The conference in the Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation dialogue series convened in Seoul, South Korea, this month, and brought together development experts and senior government officials to discuss climate change mitigation, green growth, and adapting to and building resilience to natural disasters. This dialogue series, co-organized by The Asia Foundation and the Korea Development Institute (KDI), brings together both “emerging” and “traditional” development actors to discuss international development challenges. This year’s focus on effective cooperation for deterring the impacts of climate change was launched in Seoul, fittingly, as South Korea is playing a leading role in low-carbon development in the Asia-Pacific region.

According to the UN, boosting global investments in renewable energy to $630 billion by 2030 would create at least 20 million additional jobs worldwide. South Korea is playing a leading role in the region’s green growth. Photo/Flickr user Toby Simkin

Green growth is a new policy paradigm for Asia and the Pacific that emphasizes ecologically sustainable economic progress and fosters low-carbon, socially-inclusive development. Its four pillars include sustainable production and consumption, green businesses, sustainable infrastructure, and fiscal incentives and reforms. “Growing green” means implementing more eco-efficient and profitable production, producing less pollution and waste in the process, and prioritizing the environment as essential to long-term social and economic development goals.

In July 2009, South Korea announced its “National Strategy for Green Growth” through 2050, providing a blueprint for how to shift its economic structure away from energy-intensive industries that have driven the majority of the development paths in Asia. The target goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent from a business-as-usual path by 2020, and increase the country’s renewable energy to 11 percent of total energy supplies by 2030.

With initial funding of $83.6 billion (representing 2 percent of GDP), South Korea’s first Five-Year Plan for Green Growth 2009-2013 has successfully turned strategy into concrete and operational policy initiatives toward achieving green growth and resource efficiency. South Korea’s government announced plans to continue making investments in innovative, low-carbon technologies for renewable energy, waste management, public transportation and construction, and to create enough new jobs in these sectors to offset the loss of employment in current carbon-intensive industries, such as mining, petroleum refining, and fossil fuel power generation.

In terms of development cooperation, South Korea has increased its development assistance budget since 2000 by 6.5 times, to approximately $1.3 billion in 2011, and has pledged to boost financing of regional renewable energy, conservation, and development projects to 30 percent of the total aid budget by 2020. Already, the Korean government installed a Communications, Ocean, and Meteorological Satellite system to improve Sri Lanka’s disaster preparedness by allowing officials to better share data, analysis, and forecasting capability. The system is part of the East Asia Climate Partnership, an initiative announced in 2008 and funded by the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) to share South Korea’s knowledge and technology resources in green growth, climate change adaptation and improved resource management to developing countries. KOICA has also pledged to build reservoirs, irrigation channels, and treatment facilities that will clean, recycle, and better manage water resources needed to effectively sustain agricultural production in the Philippines, which has decreased dramatically due to recent sustained droughts.

South Korea is also playing a leading role in green-growth policy advising. The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI), founded in 2010 as a Korean NGO and since established as a treaty-based intergovernmental organization, works to advance the practice and theory of green growth by supporting the development, implementation, and diffusion of green growth strategies in developing and emerging countries, including in the least-developed countries in Asia. GGGI involves both state and non-state actors, such as other international organizations, NGOs, private companies, and research institutes.

According to a United Nations report on green growth, boosting global investments in renewable energy to $630 billion by 2030 would create at least 20 million additional jobs worldwide, making it a much larger source of employment than today’s fossil energy industry. One of the most interesting but least reported aspects of the current economic recovery effort is that over two-thirds of global green stimulus has in fact been committed in the Asia-Pacific, led by Australia, China, South Korea, and Japan.

Indeed, South Korea’s green growth strategy was highlighted throughout the AADC dialogue with representatives from other emerging economies in the region, notably China, India, and Malaysia, to share its successes on enacting renewable energy policy, implementing low-carbon transportation, and employing financial incentive for industries to make reforms to achieve green growth goals. Reflected in part by its leadership in this area, South Korea has been chosen as the home of the newly established Green Climate Fund, the multilateral financial mechanism recently created to support the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change adaptation and mitigation efforts.

At the 2010 G20 Seoul Summit, South Korea’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Kim Sung-han, declared that “many issues today require unprecedented international cooperation. Solving today’s complex challenges will require ‘middle powers’ to play a greater, more active role. Through various initiatives, such as its programs in green growth and development cooperation, South Korea has demonstrated the influence middle powers are having on global governance and that they may be best suited to facilitate consensus building and revitalize momentum for cooperation.”

Kourtnii S. Brown is a program officer for The Asia Foundation’s Environment Programs in San Francisco, and attended the AADC conference in Seoul. She can be reached at kbrown@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

As discussions on the federal budget and sequestration continue here in Washington, D.C., The Asia Foundation’s Washington office sponsored an event to discuss how various Asian nations are approaching and, in some cases, expanding their development assistance programs.

The two panels brought together seven experts representing senior government officials and policy specialists from five countries – Korea, China, India, Indonesia, and Japan – to discuss the development landscape in Asia at an event co-hosted by USAID. Although the series of discussions on “Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation” (AADC), a partnership between The Asia Foundation and the Korea Development Institute (KDI), has taken place since 2010, this was the first event in the U.S., and it was very well attended with over 100 participants at the half-day seminar.

