Corruption

On September 11, The Asia Foundation, in partnership with the Beijing Rongzhi Corporate Social Responsibility Institute hosted the Northeast Asia Regional Seminar on Overseas Investment Compliance, in Beijing. The seminar focused on overseas operational risks and compliance management of enterprises under the context of globalization. Opening remar… Read more

Last week, The Asia Foundation and the Sant Maral Foundation released the eighth biannual survey of private sector perceptions of corruption, revealing a pivotal time in Mongolia’s business environment. During Mongolia’s transition in the 1990s from a centrally planned to a free market economy, the country underwent the privatization of its governm… Read more

While true that Mongolia’s economy is heavily dependent on fluctuating coal and copper prices, it is also true that the country’s political parties increasingly influence economic outcomes. According to The Asia Foundation’s annual survey on perceptions of corruption in Mongolia, in 2010, political parties ranked fifth on a list of the 16 most corr… Read more

Nearly three months after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced a ban on its highest-denomination currency to curb corruption and tax evasion, the country is still reeling from the move, with millions struggling from a cash shortage in an overwhelmingly cash-dependent economy. In Asia editor Alma Freeman spoke with The Asia Foundation’s cou… Read more

Mongolia is facing challenging times economically, especially compared to four or five years ago when the country was growing at a breakneck speed of 17 percent, that today is down to just 1.3 percent. The drop is a result of slumping demand for minerals, and for mineral-rich Mongolia this has spelled bad news for business. Small businesses, which… Read more

A group of engineering students trudge up the stairs of an engineering college in the heart of Bangalore’s swanky Electronics City. Flip-flops beat against tiled floors, fingers run through bed-head hair. These bright minds are partly behind India’s unprecedented growth over the last two decades: the young tech-elite who power Indian technology’s heavy hitters like Infosys (whose sprawling campus is across the street), and run global giants like Google and Microsoft. As they fire up their laptops and plug in their headphones, these 50-odd data scientists, software engineers, and computer scientists are turning their attention toward something normally considered beyond their realm.

Thirty years ago, on Feb. 22, 1986, then Jaime Cardinal Sin made an urgent call on church-owned Radio Veritas for Filipinos to take to the streets and support the revolt against President Ferdinand E. Marcos. For most Filipinos, Jaime Cardinal Sin’s message was what started the People Power Revolution, with hundreds of thousands of supporters…

Just under 100 million Indonesians were eligible to vote in Wednesday’s local elections for nine governors, 224 district heads, and 36 mayors as well as their deputies. Overall, this represents elections for about half of the country’s districts and municipalities and a quarter of the provinces.

From October 12-16, thousands trooped to national and local Commission on Elections (COMELEC) offices across the Philippines to file certificates of candidacy for the May 2016 elections. The wannabes came in all shapes and sizes, some in attire portraying revolutionaries…

Mongolia’s public commitment to fight corruption has been strong, from the adoption of the Anti-Corruption Law of 2006 and the creation of the Independent Authority Against Corruption (IAAC) in 2007, to the Law on Information Transparency and the Right to Information of 2011 and the…

On April 28, Bangladesh held municipal elections for mayors and ward councilors in Dhaka North, Dhaka South, and Chittagong. The city corporation elections, as they are called, were important for many reasons, and as The Asia Foundation’s director for elections, I had come to Chittagong to observe the process. They were the first municipal elections held in Dhaka City since 2002…

In early November, less than one month after Indonesian President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s inauguration, Siti Nurbaya Bakar, the newly installed Environment and Forestry minister, announced that the government would extend an existing moratorium on the issuance of new permits for logging in primary forests in an effort to halt deforestation. While environmentalists and concerned citizens alike certainly welcomed this news, the road ahead to improving forest and land governance in Indonesia is steep.

On February 7, Delhi residents head to the polls for a second time in less than two years to select 70 new members to the Delhi Legislative Assembly. The election is critical because the capital has been without a functioning government since February 2014…

Commentators on citizen-led accountability programs in persistently underdeveloped and conflict-prone states frequently advocate approaches that “work with the grain” of local social norms and institutions. At the same time, it is argued that local ownership…

Season’s Greetings! On behalf of In Asia’s editorial board and bloggers, we thank you for your engagement and continued readership throughout the year. We’ll be taking a short break, but will return on January 7. In the meantime, catch up on our must-read pieces and highlights on the most pressing events and issues in Asia throughout 2014.

