Transparency

For decades, Myanmar was governed by a small military elite, accused of acting solely in their own interests. The introduction of a new constitution in 2008 was a dramatic and significant development, creating 14 new state and region governments and parliaments and the promise of democratic participation by a more diverse range of actors. At its he… Read more

On March 3, hundreds of groups from around the world will celebrate Open Data Day to showcase the value of open data for communities and to encourage the adoption of open data policies in government, business, and civil society. For Nepal, which is currently undergoing a process of decentralization to a new federal structure, there are high hopes f… Read more

“The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data.” It’s a bold statement featured in a recent headline from The Economist that no doubt raises eyebrows, but also drives home the fact that in the past decade, big data has increased exponentially to become one of the most valuable commodities in the world. For international development,… Read more

On March 20, the people of Timor-Leste cast their vote for a new president—the fourth time since 2002 and the first without a UN peacekeeping presence—with former independence leader and Fretilin party head, Francisco “Lú-Olo” Guterres, securing 57 percent of the votes. Then president Taur Matan Ruak shows his ballot as he prepares to vote for the… Read more

Last month, the World Bank upgraded Cambodia’s economic status from low income to lower-middle income, a classification that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party has been eagerly anticipating and holds up as a sign of its success in poverty alleviation and development. The apparel industry accounts for nearly 80 percent of Cambodia’s export revenue… Read more

On June 29, 2016, Mongolians voted for a new parliament (the State Great Khural), which resulted in a landslide victory for the Mongolian People’s Party (MPP) over the ruling Democratic Party (DP). The overwhelming win came as a surprise to many, and clearly indicates the Mongolian public’s dissatisfaction with DP’s governance performance over the… Read more

After four months of much-awaited pronouncement, on July 29 Myanmar’s National League of Democracy-led government finally released its 12-Point Economic Policy outlining key priorities under the country’s new reform strategy. Among these were commitments to strengthen public financial management through more prudent and efficient public spending an… Read more

As Myanmar’s new government begins defining its reform policies, arguably the biggest need is for good governance. Following decades of centralized military dictatorship, the country confronts dual challenges of trying to loosen the military’s grip on public administration as well as push government agencies to be more accountable and deliver bette… Read more

Last week, South Koreans went to the polls to elect new National Assembly representatives, with results showing that the governing party led by President Park Geun-hye has lost its majority in Parliament. In Korea, Parliamentary elections are seen as a harbinger of what’s to come in the presidential election, so the results are highly anticipated…. Read more

The Asia Foundation recently hosted a panel discussion in Washington, D.C., focused on changes underway in post-election Myanmar, which included the Foundation’s country representative in Myanmar, Kim Ninh, along with Ma Thida, noted human rights activist, surgeon, and writer.

Following parliamentary elections in August 2015 and six years after the end of a bloody, decades-long civil war, Sri Lanka’s newly elected president, Maithripala Sirisena, has made the important decision to keep the Ministry of Environment directly under his wing.

Bolstered by a massive construction boom over the last few years, Cambodia now boasts one of the world’s fastest growing economies and was one of the few countries able to meet its Millennium Development Goals. In fact, Cambodia, which has halved its poverty rate in one decade, is now entering lower-middle income status.

On Dec. 30, 2015, Bangladesh held its first-ever local-level elections in which political parties were able to nominate and field their own candidates for mayoral positions. Amid sporadic irregularities, millions lined up to vote in 234 municipalities across the country. While the election commission has yet to release official results…

The 2013 national elections in Cambodia saw the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) losing 55 of the 123 parliamentary seats to the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party(CNRP), the slimmest victory ever for the party that has ruled the country since 1993.

On Sunday, November 8, more than 30 million voters in Myanmar went to the polls to cast their votes for members of the Union Parliament as well as for the 14 state and region parliaments. These were the first elections in many decades in which an astounding 91 diverse political parties participated. Given that many were voting for the first time, the Union Election Commission, political parties, and hundreds of civil society organizations provided much-needed voter education.

Over 1,500 representatives from civil society organizations, businesses, and governments gathered in Mexico City on October 28-29 for the Open Government Partnership’s Global Summit, with special attention this year on the role that open government can play…

By 2050, South Asia’s population is expected to hit 2.2 billion, and as urban populations grow, estimates predict that all major population centers in the region will experience extreme seasonal or perennial water shortages. While the region supports more than 21 percent of the world’s population…

Propelled by the leadership of the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, Cambodia is emerging as a regional, if not global, role model for advocating prevention of violence against women. Today, major gender-responsive policies are being produced, including the 2nd National Action Plan to Prevent Violence against Women…

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.

