Peacebuilding in Asia

This paper details the opportunities and challenges facing civil society actors working in peacebuilding or peace activism in South and Southeast Asia. Shrinking civic space has become a global phenomenon, and while this trend towards greater authoritarianism and populist politics has heavily infringed on civil society-led peacebuilding across the… Read more

Last month, Dili played host to visiting government officials from more than 20 countries, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison of Australia, to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of Timor-Leste’s vote for independence on August 30, 1999. As the excitement and gravitas of the nationwide festivities taper off, and the dry-season dust resettles o… Read more

The Asia Foundation hosted the 8th annual author workshop of the Asian Approaches to Development Cooperation (AADC) dialogue series. Organized jointly with the Korea Development Institute, the AADC brings together development experts and government officials to address how Asian countries’ engagement in development and South-South cooperation is ch… Read more

The Nepal Peace Monitor: Annual Review 2017 report prepared by the Collective Campaign for Peace, presents data collected by the Nepal Peace Monitoring Project and is an effort to contribute to human rights and peace in Nepal by monitoring conflict and the nature of those occurrences. It provides a comprehensive overview of incidents documented thr… Read more

Community-based mediation is a proven alternative or complementary mechanism for resolving conflict and ensuring equal access to justice in countries that face a combination of capacity, time and cost, and social and cultural constraints that limit public access to formal legal services. In Asia, mediated dispute resolution has facilitated access t… Read more

This week, Alistair Burt, the Minister of State for the Middle East at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office, UK, announced Smart Peace, a new four-year program which will deliver innovative conflict resolution programming. The Smart Peace program combines the expertise of consortium members to address the challenges of building sustainable peace i… Read more

The Asia Foundation is leading a series of programs to encourage stronger relations between Thailand and the United States. Thailand is America’s oldest friend and ally in Asia, a connection dating to the presidency of James Monroe. However, bilateral relations have been under strain in recent years with the growing influence of China and the chall… Read more

The Manila Bulletin reports on a Peace Caravan in Marawi in the Southern Philippines. Members of The Asia Foundation volunteered in the “Duyon Ramahdan, Alang sa Kalilnaw” in Marawi City. The 10-day event, which was held from June 6th to the 15th, was organized by the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (OPAPP). The Asia Foundat… Read more

Despite rapid economic growth, conflict has persisted in many parts of Asia. Peacebuilding efforts have often focused on the role that Western nations or multilateral bodies can play in supporting statebuilding to build peace. South-South cooperation emphasizes supporting peacebuilding efforts in partner countries by drawing on a country’s own relevant experience.

The Asia Foundation is a longstanding partner working in Mindanao in support of peace. The Foundation cooperates with all stakeholders in search of peace, including the Philippine government, the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, the Moro National Liberation Front, and a range of civil society partners across Mindanao. The Foundation supports national… Read more

Three and a half years after the withdrawal of the UN peacekeeping mission from Timor-Leste, The Asia Foundation’s new survey on community police perceptions finds that Timorese people are optimistic about the security situation in their country, feelings of insecurity are at their lowest levels in a decade, and there is greater trust in the police… Read more

Late last month, a group of young peace advocates sponsored “Piece of Peace,” or POP, an art contest at a public elementary school in the town of Patikul in Sulu, Southern Philippines. The event attracted young artists from the area who showcased their talents…

The new set of post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals includes for the first time a target that specifically sets out to promote peaceful and inclusive societies, marking an increase in awareness that peace and security is critical for sustainable development.

On August 13, the Philippine polling organization Social Weather Stations (SWS) observed its 30th anniversary with the publication of Filipino Public Opinion on the Bangsamoro Basic Law and the Mamasapano Incident. The report is based on the results of nationwide surveys in March and June, and a February survey in Mindanao, supported by The Asia Foundation.

It was an admirable effort. On March 7, the Commission on Elections (COMELEC), understaffed with just four commissioners left after the retirement of Chairman Sixto Brillantes, held a symbolic special satellite voter registration of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) members and their families….

January 22 marks the deadline for a new constitution in Nepal, as committed to by all political parties participating in the 2013 Constituent Assembly (CA) elections. But on Tuesday of this week, thousands of police were deployed and schools and shops were shut down in the capital…

Conflict-affected areas of Mindanao in the southern Philippines form a complex, unpredictable, and highly dynamic environment that makes development programming very challenging against a backdrop of general urgency. Over the last 15 years, The Asia Foundation has been engaged in Mindanao…

Development assistance is founded on countless theories about how foreign taxpayers’ money can be harnessed to instigate and catalyze economic and social development and provide humanitarian benefits abroad. Basic arguments for how positive change can be achieved…

Research has transformed medicine, agriculture, and sanitation, and has helped lift many millions out of poverty. Most of the extremely poor people in the world now live in states suffering from conflict. Scholars have studied wars for millennia, but are usually concentrated on how to win them.

There is a difficult tension in the evidence-seeking agenda: on the one hand, donors seek short-term, project-related outcomes to support claims about their impact on a grand scale in a society; on the other hand, society-level impact does not seem measurable…

In Asia editor Alma Freeman sat down last month with The Asia Foundation’s new trustee, Donald Steinberg, president and CEO of World Learning, and former deputy administrator at the U.S. Agency for International Development, White House Deputy Press Secretary, and U.S. ambassador to Angola.

As we prepare for the long-awaited March 27 signing in Manila between the Philippine government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) of the Comprehensive Agreement on the Bangsamoro, one of the striking things of the peace process…

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.

A study by The Asia Foundation’s Philippines Representative Steven Rood, published by the East-West Center