On the first panel, Asian government representatives from Korea, India, Indonesia, and Japan each presented their country’s approach to development cooperation. These countries of course offered a range of experiences and objectives:  from Japan, with a well-established aid program, and Korea, the first country to transform from being an aid recipient to now an OECD DAC member and provider, to India, focused on South-South Cooperation, and Indonesia in the beginning stages of institutionalizing its cooperation program. Yet, despite these different perspectives, several similarities between the approaches emerged, including:

• Focus on Asia regionalism and an emphasis on helping neighboring countries;

• “Demand-driven” approach to providing technical assistance; and

• A strong interest in capacity-building and knowledge-sharing as part of their development cooperation strategies.

During the second panel, experts discussed challenges in light of the expiration of the global Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in 2015. A wide range of issues were presented, including inclusive growth, access to health and education, conflict mitigation, and improved security, and international policy coherence. Speakers also noted that large, emerging actors including China and India are looking beyond 2015 to 2020.

It was very clear that both the Asian participants and our co-hosts from USAID felt that the discussion was productive, provided a useful information sharing opportunity, as well as a chance to engage the development policy community, especially during the same week as the World Bank and IMF meetings in Washington. USAID’s assistant administrator for Asia, Nisha Biswal, expressed a desire to learn and engage with Asian emerging donors to develop new partnerships. Participants noted that the “traditional donors also need to learn from emerging donors.”

As traditional development agencies  such as USAID and UNDP rethink their role and reflect on their assistance programs and the way forward, it’s clear that the Asian emerging actors are excited to be “giving back” and have much to contribute to this discussion. The Foundation is pleased to offer a platform through AADC where these critical issues can be discussed and where Asian solutions to Asian problems can be highlighted.

Following the event in Washington, D.C., panelists travel to New York City to participate in discussions at the UN Secretariat. We will soon be posting a video which was live-streamed from the D.C. event. The Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation (AADC) dialogue series is a partnership between The Asia Foundation and the Korea Development Institute (KDI). This program in Washington, D.C., is organized by The Asia Foundation and USAID, with additional support from UNDP and AusAID.

Anna Bantug-Herrera is The Asia Foundation’s associate director in the Washington, D.C., office. She can be reached at abantugherrera@asiafound-dc.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

While the Asian Century is most often used to describe the global shift of economic power to Asia, Asia’s rise is also significant in the area of development cooperation. Asian countries have emerged as game changers in the aid arena, challenging traditional notions of aid, reshaping global aid architecture, and placing new challenges on the global development agenda.

Asian countries like Korea have emerged as game changers in the aid arena, challenging traditional notions of aid and reshaping global aid architecture.

Last week, The Asia Foundation, in partnership with the Lowy Institute for International Policy, Australian National University, and AusAID, hosted three events on Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation (AADC), in Canberra and Sydney. The events featured government officials and policy experts from China, India, Indonesia, and Korea, who shared their country’s role and approach to development cooperation in this rapidly changing global aid landscape.

AusAID directs half of its $4.8 billion annual budget (2011-12) to the Asia-Pacific region. At the same time, Australia is acutely aware that rising Asian powers like China and India are shifting the political and economic dynamics in the region, including in the area of development cooperation. Indonesia is Australia’s largest aid recipient, while at the same time being a leader in South-South and Triangular Cooperation. Although Australia is one of the largest and fastest growing providers of development assistance in the region, it and the other “traditional” large donors are now operating alongside India, China, and Korea as providers of significant development assistance to the region. Given the difference in approaches, this new landscape offers both opportunities for collaboration and possibilities for competition.

Participants at the AADC events discussed and debated some of the most salient issues on Australia’s development agenda:

Aid and foreign policy

Australian development and foreign policy pundits debate whether aid is less effective if it is linked to the donor country’s national interest. Over the last two decades, many Development Assistance Committee (DAC) donors have danced delicately around the relationship between their foreign policy and their development cooperation programs. Some, in attempt to protect the primary humanitarian and developmental interests of aid from national political and economic interests, have created dedicated and independent aid agencies.  Asian country participants in the AADC events were unequivocal about the link, stating that development cooperation is an intrinsic component of Chinese, Indian, and Korean foreign policy, for example. Government officials from China and Korea were firm that cooperation is extended first based on the stated needs and requests of the partner country, aid is not perceived as charity, but as a mutual benefit. Indeed words like aid, donor, and recipient do not sit well with Asian development actors. Korea, for example, understands its cooperation as development knowledge exchange, emphasizing Korea’s belief in knowledge-based development models.

Poverty

Even though economic progress in Asia, particularly China and India, accounts for significant reductions in global poverty, poverty nevertheless remains a pervasive problem. Middle-income countries, such as China, Indonesia, and India, are home to 75 percent of the world’s poor. Inequality in Asia is rising, with China and Indonesia topping the charts. Australian audiences questioned how, in the face of persistent domestic poverty and development challenges, Asian countries can justify being aid donors.  For Indonesia, sharing with other countries is enshrined within Indonesia’s constitution. Indonesia’s approach to development cooperation is less a matter of financial flows. Rather it is based on the principle of South-South Knowledge Sharing. This approach is valued by both partners and does not detract Indonesia from addressing its own domestic challenges. Similarly foreign aid does not conflict with China’s domestic concerns. China has promised to improve the welfare of its people, doubling their income within 10 years, while at the same time increasing its foreign aid budget. Foreign aid, because it is based on the principle of mutual benefit, is perceived as beneficial for China’s own development, promoting trade and investment, strengthening partner countries socially and economically, and enhancing China’s image abroad.  Based on these win-win principles, it is understandable that for both China and Indonesia, development cooperation has been a key and explicit feature of their foreign policy for decades.