The Asia Foundation’s third national survey on democratic development in Cambodia released today suggests some sobering trends in public opinion, despite significant economic growth and poverty reduction over the last decade…

At his inauguration on September 29, President Ashraf Ghani thanked his wife, Rula, for her support during the campaign, and to the surprise of many in Afghanistan, promised Afghans that she would continue her work advocating on behalf of the nation’s 750,000 internally displaced people. Having previously served as the country’s finance minister in 2002-2004…

Indonesia’s new President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo sent a clear message last week that he intends to create a business-friendly bureaucracy by eliminating costly red tape for entrepreneurs and investors.He announced his intention during a surprise inspection of the One-Stop Shop Investment Service (PTSP) of the Investment Coordinating Board…

In a dramatic challenge to the principles of democracy, on Friday night, the parliament of Timor-Leste decided in a closed session to fire all foreign judges and advisers in its justice system. The National Parliament passed Resolution No. 11/2014, calling on the government to audit the justice sector…

In Indonesia, people are celebrating. Joko Widodo’s supporters joined a parade on Monday to welcome him and Jusuf “JK” Kalla on the day they were sworn into office as Indonesia’s new president and vice-president. After a grueling process, Jokowi, as the new president is popularly known, and JK won against former general Prabowo Subianto and Hatta Rajasa…

The Asia Foundation hosted four U.S. ambassadors to Asia at its headquarters in San Francisco on October 9 for “ASEAN Matters,” a panel discussion on why Asia is crucial to the United States’ economic growth. In Asia editor Alma Freeman sat down with U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia Robert Blake…

Earlier this week, Cambodia’s Ministry of Education Youth and Sports (MoEYS) held a second high school exam to provide a second chance for the over 70 percent of 93,000 high school students who failed to pass the first annual national high school exam, held in early August. The passing rate in the first exam…

Flying over Indonesia’s East Kalimantan, the closer we get to the provincial capital of Samarinda, the more bare patches emerge in the island’s lush forest cover. Exposed brown areas dotted with lurid green tailing ponds are telltale signs of the open pit coal mining voraciously consuming Kalimantan’s remaining forests.

Ahead of a major forum on transparency and corruption in Mongolia’s capital of Ulaanbaatar this week, Capital City Governor and Mayor Bat-Uul Erdene set the tone for the discussions: “In Mongolia, corruption is so common that it has become a kind of social norm.” …

Last week, Indonesians woke up to the news that in the dead of night the parliament voted for a bill that would end direct elections for over 500 local-level political offices (mayors, district and sub-district governors), and replace them with an indirect selection process in regional parliaments. Since then, the country has been engaged by the decision, and civil society groups have readied themselves…

In what is yet another significant twist in this fascinating election year in Indonesia, the country’s national legislature (DPR) will vote today on a hastily cobbled bill that aims to eliminate over 500 direct local elections. Following heralded national elections in April and July and a decade of direct local elections, this bill has surfaced like a sudden malady afflicting Indonesia’s electoral democracy. Here is a brief diagnosis of this disorder as well as a prognosis for recovery.

Just weeks after election results declared former Jakarta governor Joko Widodo (“Jokowi”) as Indonesia’s presidential front-runner, the president-elect’s team of volunteers announced that he would be crowdsourcing his cabinet. Through an online survey, anyone can choose…

In this year’s hotly contested presidential elections, Indonesia’s democracy went through what probably has been its hardest test yet. Two hours before the General Elections Commission (KPU) announced the final results on July 22, when Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s victory…

As The Asia Foundation recently marked its 20th anniversary in Mongolia, Country Representative Meloney Lindberg sat down with Oyun Sanjasuren, Minister of Environment and Green Development and former Asia Foundation grantee…

Indonesians went to the polls on Wednesday to elect a new president and vice president. This election represents the first transition from one democratically elected president to another in Indonesia’s history. The scale and consequences of the election are enormous, but the contest is simple…

After being inundated by months of campaigning, it now looks like it will be some time before Indonesian electors can come up for air and focus on repairing some of the damage of a divisive election season. Indonesia has witnessed the tightest and most polarized presidential election in the democratic era…

The Asia Foundation and the Sant Maral Foundation on July 7 released the latest Study on Private Perceptions on Corruption (STOPP), revealing a troubling decline in satisfaction with the business environment and how some debilitating conditions for business…

Last week, The Asia Foundation, the Sant Maral Foundation, and Mercy Corps Mongolia released the fourth semi-annual corruption survey, revealing citizens’ perception of corruption in one of the fastest growing economies in the world. As in the three earlier surveys…

One week after the Thai military seized control of the country for the second time in eight years, The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Thailand, Kim McQuay, responds to questions from his office in Bangkok on the military intervention, the reaction from the Thai people, and what’s at stake for the country’s immediate future…

Anna Bantug-Herrera, The Asia Foundation’s associate director in Washington, D.C., recently spoke with former Foundation grantee, Sheila Coronel, veteran investigative journalist, new Dean of Academic Affairs of Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism…

Nearly two months, 930,000 poll booths, 1.7 million voting machines, and over 500 million voters later, India’s marathon election concluded last Friday. Across the country, people were glued to their TVs as the results began to come in. By the evening, the outcome was clear – the Bharatiya Janta Party (BJP), in opposition for the last 10 years, had won a landslide victory. Capturing a staggering 284 out of 543 parliamentary seats, this is the first time in India’s independent history that a non-Congress party has won a clear majority in the lower house of parliament. On May 26, chief minister of the Indian state of Gujarat and BJP leader, Narendra Modi, will be sworn in as India’s 14th prime minister.

