Now that the Philippines is gearing up for the May 2010 general elections, and Mindanao looms large as a policy issue, it is worthwhile to look back over the year and examine discussions that took place in 2009 in light of what subsequently transpired. A year ago, ABS-CBN News Channel (ANC) gathered newsmakers concerned with Mindanao together for a forum in Davao. ANC broadcast “Mindanao: The Way Forward,” with support from The Asia Foundation and the Embassy of Canada, as a 3-hour special in two segments on February 6 and 7, 2009.

Viewing the show a year later, one is immediately struck by the cruel irony in a comment that Congressman Pax Mangudadatu made at the beginning of the forum that peace and order is not a problem in his province of Sultan Kudarat in Mindanao. On Nov. 23, 2009, it was his family that was the primary victim of the massacre in the neighboring province of Maguindanao when his nephew Esmael Mangudadatu attempted to file papers for his candidacy for governor. Fearing trouble, he sent female relatives, including his wife and journalists, to actually deliver the papers; they were waylaid and more than 50 slain.

That is the sort of image that haunts Mindanao – of violence stemming from many different causes. A focus of the discussion in early 2009 was the aftermath of the failed agreement between the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), the Memorandum of Agreement on Ancestral Domain (MOA-AD), which the Philippine Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional. In the wake of the debacle, attacks occurred on civilian communities, the Armed Forces of the Philippines pursued the attackers, and the International Monitoring Team (IMT) policing the previous cessation of hostilities withdrew. Hundreds of thousands of civilians were internally displaced, straining the resources of both Philippine and international agencies. One year on, some internally displaced persons (IDPs) had returned to their homes, but there were still around 170,000 displaced persons in Maguindanao. As IDPs continue to leave the camps, some questions remain outstanding: Did they actually return to their places of origin, given that some of these places remain unsecured? And do they still have lands to go back to, and resources to rebuild their homes and livelihood? There are also nagging questions about how effectively the national government, aid agencies, and local governments provided relief. Just keeping track of the total numbers was a challenge (different entities provide differing figures at any given time), accusations of food blockades were bandied about, and a spokesman for the military labeled IDPs as “enemy reserve forces” because a portion of relief goods found their way into MILF camps.

In this discouraging light, it is heartening that the then Presidential Advisor on the Peace Process, Hermogenes Esperon Jr., was correct when he predicted in the ANC broadcast that 2009 would be a “comeback year” for the peace process.  By July, the government had issued a suspension of offensive military operations (SOMO) and a few days later, the MILF responded with a suspension of military actions (SOMA). This paved the way for renewed peace talks, the progress of which continues. In November, the two sides invited countries and international non-government organizations (including The Asia Foundation) to join an International Contact Group (ICG). The ICG was present at Kuala Lumpur talks in early December that led to an agreement to redeploy the International Monitoring Team (IMT), invite new countries to join the IMT, and add a “civilian protection component” that initially includes the domestic Mindanao Peoples Caucus and the international Nonviolent Peaceforce.

After the MOA-AD debacle, the Philippine peace panel got a new chair (Department of Foreign Affairs Undersecretary Rafael Seguis) and new members. And recently, Annabelle Abaya, a professional mediator with long government service, was appointed as the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process.

The MILF has retained the same panel of negotiators. Panel Chair Mohaqber Iqbal warned that there are quarters within the MILF that do not believe in the talks, but other negotiators have been able to prevail upon these quarters to give the peace process a chance. The MILF has actively consulted with its stakeholders, including their commanders, political committees, and general communities.

Schoolgirls pass through a border checkpoint of a MILF camp in Mindanao. Photo by Karl Grobl.

The two sides have vowed to reach an agreement as soon as possible to avoid distractions from the upcoming May 2010 election campaigns. A meeting to exchange draft agreements was held in Kuala Lumpur on January 27 and 28, and while the two sides agreed to meet again in three weeks, the issues remain contentious. The government stressed that its draft, containing executive “doables,” was compliant with the Philippine Constitution (to avoid another ruling such as that in 2008). The MILF, for its part, complained that this meant that the government’s draft “had nothing new to offer.”  So, reaching an agreement will be far from easy.
Still, what is striking is how many different groups worked during 2009 to make it a “comeback year” that set the stage for renewed progress. The Bishops-Ulama Conference backed a group of independent academics to conduct Konsult Mindanaw, which involved over 300 group discussions and almost 5,000 people. The Mindanao Business Council went around the island gathering the insights of local chambers of commerce on how peace and economic prosperity could be renewed – culminating in the November 5 “Mindanao Investment Forum” in Manila, co-hosted by the Management Association of the Philippines.

A group gathers in Mindanao for an Asia Foundation training workshop on mitigating election violence. Photo by Karl Grobl.

These efforts, while based in Mindanao, do try to reach out to the citizenry and policy-makers in the larger Philippines, including Metro Manila. Gus Miclat, executive director of Initiatives for International Dialogue, put it well when he remarked that there were many vibrant efforts in Mindanao, but maintained that “we need to have a constituency outside of Mindanao that believes in Mindanao.”

