In Asia: Weekly Insight and Features from Asia

In a study I wrote a number of years ago, I quoted a peace activist in Mindanao lamenting the lack of success in ending the war between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). He was speaking in the wake of President Estrada’s 2000 “all-out war” offensive that overran fixed positions of the MILF.

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Women make up more than half of the population in Asia, and the UN estimates that the Asia-Pacific economy would earn an additional $89 billion annually if women were able to achieve their full economic potential in these countries. To examine this disparity, The Asia Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Department of State…

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New Asia Foundation trustee Clare Lockhart, author of the acclaimed book, Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World and co-founder (with Dr. Ashraf Ghani) of the Institute for State Effectiveness (ISE), spoke with In Asia editor Alma Freeman on state effectiveness, Afghanistan’s unsung progress, engaging youth for change, and why we are living on the cusp of a third industrial revolution.

A Foreign Affairs article on the 2012 Failed States Index claims that, “most countries that fall apart … do so not with a bang but with a whimper.” What are your thoughts on this statement?

There are examples of seemingly gradual deterioration: where a vicious cycle of state weakness generates a spiral of decline, with deepening corruption and reducing public service, leading to an increasing loss of trust from the population. We’ve seen this in countries including Haiti, Somalia, Liberia, and Zimbabwe.

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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.”

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Over the weekend, academics and practitioners from across the U.S. gathered at the University of Southern California for a conference that aimed to challenge some of the bedrock assumptions and rhetoric that underpin the movement against trafficking in persons.

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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…

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For Southeast Asia, 2012 brought both challenges and opportunities to the region – from Cambodia’s chairmanship of ASEAN and further political opening in Burma (also known as Myanmar) to tensions in the South China Sea and the adoption of the ASEAN Declaration of Human Rights (ADHR).

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Karl Eikenberry, former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan and Asia Foundation trustee, wrote in an op-ed in the Financial Times that, “Afghanistan’s future is of course uncertain. Lower levels of international support will inevitably place stress on its security forces, depress the economy…

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Mongolia enters 2013 as one of the world’s fastest growing economies, with forecasters predicting GDP growth of 18-20 percent. Driven by a boom in mining revenues, the impact of this growth is clearly visible in Mongolia’s capital city, Ulaanbaatar…

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Last November, when a new leadership team stepped forward in Beijing, they confronted a very different set of challenges than their predecessors had faced. Among the most urgent of these is the challenge of providing adequate basic social services for all of China’s 1.3 billion people…

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