Post-2015 Development Agenda

Australian development experts were keen to hear Asian perspectives on the post-2015 development agenda. 2015 marks the deadline set by world leaders in 2000 to achieve the Millennium Development Goals, a set of eight targets and indicators for addressing global poverty. Since the launch of the MDGs, Asian countries have been both leaders in achieving the targets as well as critics of their relevance in a rapidly changing global context. Asian and Australian experts noted current challenges like rising inequality, climate change, management of global public goods, and peace and security – which beg attention yet fall outside most aid frameworks.

Many Asian countries regard the G20, with its focus on economic growth and significant membership from Asia, as a viable platform for championing a 21st century development agenda targeting these emerging challenges. A recent study by the Korea Development Institute and the Centre for International Governance Innovation offers a revised set of goals which are designed to finish the job of the MDGs, fill the gaps, and tackle new challenges. These comprehensive goals which include inclusive growth, quality infrastructure, security, and civil and political rights, would comprise a shared global agenda and be applied to all countries, developing or developed.

Despite the different development cooperation approaches pursued by Asian countries in comparison to more traditional donors, the discussions in Australia revealed that there is increasing consensus around the challenges facing the Asian century. As the world discusses the future of international development post 2015, the need and value for an inclusive partnership, which includes the vital contributions and participation of Asian actors, is undeniable.

Anthea Mulakala is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Malaysia and regional adviser for donor relations. She can be reached at amulakala@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

ADB’s Rajat Nag (front) in conversation with Asia Foundation President David Arnold. Photo/Whitney Legge

Last week, ADB Managing Director General Rajat M. Nag appeared in a candid conversation with Asia Foundation President David Arnold at the World Affairs Council in San Francisco. The two discussed Asia’s rapid growth, the widening gap between rich and poor, and challenges to the region’s stability. Below are highlights from Mr. Nag’s remarks.

Inequality in Asia

Asia has gone through a phenomenal transformation in the last four decades. Asia has managed to achieve in one generation – 40 years – what has taken other parts of the world 100 or even 200 years. This tremendous growth has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and led many to call the 21st century the “Asian Century.”

Asians today are richer, healthier, more educated, and live longer, and this is great success story. But what this story hides at the same time is the fact that the rising tide of Asia’s economic growth has not lifted all boats because that growth story is based on the assumption that all boats will rise with the rising tide. But if there is a hole in the hull of a boat, then those boats won’t rise. This has resulted in a situation in Asia where 600 million people are still without access to clean water, 1.8 billion are without access to improved sanitation. This is an Asia that is as real as the bright one. These two faces of Asia are both real, but unfortunately, diverging.

One should argue that rising inequality is a social justice issue. Inequality is an unacceptable state of human affairs. But there is also an economic reason to worry about inequality as it dampens the growth process. Therefore, Asia cannot grow and then worry about inequality; growth has to be inclusive. People must be able to participate in and benefit from that growth process. We need to increase access to opportunity through investments in health and education. People have to be well enough, healthy enough, skilled enough, and educated enough to participate in the process. The governments of Asia have a choice: you have to pursue growth, but it has to be inclusive growth.

Green Growth

Asia, like many other places, has followed a paradigm of “grow now, clean later.” That is unsustainable, and Asia is already paying the price for it: since 1990, Asia’s share in worldwide CO2 emissions has more than doubled. Without aggressive efforts toward low carbon growth, this share will rise to nearly half the global level by 2030. China is now the largest greenhouse gas emitter, India is following suit. In a situation like this, the environmentally unsustainable path that we are following will essentially and ultimately compromise growth itself.

The alternative to green growth is not just less growth. Instead, the alternative is probably going to be catastrophic, and could result in some dramatically damaging consequences. The longer we wait to adopt green growth as the preferred paradigm, the higher the costs of clean up will be. The choice that Asia has today is not to reduce growth, but to grow green. Neither the developing countries nor the developed countries by themselves can solve the problem.

Urbanization

In the next 40 years, the urban population in Asia will almost double from 1.6 billion to 3.1 billion. Our cities will become the epicenter of economic life, higher education, innovation, and technology development. But these cities will put huge demands on services and governments, and will obviously be major sources of energy consumption. Urbanization will also lead to increasing environmental risks associated with natural disasters. The rural to urban migration is ongoing; China became more urban than rural in 2011, and this trend is apparent and obvious throughout. Asia will need to adopt a new approach toward urban development by building more compact and eco-friendly resilient cities and making sure that governance structures are able to cope.

Good Governance

Good governance is more than just eliminating corruption. Good governance is about institutions, it’s about accountability, it’s about making sure that there are rules and regulations, and most importantly, that they are applied.

Let me mention two words in Sanskrit: the first word is niti, and the second is nyaya. Both words in Sanskrit roughly mean “justice.” But there is a very important, nuanced difference. Niti refers to rules and regulations. Nyaya refers to realized justice. It recognizes the role of niti in shaping rules and regulations, but also recognizes the reality in its application. You can have all the niti in the world, but if you don’t have nyaya, then you don’t have good governance. In Asia over the last several decades, we have gone some distance in getting the niti in place. What we also need to have is nyaya. We can’t have only courts, but we must have courts that can dispense justice rapidly and of course fairly.

Earlier this month, I attended the 2012 IMF-World Bank annual meeting in Tokyo for the first time and, as expected, talks about the eurozone crisis dominated discussions. However, some very compelling conversations revolving around Asia’s role in this environment and beyond were taking place on the sidelines. This provided an interesting backdrop for one of the most remarkable, historic events that I’ve witnessed in my life: the October 15 landmark signing of the Framework Agreement on Bangsamoro between the government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), potentially putting an end to 40 years of violent conflict that has plagued the southern Philippines.

