Sustainable Development Goals

What can be done to help entrepreneurs with great ideas for positive social change to make their dream a reality? How can small and medium sized enterprises grow and access new trade opportunities? How can technology be used to improve lives across the Asia-Pacific region? The Asia Foundation believes that by investing in new technologies, and crea… Read more

Asia’s urban population is growing at an unprecedented rate. It took 130 years for London to grow from 1 million to 8 million, but Bangkok did it in 45 years, Dhaka in 37 years, and Seoul in only 25 years. Asia’s rapid urbanization—driven by entrepreneurial and commercial dynamism—has been pivotal for its stellar growth, but often to the detriment… Read more

Tomorrow marks the 50th anniversary of International Literacy Day and a half century later there’s much to celebrate. However, one of the persistent problems faced by schools in developing countries still today is a lack of one of the most essential ingredients to encourage reading: engaging children’s books to build literacy from an early age. In… Read more

Northern Thailand, a region famous for its natural beauty, hill tribe communities, and trekking routes through lush jungle terrain, is home to a diversity of languages and cultures comprising approximately 59 unique ethnolinguistic groups. Standard Thai is currently the country’s only official language and the primary language of instruction in pub… Read more

The global youth population has reached a remarkable 1.8 billion out of 7.3 billion, and most of them live in developing countries like Bangladesh. According to the UNFPA’s most recent State of the World Population Report, 30 percent of the 161 million people living in Bangladesh are 10-24 years in age. As Bangladesh aspires to attain middle-income… Read more

In March, The Asia Foundation’s director of International Development Cooperation program, Anthea Mulakala, joined more than 500 renowned scholars and experts from around the world for an international conference on South-South Cooperation (SSC) in New Delhi. In Asia editor Alma Freeman caught up with Mulakala to discuss how SSC is changi… Read more

March 8 marked International Women’s Day, and to commemorate this year, The Asia Foundation’s Women’s Empowerment team hosted a tweetchat relay using the hashtag #IWDchat16, titled Advancing Gender Equality in 2016 and Beyond.

Speaking at the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit in New York last month, Prime Minister Modi expressed the Indian government’s commitment to the new Sustainable Development Goals (SGDs), which replace the Millennium Development Goals that expired in 2015.

Malaysia’s wealth of natural resources has been indispensable to its economic growth, but this growth has come at significant human and environmental cost. Although the Southeast Asian nation met all eight of the UN’s Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) before the 2015 deadline…