts are very effective. Eighteen percent said they were somewhat effective.

The survey is intended to serve as a baseline to track progress on combatting corruption in Mongolia and to identify what needs to be done to ensure that the government’s anti-corruption efforts reach the levels of society and business where it matters the most.

Parliament has a key role to play in this fight if it can provide the much-needed oversight over the performance of key anti-corruption actors in government and hold them accountable. Last month, 12 parliamentarians from across all political parties held a press conference to announce the reconvening of the Mongolian chapter of the Global Organization of Parliamentarians against Corruption, a voluntary organization of parliamentarians from around the world seeking to promote transparent and accountable governance. Last week, four parliamentarians attended the GOPAC Conference in Manila where they were introduced to the importance of strong leadership, creating a robust legal environment, and the critical role civil society can play in the fight against corruption. They also had the opportunity to network with potential allies and like-minded members of Parliaments from more than 65 other countries. With the Mongolian GOPAC Chapter now reconvened, there are high expectations of what the Parliament will focus on, and the Mongolian people are hopeful it will play a more active role in countering corruption.

The Study of Private Perceptions of Corruption was funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), as part of The Asia Foundation’s Strengthening Transparency and Governance in Mongolia (STAGE) project, which aims to strengthen democratic governance by building a more transparent and accountable regulatory and legislative environment while promoting principles of checks and balances. Read more about the program.

Meloney C. Lindberg is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Mongolia, Basanta Pokharel is the Foundation’s chief of party for the STAGE project in Mongolia, and Tirza Theunissen is program and operations manager. They can be reached at mlindberg@asiafound.org, bpokharel@asiafound.org, and ttheunissen@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation.

Two new publications showing very different profiles of the quality of governance in Indonesia landed on my desk this week, prompting debate and consternation. The just-launched International Budget Partnership’s “2012 Open Budget Survey” painted an encouraging picture, placing Indonesia in the top 25 percent of a global pack ranked on issues of state budget transparency. At the very same time, a newly published journal article persuasively argued that patronage remains the defining feature of Indonesia’s democracy. The dramatically disparate pictures presented of Indonesia simultaneously were enough to make me ask: what is going on here?

Our office had eagerly awaited the results of the 2012 Open Budget Survey, which measures budget transparency, participation, and oversight in more than 100 countries around the world. Budget transparency is at the core of good governance: in order for state budgets to be managed efficiently – and used to improve service delivery (such as education, healthcare, clean water, etc.) and reduce poverty – budget information needs to be widely available to a civil society that is active in both decision-making and budget oversight. The Asia Foundation’s long-time partner, Indonesian Forum for Budget Transparency (FITRA), represented Indonesia in the International Budget Partnership, and compiled a massive number of budget documents, laws, and interviews to answer the 125 questions used by the survey.

In order for state budgets to be managed efficiently – and used to improve service delivery and reduce poverty – budget information needs to be widely available to the public. Photo/Ted Alcorn

The survey findings certainly present good news for Indonesia, which is one of only 17 countries – with peers that include Germany, South Korea, and the United States – categorized as providing “significant information” about the government budget to citizens.

Indonesia also earned the honor of being one of 14 nations that made the greatest improvements in budget transparency over the past two years. The country’s overall index score increased more than 15 points since 2010, which was particularly encouraging given that Indonesia had seen a minor setback in its survey score from 2008 to 2010. Indonesia was also cited as one of only seven countries that managed to break into the elite group of countries scoring 61 or higher on the survey scale.

Indonesia’s scores are impressive, and to those of us who have supported the country’s budget transparency movement over the past decade, the recent progress comes as no great surprise. Dozens of civil society organizations – at the local and national level – have been seeking out budget documents from every level of government, and producing analysis that has been the driving force behind budget reallocations and reform. On the government side, the passage of the Freedom of Information Act in 2008, coupled with the hefty political will of a Presidential Task Force to Accelerate Development (UKP4), resulted in Indonesia’s commitment to an Open Government Partnership action plan in 2011. Reformers across civil society and government have been working for years to get Indonesia to improve the transparency of its budget, and it was gratifying to see this measured and reported on internationally.

Just as we were to let out a collective cheer, however, a copy of the article by World Bank’s Peter Blunt, “Patronage’s Progress in Post-Soeharto Indonesia,” reminded us of the many battles to come. Blunt’s paper credibly argues that patronage remains a defining feature of governance in Indonesia. Sadly, it presents evidence that decentralization has exacerbated patronage problems. It also argues that development assistance contributes to the maintenance of Indonesia’s patronage systems by either turning a blind eye to corruption, investing in technocratic solutions that ignore political realities, or being co-opted by management mechanisms that enable predatory behavior. Among the constraints that make the authors pessimistic that Indonesia’s patronage will be addressed in the medium-term future include: “the pervasiveness, inventiveness, and tenacity of patronage networks,” as well as “the politically constrained reach of central anti-corruption institutions.”

Many of us working for reform in Indonesia frequently feel these mixed emotions: euphoria at what has been achieved, shadowed by concern over how much remains to be done. In December, the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) reported to Parliament that it had prosecuted 332 corruption cases since the commission was established in 2004, and research by Indonesia Corruption Watch confirms that its conviction rates are high and improving. Do we celebrate that the KPK has the gumption to investigate another 170 district heads on suspicions of corruption, or mourn the fact that vote-buying, bid-rigging, job-purchasing, and nepotism are seemingly the norm for the hundreds of thousands of officials in Indonesia’s civil service?

And transparency itself is presenting a mixed blessing. While the massive amount of information available to civil society presents a tremendous opportunity, the comparatively small number of civil society organizations and researchers are becoming quickly overwhelmed with practical matters of data management and analysis. Too often we find that government data is at the ready, but not being effectively utilized by either civil society watchdogs or government agencies responsible for internal control – for both reasons of limited capacity and just sheer information overload.

Some would argue that Indonesia’s collusive elements are always going to be adept at “isomorphic mimicry,” and will quickly reconstruct patronage systems to fit within any new “good governance” façade. Yet I often see cause for hope in the countervailing coalitions of reformers that every once in a while outmuscle entrenched interests. There are many victories, evidenced in corruption convictions and budget reallocations. While Indonesia’s patronage systems have proved remarkably resilient in the reform era, I remain optimistic that the country’s achievements in budget transparency are a step closer toward greater accountability to the people.

Laurel MacLaren is The Asia Foundation’s deputy country representative in Indonesia. She can be reached at lmaclaren@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.