On October 15, the world witnessed the landmark signing of a peace accord between the government of the Philippines and the MILF, potentially ending a 40 year violent conflict in the southern Philippines. Photo/Karl Grobl

One contentious question seemed to surface every time the subject of “Asia’s role” was raised in Tokyo: Why has rapid economic growth not necessarily been accompanied by similar levels of political and institutional development in Asia over the past four to five decades?

For example, the much-lauded success of the “Asian Tiger” economies initially gave many commentators from western countries pause for thought – how could such levels of development take place in so brief a period? Was it a serious rejoinder against the conventional wisdom of orthodox ideas on development? In fact, prior to the regional economic crises of the late 1990s, some western leaders were suggesting that there were perhaps lessons to be drawn from Asia in effective national management. This position changed considerably in the wake of the crises, where charges of cronyism, nepotism, and corruption were leveled against several countries in the region. Many analysts identified the “democratic deficit” – the lack of proper institutional and social reform required for effective democratization – as a serious impediment to political and institutional development in the region. It’s a tough call. While many experts have argued that Asia must embrace reforms required to strengthen its democratic, legal, and financial systems in order to move forward, the U.S subprime mortgage crisis and the eurozone crisis seem to suggest that there are very little “international best practices” available for Asia to learn from.

On the other hand, Asia’s two “giants” – China and India – have shown keen interest to lead the way for development in Asia. Under the context of South-South Cooperation, both countries are playing a major role for economic development in the South. For example, in the last 50 years, China’s foreign aid to Africa has amounted to $7 billion, which is 30 percent of the total amount of its foreign aid expenditure. China has also subsequently been well in advance of the G8 by cancelling $10 billion of the debt owed by African states and at the second Sino-Africa business conference in December 2003, China offered further debt relief to 41 African countries, as well as opening the prospect of zero-tariff trade.

India’s foreign aid program has also seen major involvements in Sri Lanka, Burma (also known as Myanmar) and Afghanistan. Recently in July, India has unveiled its global aid agency – the Department of Partnership Administration (DPA) with a whopping $15 billion budget for the next five years, placing it as the second largest donor from Asia. Smaller nations such as Malaysia and Singapore have also chimed in, sharing models that seemed to work brilliantly in Asia. Both these countries have provided training in various areas which are essential for a country’s development such as public administration, good governance, health services, education, sustainable development, agriculture, poverty alleviation, investment promotion, ICT, and banking. Collectively, Malaysia and Singapore have trained more than 100,000 government officials from around 150 countries over the past three decades.

With the debate over “Asia’s role” still fresh in my mind, I travelled from Tokyo to Manila to witness the signing of the Framework Agreement. Malaysia has brokered the peace initiative between the two parties since 2001. In his speech at the Rizal Hall in Malacañang on October 15, President Benigno Aquino III praised Malaysia’s sincerity in promoting a peaceful settlement to the long simmering Bangsamoro issue. Coming from a president of a neighboring nation that still has territorial disputes with Malaysia, this was very accommodating. Malaysia’s Prime Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Najib Abdul Razak responded, saying Malaysia was honored to have played a part in resolving the conflict in a peaceful manner, adding that Malaysia was also willing to help build institutions in Mindanao so that the Bangsamoro will be stronger than before. Among others, Najib said that Malaysia was willing to help in land development, “so that farmers in Bangsamoro who were formerly freedom fighters could reap the harvest of peace.”

For Southeast Asia, the event at Malacañang might just open up a new chapter of regional relations. ASEAN countries, infamously known for their non-interference approach, might just have enough stock now to start participating with their neighbors to address conflict resolution issues. As the former Secretary General for ASEAN, Surin Pitsuwan, rightly pointed out during an interview in Kuala Lumpur on October 20, the achievement in the Philippines is a good example for other peace initiatives in Southeast Asia.

There is no denying that the complex relationship between the MILF and the Philippine government are also descriptive of situations in other countries around the region – albeit in different ways. A useful exercise would be to examine the various experiences in comparative terms and share some of the similarities and differences that exist. This would give an opportunity for better understanding and provide a more effective basis for conflict resolution domestically or regionally, as well as allowing for a more meaningful interaction between states, regionally or in a broader context.

In most circles, Asia is not exactly known for political openness. Debate and discussion on issues related to democracy and politics have had limited exposure, certainly in the public sphere. This is also true of discussion and dialogue that cut across cultural and religious boundaries in a historically and culturally informed way. Genuine concerns and grievances, generally, when they cross these basic boundaries are curtailed. Informed and rigorous public debate critical to the development of democratic culture has been underdeveloped, possibly due in part to the lack of public space for open discussion, and the underwhelming role of public and private agencies in fostering dialogue.

Nevertheless governments are opening up to civil societies, the internet has allowed greater public participation in policy-making, and public scrutiny on governance isn’t as much of a taboo subject anymore. In Southeast Asia, over the last two decades, countries such as Indonesia and most recently, Burma, have showed that there lies enormous courage and possibility for change.

From issues of international economic development to conflict resolution, October 2012 was a month full of great expectations in Asia. If Asia’s past history offers any indication, there is no doubt Asia will live up to it.

The Asia Foundation is a member of the International Contact Group (ICG) for the peace process between the MILF and the Government of the Philippines. Read more. 

