In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen announced in late March that the nation was on target to move from the status of a low-income to a lower-middle-income nation by the end of 2013, ranking it the 15th country that obtained high economic growth in the world in the last 10 years.

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This week in Nay Pyi Taw, H.E. U Zin Yaw, Myanmar’s Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Asia Foundation President David Arnold signed an MOU marking the Foundation’s expansion of programs to support Myanmar’s democratic transition and plans to re-establish a resident office in the country. The Foundation also announced the appointment of Dr. Kim [...]

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When we hear about the current slow pace of negotiations between the government of the Philippines and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, we can lose sight of the many concrete achievements made over the years. As peacemakers on both sides of the negotiating table try to learn lessons from past peace efforts…

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Against the background of Mongolia’s famous blue sky, around 1,215 delegates from 104 countries gathered in Ulaanbaatar to participate in the 7th Ministerial Conference of the Community of Democracies (CD) from April 27- 29, 2013, organized under Mongolia’s Presidency of the CD, which started in July 2011.

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Cambodia announced two major bilateral trade agreements last month, with the Philippines and Thailand, that are expected to further expand the country’s rice export sector. Over the last few years, Cambodia has emerged as a major rice exporter in the region, due in large part to the Royal Government of Cambodia’s recent expansion of its agricultural sector.

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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.

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People were standing up and sitting down, intense negotiations were underway, funding decisions were being made, and a lot of commotion was coming from a crowd of over 300 policymakers, scientists, and practitioners from over 40 countries. We are gathered in Dhaka, Bangladesh…

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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.

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Yesterday marked the 18th World Book and Copyright Day, first introduced by UNESCO in 1995, in celebration of books, authors, and the joys of reading. It’s also an occasion to reflect on the importance of education, especially as a driver of poverty reduction.

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Recent vituperative comments by the North Korean regime can normally be dismissed as the ravings of a state that either misinterprets their negative external impact, or as rhetoric that is intended for consumption by a remarkably unsophisticated internal audience.

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