Myanmar’s recent transition to a quasi-civilian government in 2011 under President Thein Sein has brought about many social, economic, and political reforms, but 2014 has also seen rising concern both inside and outside of the country that the reform process has stalled…

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…

Where next for debates and practice of Theories of Change? In my last blog on this topic, I argued that we need to be wary of Theories of Change simply becoming another corporate stick to beat people with: to prevent this, there is a considerable onus on likeminded donors…

From the Arab Spring to the current demonstrations in Hong Kong, much has been said about the power of youth movements and the impact of social media on political development in countries like Cambodia where freedom of speech, assembly, and association is often restricted.

Since the collapse of the socialist regime in 1990, Mongolia’s economic development has been dependent on an expanding formal and informal mining sector that for many years had little regard for the environment.

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…

Indonesians have spoken out about a contentious bill to be voted on today that would eliminate direct elections for local mayors and district heads. Leading the charge against the bill, tabled just a month before President-elect Joko Widodo assumes office…

Severe floods in the Kashmir region of Northern India and Pakistan over the past few weeks have taken 450 lives so far, and uprooted thousands of residents on both sides of the highly politicized border. Heavy monsoon rains caused the Chenab and Jhelum rivers (tributaries of the Indus River system) to overflow their banks…

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Court of Cambodia last month sentenced two former senior Khmer Rouge leaders to life in prison for crimes against humanity. The Khmer Rouge’s 88-year-old chief ideologist and No. 2 leader, Nuon Chea, and its 83-year-old former head-of-state, Kheiu Samphan…

Globally, 100 countries have enacted right to information (RTI) legislation guaranteeing citizens the right to access information and records held by their governments. In South Asia, over the last decade, countries have made significant progress toward recognizing this right. However, among the countries where RTI laws have been in place for some… Read more

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…

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…

Last month, China passed sweeping revisions to its Environmental Protection Law that aim to take a tough stance against industrial polluters, imposing much stiffer fines and even allowing violators to be detained. It also permits civil society organizations to initiate public interest lawsuits on behalf of citizens.

Mongolia’s economic boom, coupled with harsh winters that have killed off cattle and traditional livelihoods, have made the country’s rural, pastoralist lifestyle less attractive and economically viable. As rural residents flood to the capital, Ulaanbaatar, in search of work, city residents now account for one-half of Mongolia’s total population, up from one-quarter only 25 years ago. But 60 percent of those city residents live in the ger districts that surround the capital, without access to basic services such as electricity and water. Given this rapid growth, the government has not been able to develop adequate planning for the soaring ger developments.

Since its launch in 2012, the Legislative Institutional Repository of Thailand (LIRT), the online library of the Thai Parliament, has stood out as an example of the open government trends spreading across Asia. Behind buzzwords like “e-government” and “open data,” though, is the complex task…

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.

In the words of my colleagues, I used to be gaptek – the Indonesian term for “technologically challenged.” I didn’t know an App from an API, and the smartest thing about my phone was its shiny black case. But the expansion of social media in Indonesia has been so overwhelming and impossible to resist…

In 2008, Nepal and India experienced one of the worst river disasters in their modern history, when the Kosi River breached an embankment flooding vast areas of terai Nepal and northeastern parts of Bihar, India. The floods caused tremendous loss of human life and property, affecting an estimated 50,000 Nepalis and 3.5 million Indians. A tributary of the Ganges and a transboundary river that flows through Tibet, Nepal, and India, the Kosi River is prone to seasonal variations in river flow and sediment discharge, resulting in frequent downstream floods.

Over the past two years, the Philippines has achieved the distinction of being the fastest growing of the ASEAN-6 economies with growth rates of 6.8 percent in 2012 and 7.2 percent in 2013. The official poverty rate in the Philippines was 27.9 percent in 2012 and 28.8 percent in 2006; levels which were interpreted this way…

This year, The Asia Foundation is commemorating its 60th anniversary. Drawing on the expertise of local partners and our own development experts in the 18 countries where we work, we’re initiating a year-long, global conversation on six critical issues facing Asia.

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.”