Herizal Hazri is The Asia Foundation’s deputy country representative in Malaysia. He can be reached at herizal@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

In the just-released 2012 World Risk Index, which ranks countries based on their level of vulnerability to natural disasters, 12 of the top 20 at-risk countries are in the Asia-Pacific. Vietnam, which every year endures an average of eight to 10 extreme weather events and natural disasters, rose from 34th (out of 173 total countries) in 2011 to 18th this year. In addition to the loss of lives that natural disasters cause, the economic costs to these countries – nearly all of which are developing – is startling.

Vietnam endures 8-10 extreme weather events and natural disasters a year. Meanwhile, the nation’s small businesses remain unprepared for future disasters. Photo/Evangelos Petratos EU/ECHO

The UN Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that over the last 30 years, natural disasters have caused Vietnam to lose an average of $257 million per year. This underscores just how critical addressing disaster risk reduction and management will be going forward for Vietnam’s continued economic prosperity.

In Vietnam, small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) employ 77 percent of the workforce and produce over 40 percent of the nation’s GDP. Their ability to recover after a disaster is essential to revitalizing communities and livelihoods. Natural disasters and climate change greatly impact SMEs, but many remain ill-prepared: 50 percent of companies that The Asia Foundation surveyed in the Central Vietnam region in 2011 lacked emergency response or disaster management plans. This illustrates how little domestic private sector involvement in disaster preparedness and mitigation efforts there are in Vietnam.

To address this, The Asia Foundation, with support from USAID’s Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance (OFDA), developed the first-ever program in Vietnam that links SMEs with government and community groups to help small businesses prepare for future floods and storms – a common occurrence in Vietnam. In recognition of the success of this project’s approach, last week, OFDA presented The Asia Foundation with an award for “Excellence for Innovation and Learning in Disaster Risk Reduction,” at its annual conference in Washington, D.C. The conference was attended by more than 120 participants working on emergency response, humanitarian assistance, and building resilience to natural disasters.

The Foundation has been working closely with the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), other business associations, as well as government and local NGOs including the Centre for Education and Development (CED) to develop the program. Since April 2011, we have developed a disaster risk management (DRM) training curriculum for SMEs that covers such topics as methodology for assessing risk and potential losses, disaster-proofing facilities, and building staff preparedness. We’ve also formed a group of 20 master trainers, and trained more than 500 individuals, including staff from over 300 SMEs in five coastal provinces prone to natural disasters. We are now working with VCCI to provide technical assistance to selected businesses for completing and testing their DRM plans and establishing networks of support.

We also support innovative public-private partnership models and corporate social initiatives on disaster management and risk reduction, such as the Da Nang Young Entrepreneurs Association’s (YEA) “The Storm Won’t Reach Da Nang” initiative. Da Nang YEA organizes engineers from the staff of its member businesses to assist poor and vulnerable households prepare their homes for disaster. So far, Da Nang YEA has engaged over 50 businesses and mobilized an additional 400 million VND ($20,000) to support local low-income households.

Understanding and coordinating individual and institutional incentives to implement disaster risk reduction plans has probably been the most critical factor for the project’s success. The program was built on detailed preparation and research, including a survey of nearly 200 businesses. The survey found that 85 percent of SMEs were regularly affected by seasonal storms, but none of the respondents claimed that they had comprehensive and fully operational preparedness plans, identifying a critical need for support in this area. Engaging businesses on the basis of their potential cost savings was essential, and has over time enabled us to engage on wider issues where individual benefits are not quite so clearly or immediately connected to cost savings.

While this project is off to a great start, challenges remain, including expanding to reach a greater number of Vietnam’s estimated 400,000 SMEs, and ensuring disaster preparedness principles are fully integrated into Vietnamese businesses, business associations, training centers, and NGOs to continue to reduce vulnerability over the long-term. Vietnam’s SMEs are key drivers of the nation’s economy and if Vietnam is to maintain its stunning growth record it cannot afford to have its most dynamic sector remain unprepared for more frequent and intense natural disasters.

Anna Bantug-Herrera is The Asia Foundation’s assistant director in the Washington, D.C., office and William Taylor is the Foundation’s deputy country representative in Vietnam. They can be reached at abantugherrera@asiafound-dc.org and wtaylor@asiafound.org, respectively. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual authors and not those of The Asia Foundation.

More than 10 years of grim news from Afghanistan has made it easy to overlook the positive stories from the country – especially when the negative news is overwhelmingly preferred by campaigning politicians and media outlets to garner attention-grabbing headlines. But beyond the sound bites, real progress has been achieved by and for Afghanistan’s women, including broader freedoms, increased access to education, greater economic clout, and improved civic participation. You just have to look beyond front page headlines to see them.

With 42 percent of the Afghan population under the age of 15, educated mothers will help to ensure that the next generation of Afghans – both male and female – value the critical role that women play in society. Photo by Susan Marx.

Today, 37 percent of all girls, or nearly 3 million, are enrolled in school. Women now comprise 27 percent of Kabul University’s student body, 30 percent of Afghanistan’s school teachers, and 15 percent of university professors. In addition, women currently represent 35 percent of the country’s workforce and are playing a greater role in politics. On average, 40 percent of women have participated in elections since 2004. Further, constitutional changes now mandate that 27 percent of seats in the Afghan National Assembly and 25 percent in the provincial councils are reserved for women, with 24 percent of all Community Development Councils already occupied by females in rural Afghanistan. Just a few years ago, women’s representation in these areas was nearly non-existent.

