In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

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.

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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.

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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…

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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.

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Burma (also known as Myanmar) may be on the verge of a dramatic expansion of international assistance. After last month’s parliamentary by-elections, there is likely to be more support for easing sanctions and increasing foreign assistance to the country to support the changes underway.

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President Obama’s overnight visit to Afghanistan underscores the long-term security and financial commitment of the United States to this country in advance of the NATO Summit later this month.

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Tadashi Yamamoto, founder and president of the Japan Center for International Exchange, passed away on April 15 at the age of 76. He was an extraordinary person whose career was marked by extraordinary accomplishment. He was a liberal internationalist, an optimist who believed wholeheartedly…

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

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It is always exciting to be able to take a break from program implementation to think more deeply about the theories that underlie development practice on the ground. That is of course the whole point of a teaching sabbatical, and it is what we both enjoyed about the “Experts’ Roundtable on Local-Level Justice in Conflict-Affected and Fragile Regions.”…

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

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