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 Jan. 22, 2014, the City Municipality of Ulaanbaatar and The Asia Foundation launched the first-ever interactive website where Mongolian citizens and city officials can find up-to-date information on availability of public services in their neighborhoods.

More than half of the planet lives in Asia. Six of the 10 largest nations in the world are in the Asia Pacific, and the region is playing an increasingly important role in the global economy, international security, and the world’s collective efforts to advance human development. The dynamism of Asian economies contributed greatly to the global economic recovery, simultaneously lifting more than half a billion people out of poverty. Glittering cities and bustling ports bear testament to the so-called “Asian miracle” that has become the dominant narrative in economic and political analysis of recent years.

Delhi’s new chief minister, Arvind Kejriwal, has publicly declared a war against corruption in India’s government. Within weeks of assuming office, the leader of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), or the Common Man’s Party, set up an anti-corruption helpline…

By the end of President Yudhoyono’s term, for the first time, Indonesians will have witnessed their first 10-year stretch of both democracy and stability. While there is no shortage of criticism of what democracy has yet to achieve, the last 10 years have proven a commitment to what the overwhelming majority of citizens…

The November 2013 Constituent Assembly (CA) elections in Nepal revealed very strong anti-incumbency sentiments among the voting public. So too did the 2008 CA elections, when Nepali voters turned to the newly above-ground Maoists (CPN-M), rejecting the more “seasoned” parties…

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…

For more than two months, tens of thousands of anti-government protesters have gathered at Democracy Monument and other major intersections throughout Bangkok. Initially, the People’s Democratic Reform Committee (PDRC), led by former long-time Democrat politician, Suthep Thaugsuban…

As anti-government protests shut down Thailand’s capital this week, In Asia editor Alma Freeman spoke with The Asia Foundation’s country representative in Thailand and Bangkok resident, Kim McQuay, about the situation on the ground.

The recent controversy about temporary shelters – or bunkhouses – for victims in Yolanda-hit areas offers some lessons not only in emergency response but also in reconstruction efforts. These are not new lessons…

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.

On Dec. 4, 2013, The Asia Foundation and the Sant Maral Foundation released the third installment of its bi-annual “Survey on Perceptions and Knowledge of Corruption,” revealing that efforts to curb corruption in what is considered, as some sources put it, one of the world’s most corrupt countries could in fact be working.

Mongolia is now one of the world’s fastest growing economies, and nowhere is this growth more evident than the bustling and energetic capital, Ulaanbaatar. Expensive high rises, luxury stores, and modern apartment buildings are common in this city of 1.5 million; tower cranes dot the rising skyline, harbingers of even more cutting-edge development projects to come. But in the shadows of the cranes and high rises, are the city’s ger districts, where more than half of the capital’s residents live without access to basic public services like water, sewage systems, and central heating.

On Friday, the Ulaanbaatar city municipality will celebrate Ulaanbaatar City Day to highlight the various works being undertaken to improve the capital of Mongolia, home to more than 50 percent of the population.

This month, Transparency International released its latest Global Corruption Barometer. Surveying over 114,000 respondents across more than 100 countries, Transparency International reports that more than half of those surveyed believe that corruption has worsened in their country in the last two years…

On May 6, Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak took the oath of office as Malaysia’s 7th prime minister before King Abdul Halim Mu’adzam Shah at the National Palace. Prime Minister Najib’s coalition, Barisan Nasional, returned to power when it won 133 of the 222 parliamentary seats to form the Federal Government.

Following the news on environmental issues here in China can be a grim business. The first months of 2013 alone brought coverage of January’s “airpocalypse,” when air pollution in Beijing reached historic levels; news of thousands of dead pigs floating in the Huangpu River, a primary source of Shanghai’s drinking water; and a new report indicating that China sees 1.2 million premature deaths each year due to outdoor air pollution – almost 40 percent of the world’s total of such deaths. Amid such bleak headlines, it can be easy to miss any kind of progress. However, a report released in late March does show progress on an issue that many experts consider crucial to long-term and sustained improvement of environmental outcomes…

Over the last few weeks, in our blog, our studies, in well-respected surveys, at think tanks and other organizations, and the media, the topic of corruption and transparency seems to be everywhere you look. However, there seems no clear consensus on the extent of the problem…

Mongolia’s economy is booming, with growth trajectories showing it will be one of the world’s fastest growing economies again this year. It is consistently advancing in global rankings on governance and investment climate.

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…