The Asia Foundation’s latest Survey of the Afghan People shows that attitudes among Afghans regarding women are also improving. According to the survey, 85 percent of Afghans responded that men and women should have equal access to education, with 81 percent of men in support. Of those polled, 79 percent said that women should be allowed to stand up for their individual rights, and 85 percent indicated that women should be able to vote for themselves. Additionally, 62 percent said that women should be able to work outside the home. These figures underscore concrete and significant advancements for women over the past decade in Afghanistan.

Judge Najla Ayubi should know. During the Taliban regime, the now leading Afghan Women’s Rights activist and country director for Open Society Afghanistan, was forced out of her prominent role as judge and prosecutor and back into the home.

“Since the fall of the Taliban, Afghan women’s position in society has changed for the better. We are not the women we were then,” she told me recently. “In the past 10 years, women have fought and struggled to secure access to justice and their fundamental rights. As a result, Afghan women have been able to lobby within parliament to get approval for the Elimination of Violence Against Women law for the first time in Afghanistan’s history. This progress could not have been achieved without the contributions of the international community to help protect and promote the rights of Afghan women and girls.”

However, this progress is now under threat. As NATO leaders met at the end of May in Chicago to discuss transitioning security responsibilities to Afghanistan by 2014, President Obama cautioned that the “Taliban is still a robust enemy, and the gains are still fragile.”  Among the gains most at risk are those hard-won by Afghan women.

Illiteracy and lack of education and rights remain the biggest problems facing Afghan women, according to The Asia Foundation survey, although the percentage of respondents citing these barriers has fallen sharply from 49 percent in 2009 to 25 percent in 2011. The most significant source of pessimism relates to security concerns. In fact, there has been a steady decline in the proportion of Afghans who agree that women should be allowed to work outside the home, and survey organizers attribute this to increasing fears for personal safety. This will only be compounded should the security situation deteriorate when NATO support to Afghan security forces ends. While the number of survey respondents who sympathize with Taliban motivations reached their lowest levels in 2011 at 29 percent, concerns still loom that when NATO leaves, women’s rights will be sacrificed for the sake of peace negotiations with the militants.

The stakes are high. Research shows that women serve as the catalyst for many positive changes in society. Giving girls access to education, for example, improves their long-term economic prospects and helps lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Educated women are more likely to participate in political and civic life, so they have a voice in shaping the larger policy decisions that affect them, their families, and their country. With 42 percent of the Afghan population under the age of 15, educated mothers will help to ensure that the next generation of Afghans – both male and female – value the critical role that women play in society.

So how can we as members of the international community help Afghan women maintain the great strides they’ve made?  First, recognize that the problems facing Afghan women will not be tackled in a matter of months or even a few years. Over 90 percent of Afghanistan’s budget comes from foreign aid, and the dramatic reduction in assistance to coincide with the 2014 NATO drawdown will greatly impact the nation. Second, leverage and support the vast network of NGOs and development organizations working on-the-ground in Afghanistan to tackle these issues. Seek out those that employ a holistic approach, working in both urban and rural locations, with strong local partners at the central and community levels. Identify organizations helping to educate not only women and girls, but boys and men. And consider supporting groups focused on data collection and analysis. Afghanistan’s last census took place in 1979, and there is a dearth of reliable data necessary to inform policy-makers in their decisions. One reason I support The Asia Foundation through my work with their Lotus Circle is because they successfully utilize all three of these crucial approaches. This week at a ceremony in New York, we’ll be presenting awards to partners who have made a difference in educating Afghan girls and women.

Just last week, Judge Ayubi emailed me, writing excitedly that she had just received her driver’s permit. In 2000, an Afghan woman could not go to the grocery store by herself. In 2012, this same woman is driving solo around Kabul’s chaotic, bustling streets. Let’s make sure that the road to progress does not end for Judge Ayubi and the rest of the women of Afghanistan.

Meredith Ludlow is an advisor to The Asia Foundation’s Lotus Circle, a community committed to the empowerment of women and girls across Asia. Judge Najla Ayubi previously worked in The Asia Foundation’s Kabul office, where she directed the Law, Human Rights, and Women’s Empowerment program. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

It is no wonder that political and economic analysts have dubbed our era “The Asian Century,” and quite timely that we will soon be seeing the White Paper on Australia in the Asian Century commissioned by Prime Minister Gillard last September.

The region accounts for 27 percent of global GDP, and with the right mix of national, regional and global policies, the Asian Development Bank predicts that Asia’s GDP will increase nine-fold to account for half of global GDP in 2050. China is now the world’s second biggest economy, and it is expected to overtake the U.S. as the world’s top trading nation by 2016. Australia and Asia of course retain a special relationship in this regard. The proportion of Australia’s total exports going to Asia exceeds 50 percent, with exports to China having doubled since 2008.

As noted by Prime Minister Gillard’s remarks on the White Paper, China and India  – with two of the largest emerging donor assistance packages and reach throughout the region – are frontline voices in Asian development cooperation. As both of these rising donors and Australia increase their commitments to programs in Asia, it has become pressing to develop a fuller understanding of each for fruitful engagement.

China’s aid, 45 percent of which is directed to Africa and about a third of which flows to Asia, has been the subject of much recent discussion. The country’s first White Paper on Foreign Aid, released last April, reveals an aid program that has been increasing at approximately 30 percent per year for the past few years.

In fact, estimations of the total size of China’s aid flows vary considerably, ranging from US$2 billion to over US$110 billion annually.