A turbulent last 10 days in Thailand’s protracted political crisis has left its embattled political leaders no closer to a compromise solution. Emboldened by the Constitutional Court’s decision last week to remove former Pheu Thai Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra…

Out of Indonesia’s 186 million eligible voters, an estimated 139 million cast their ballots on Wednesday to elect 235,637 legislative candidates in competition for nearly 19,699 positions across the country. It will take up to a month for official results to be released, but early “quick counts” released by CSIS and Cyrus Network barely four hours after polling stations closed suggest a relatively high voter turnout of 75 percent. As has been the case since 1999 when Indonesians turned out for the first post-Suharto democratic election, Indonesians have once again shown their eagerness and determination to take part in deciding the course of their country, the third-largest democracy in the world.

Public disenchantment with Nepal’s political parties has been on the rise since the end of the decade-long conflict in 2006. Discussions about impunity have increased correspondingly, mirroring the growing frustration with the political process. A newspaper uncovers an instance of high-level corruption…

In a meeting with the business community over the weekend, Myanmar President U Thein Sein declared that “economic development for the country is possible only when the private enterprises that constitute 90 percent of the country’s economy develop,” and that “the government and the private sector must work hand in hand.”

Regional integration in South Asia has remained weak on all fronts. Even in the face of pressing needs, regional cooperation on water and energy, for instance, barely gets the kind of attention that it deserves. On trade, the story is even worse. Intra-regional trade in Asia (as a geographic block) constitutes around 56 percent of the total trade…

After only 49 days in government, Arvind Kejriwal, Delhi’s chief minister, dramatically resigned last week. His announcement came after the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) was unable to introduce the anti-corruption Jan Lokpal Bill in the Delhi Assembly. The bill was blocked by members of the Congress and Bharatiya Janta Party…

On January 15, the results of the latest “SWS Survey of Enterprises on Corruption” were released during an afternoon session of the Good Governance Summit 2014. The previous survey in 2012 showed an impressive record low of 43 percent of business executives who considered corruption to be widespread.

Corruption is deeply entrenched in many Asian countries and continues to erode public trust in democratic processes and in public institutions. Accountable governance institutions are essential to sustainable growth in Asia…

While the rest of the world launched fireworks to usher in the New Year, in Cambodia, an estimated 50,000 protesters marched in the streets of Phnom Penh on December 29, chanting “Hun Sen, get out.” The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP)…

January, named after the two-faced Roman god Janus, is a time that invites us to look back and look ahead. Here in the Philippines, excitable headlines make it hard to discern if 2013 was the worst of times, or the best of times – but either way, Filipinos seem to be looking forward to 2014 with optimism.

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…

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…

After months of hot debate and decades in the making, President Benigno Aquino Jr. is signing into law major changes to the tax structure on alcohol and tobacco products. This so-called “sin tax” is expected to raise P30 billion ($750 million) to provide health care services…

On September 18, the preliminary results of the “2012 SWS Survey of Enterprises on Corruption” were released to the public. Of the 20 government institutions rated for sincerity in fighting corruption, 17 have improved. The results have confirmed “radical progress” in corruption reforms…

The issue of corruption in the Philippines has once again hit international newspapers with reports that the chief justice of the Supreme Court, Renato Corona (currently undergoing an impeachment trial before the Philippine Senate), had dozens of dollar accounts…

Given that I’ve written that kinship is the idiom of social organization in the Philippines, it’s probably not surprising that when asked for one book to read about the Philippines I often recommend An Anarchy of Families: State and Society in the Philippines, edited by Alfred W. McCoy.

The Philippines long had a terrible reputation for telecommunications, with Singapore’s Lee Kuan Yew famously saying that in 1992, 99 percent of the population in the Philippines was waiting for a phone and 1 percent was waiting for a dial tone. However, beginning with the administration of Fidel Ramos (1992-1998) and followed by President Estrada (1998-2001), the telecoms industry was liberalized, and phone ownership skyrocketed.

September 28 is celebrated internationally as

On August 3, in a nationally televised speech, Senator Juan Miguel “Migs” Zubiri resigned his seat in the upper house of the Philippine Congress. While he stated emphatically that he did not cheat, or ask anybody else to cheat, when he ran in the 2007 election, Zubiri said that rising speculation and publicity about fraud…