The huge variations stem from different delineations of which flows are considered development aid. In its White Paper, China itself categorises its aid primarily as grants, interest-free loans, and concessional loans administered through China Eximbank. This represents only a small element of China Eximbank’s loan program. Its other official flows, such as export credits, constitute the majority of Chinese development financing. These other flows are often incorrectly classified as aid (which they are not, according to the definition of Official Development Assistance), thereby leading to considerable misconceptions about Chinese aid. In addition, Chinese aid is often part of a broader investment package in a given country.

Due to such misconceptions and the fact that several Chinese agencies, rather than one, coordinate aid, it is difficult to analyse Chinese aid alongside traditional aid or within frameworks like the Paris Declaration. Nevertheless, we can be sure that China’s development cooperation activities will continue to increase. As such, it will be critical for Australia, given its special reach in the region, to engage with China.

India presents another interesting case. Although often overshadowed by China’s rising presence, India’s engagement in development cooperation dates back to the 1950s. Today, India is the 5th largest donor to Afghanistan. Like China, guiding principles include mutual benefit, non-interference, and technical and economic South-South cooperation. India disbursed over $1.5 billion in traditional foreign aid in 2011, even while it remained the world’s largest recipient of multilateral assistance.

Quantifying and categorising Indian aid is a bit of blur, as it is with China, largely because Indian aid has been managed and disbursed through an array of government departments and technical agencies. The Government recently announced its intention to establish a dedicated Development Partnership Administration within its Ministry of External Affairs, a move which has long been under discussion.

For both China and India, foreign assistance is a “soft power” tool for developing strategic economic and political relationships with other countries. As the Asian Century unfolds, we can look forward to reflecting on how this soft power impacts China’s and India’s engagement with recipient countries in the region and with each other.

To leverage this momentum, it is important for OECD-DAC donors like Australia and organisations like The Asia Foundation to engage with emerging powers like China and India. Given their rapid growth, in terms of both magnitude and soft power reach, these nations will play an increasingly important role in shaping regional and global development in the years ahead.

This article was originally published by the Lowy Institute’s blog, The Interpreter.

David D. Arnold is president of The Asia Foundation. He can be reached at president@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.

On Monday, NATO leaders, with Afghan and Pakistani leaders joining, formally approved the plan for drawing down international forces and handing over security responsibilities to Afghanistan by 2014. The Asia Foundation’s Senior Director for Governance, Law, and Conflict, William Cole, joined experts live on NPR affiliate, KQED’s The Forum with host Michael Krasny to discuss the transition, the implications for the Afghan people, and more. Below is an excerpt from the interview (edited for space and readability).

Michael Krasny:
[Under the agreement] NATO troops will presumably be training and advising Afghans, and NATO Secretary General Rasmussen said the withdrawal will take place over the next two and a half years. How viable is this, particularly with all the strife and corruption in Afghanistan and with only 42 percent of operations presently being led by Afghans?

William Cole:
In terms of the viability of the Afghan state after the transition, there are obviously serious questions. The commitment of the United States to a long-term strategic alliance with Afghanistan is now clear. The U.S. won’t be leaving entirely, there will be something like 15 or 20,000 troops remaining after 2014. The real question is whether the Afghan National Army can carry the ball once the NATO troops are gone, and what happens after the Afghans have taken over the full responsibility for combat. Nobody really knows the answer to that question. What we hear from troops on the ground is that many are impressed with the progress that has been made by the Afghan National Army, but they still have a long way to go. Meanwhile, the insurgency has gotten tougher. There seems to be some willingness to negotiate on the part of the Quetta Shura, but the Haqqani network working out of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in Pakistan seems less willing to negotiate, so there are a lot of variables here.

Krasny:
Do you see things moving toward an Afghan-led government?

Cole:
If you look at what the international community has constructed over the last decade in Afghanistan, in many ways, it has been based on a development model, which is taking Western institutions and transferring those to developing countries. This is particularly problematic where you have a context of starting from scratch, as was the case in Afghanistan. The difficulty is that what you end up with is “best practice institutions” that you have put in place, but those institutions don’t articulate very well with the underlying distribution of power and influence among the elites. The result is a lot of corruption, a lot of malfeasance, and there will be a lot of difficulty in sustaining that kind of state.

Krasny:
How do we make better connection with the Afghan people?

Cole:
The difficulty is that as long as NATO is present at this troop level, at the level of influence that the international community has in terms of policy and institution building in Afghanistan – as long as that’s there, we can at least on paper ensure rights – rights for women, rights for minorities. But as you move the international presence out, those forces who have the greatest voice in Afghanistan now will be able to reassert themselves and many of those voices are going to lead in a direction in which we’re not going to be very happy on the women’s front. The Asia Foundation has a survey that we do every year in Afghanistan, and one of the things that has been very clear on the issue of women is that most Afghans want their girls educated, they want women to be able to go to the marketplace freely, they want them to be in public freely, they don’t agree with what the Taliban had done in the 1990s. That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, there isn’t as much support as you might expect, and we might hope, for women in senior positions of government. When you combine those things together, they might look incongruent to Americans, but they aren’t necessarily incongruent to Afghans on the ground. As things move forward, and as deals are cut with the Taliban, and as you have more of an Afghan say in what the policies and institutions are going to be, I think you are going to see a slippage of the position of women in Afghanistan. It’s not going to be nearly as bad as it was in the 1990s, but it will slip from where we might have hoped it would be over the next few years.

Listen to full program on KQED.

On June 3, Cambodians will vote for the third time since 2002 to select their local representatives, or commune councilors. This is a crucial part of the long-term process of decentralizing governance and enabling citizens to play a greater role in decision-making. Cambodia has traditionally been highly centralized, but over more than a decade, the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC), with the support of donors, such as the World Bank, United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA), has worked to develop capable local government institutions that can bring local government decision-makers closer to citizens and promote more responsive and inclusive governance in the long term.

A series of reforms in Cambodia have helped to decentralize decision-making, however, citizens still struggle to have their voices heard in local development planning. Photo by Karl Grobl.

A series of reforms since 2001, including the development of a basic intergovernmental fiscal transfer system, direct elections of commune/sangkat councils in 2002 and 2007, the passage of core enabling legislation in 2008, and the indirect election of district and provincial councils in 2009, has provided a legal and policy framework for sub-national democratic development. The next critical stage of reform in Cambodia was launched with the adoption of the National Program for Sub-National Democratic Development (NP-SNDD) 2010-2019 in May 2010, and the issuance of the first three-year Implementation Plan (IP3) in 2011.

Decentralization reforms have the potential to enhance democratization and development, but significant governance challenges remain in Cambodia. Citizen voice in local development planning and participation in oversight of publicly funded projects remains weak. Competition between elected councils and local administrators nominated by the central government limits downward accountability. Various aspects of local governance policy and practice can lead to ineffective allocation of the limited resources controlled by decision-makers, and restrict their ability to effectively monitor government spending and project implementation.

To respond to these challenges, policy and practice at the commune level need to ensure that funding and administrative decisions by local authorities reflect community needs and priorities, and thus are built on a solid foundation of participatory planning and community oversight. Government decision-makers and development agencies working together to move forward the process of decentralization need a deeper understanding of the opportunities and challenges presented from the current system, including an analysis of the influence of formal and informal institutions, central government pressures, relationships between political and administrative structures, and how these might be evolving within changing political and policy contexts and social structures.

To identify and analyze the range of formal and informal institutions that enable and constrain participation and decision-making around the local development fund mechanism, The Asia Foundation undertook a just-released study designed and funded by the World Bank on “Voice, Choice, and Decision: A Study of Local Governance Processes in Cambodia.” The Foundation’s multi-national research team was led by Joakim Öjendal from the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, and included Robin Biddulph, Mehr Latif, Min Muny, Pak Kimchoeun, and Duong Viroth.

The study focuses on the dynamics of decision-making, participation, and accountability at the commune level. Cambodia’s 1,621 communes represent the most basic level of governance in the country, and elected commune councilors play important roles through their leadership in local development planning and expenditure, as well as selection of village chiefs and district and provincial councilors. One of the core responsibilities of the commune council is to determine the use of the commune/sangkat fund (CSF) (the main intergovernmental transfer mechanism for financing the administrative and development expenditures of the commune councils) and supervise the implementation of funded projects. In the first stage of the study, the research team analyzed how the CSF has been used over the last decade in a sample of 36 communes, and the relationship between these decisions and community preferences expressed through formal participatory processes. In the second, and primary stage of the study, the research team engaged in intensive fieldwork in 12 communes, where they interviewed a broad range of local officials, community members, and other stakeholders to assess the dynamics around decision-making, voice and participation, and accountability.

In reviewing decision-making by commune councils, the study examines how communes determine the allocation of their modest commune development funds, how they undertake appointment of village chiefs and administrative clerks, and how they address critical non-financial matters, such as natural resource management conflicts in their communities. The researchers concluded that a number of factors affect decision-making in the communes studied, including formal policies and guidelines issued by national authorities, the influence of “higher level” actors, and parallel party structures from the national to the grass roots level.

The second crucial area addressed in the study is how citizens exert influence over commune decision-making, both through formally-designed participatory processes and through other informal and representative mechanisms. Among the findings, the researchers concluded that although formal participatory mechanisms are carried out as prescribed, with a concerted effort by commune administrations to follow procedures, these formal processes have limited value as effective, empowering participatory processes for citizen engagement in local development. In one village in Battambang, for example, the village chief told the research team how frustrated his villagers had become with attending meetings from which they received no benefit.

The dynamics around downward accountability to citizens as well as horizontal accountability relationships (commune clerks to commune councils) are also explored in depth within the study. One interesting finding is that local contributions to development projects have triggered stronger accountability relations. In nine of the 12 case study communes, for example, there is some form of active monitoring of locally funded projects, and commune councils attempt to hold contractors responsible for their performance. In some cases, regular local monitoring has been key to ensuring that standards have been met and that the authorization of payments was not a source of local controversy. In one commune in Battambang, for example, in order to justify the community contribution and account for how it was used, village chiefs kept detailed notebooks and reported at village meetings on the amount collected before delivering the funds to the commune council. In two cases in Kampong Cham, the mismanagement of local contributions led to citizen protests and ultimately to the removal of village chiefs.

Detailed presentation of findings on these issues, including illustrative examples from extensive field interviews conducted by the researchers, as well as conclusions about the lessons that can be drawn and recommendations for policy and future research, can be found in the full report online.

As Cambodians vote for their commune council representatives next week, and the government and its development partners continue to develop and implement the next stage of local governance reforms, we hope that the findings in this report help enhance understanding of local development issues and contribute to bringing greater voice to citizens in their communities.

Gavin Tritt is The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Cambodia and co-editor of the report “Voice, Choice, and Decision: A Study of Local Governance Processes in Cambodia.” He can be reached at gtritt@asiafound.org. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the individual author and not those of The Asia Foundation.