It did seem that Mindanao was to finish 2009 with brimming vibrancy en route to an election year that promises to be an opportunity for Mindanao citizens to make their voices heard. The Mindanao Women’s Conference (February 4-5) is the latest example of an effort to ensure that these concerns are heard nationwide.

The nationwide shock over the November 23 massacre in Maguindanao has tied Mindanao governance back to national issues. The phenomenon of “warlordism” is not unique to Mindanao, and as a result, the outrage over the event has helped spark a broader debate. General reforms nationwide in governance, justice, defence and security, and elections, among many others, have been bravely raised as part of the ripple effect coming from the massacre.

In the end, the way forward for Mindanao is inextricably intertwined with the future of the Philippines.

Steven Rood is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative for the Philippines and Pacific Island Nations and  Crisanto Cayon is a Program Officer in the Foundation’s Conflict Management Program in the Philippines. They can be reached at srood@asiafound.org and ccayon@asiafound.org, respectively.

Defence Secretary Robert Gates’ three-day visit to New Delhi last month not only bolstered India’s role in promoting security and stability in Afghanistan and the region, but also boosted bilateral defence cooperation and trade. His visit helps pave the way for President Barack Obama, who is expected to visit India this summer, and helps answer an important question the two countries have asked each other since India’s Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Washington last year: Do we take a “strategic pause” to heal some rising negativity brewing in the relationship, or do we look for the “next big idea” to keep up the momentum?

In a clear push for closer bilateral military cooperation in the face of what Secretary Gates called the “greatest common challenge of terrorism,”Gates’ visit highlighted the potential influence the defence sector can have on future bilateral relations. When the two nations signed the first formal Defence Agreement in 2005, much progress was made. However, both sides still need to work through roadblocks that plague India’s acquisition of U.S. defence technology: concerns over the U.S. as a reliable supplier, the United States’ adversity to releasing certain technology, and worry over the transferability of specifications to less-trusted, third end-users. In addition, three agreements Gates pushed India to sign during his visit didn’t happen. The Logistics Support Agreement (LSA), the Communication Interoperability and Security Memorandum of Agreement (CISMOA), and the Geospatial Agreement are each required under U.S. domestic laws in order to transfer sensitive defence technology.

The signing of the End-User Monitoring Agreement last year was a landmark achievement for India-U.S. relations. However, during Secretary Gates’ visit, India’s Defence Minister Shri Antony conveyed some of India’s lingering concerns, such as the United States’ denial of export licenses for various defence-related requirements of the Armed Forces, and its continuing inclusion of some Indian Defence Public Sector Undertakings (PSUs) and Defence Research and Development Organisation labs on the U.S. government’s Entity list (a list of parties whose presence in a transaction can trigger a license requirement under the Export Administration Regulations). While such restrictions are anomalous in the current context, President Obama’s on-going, comprehensive reform of U.S. export control regulations could help facilitate the supply of defence technology and equipment to India.

Defence acquisition is a complex matter and one on which India will keep its options open. Increasing requirements to fulfil India’s power needs beyond its borders suggests that the U.S. will remain a preferred partner. It is certain that future weaponry, especially for the Air Force and Navy, will increasingly rely on unmanned vehicles and greater use of laser technology, an area where the U.S. is the world leader. The scenario of contending with two adversaries at the same time has already been painted by the Army Chief. A significant increase in the four-fold difference between Chinese and Indian military prowess can be expected, coupled with the intensification of China’s nuclear and missile nexus with Pakistan. The expected completion of Chinese base facilities at Sittwe (Burma), Hambantota (Sri Lanka), and Gwadar (Pakistan) will affect the military balance on the seas and in space. India will have to cope with this dangerously-evolving scenario.

India has reiterated that defence trade relations must move from a purely buyer-seller relationship to a more comprehensive relationship covering the transfer of technology and co-production. Reports indicate that 15 percent of Indian military equipment is state-of-the-art, 35 percent mature, and 50 percent obsolete. India currently procures approximately 70 percent of its equipment needs from abroad, but aims to reverse this balance to manufacture 70 percent or more of its defence equipment at home. This is a major opportunity to build an industrial infrastructure that will be able to quantitatively, technologically, and qualitatively support the requirements of India’s Armed Forces in terms of weapons, systems, platforms, upgradation, and overhaul.

For this to happen, the share of India’s private sector will need to increase far beyond the 14 percent at present (with foreign sources taking 70 percent and the remainder going to Defence PSUs and the Indian Ordnance Factories, and only $14 million in foreign direct investment, even with 100 percent entry permitted). Unless the foreign direct investment cap increases substantially, the resulting exclusion of India’s resurgent private sector will be detrimental to its national security needs.

By 2022, India is expected to purchase $100 billion worth of military equipment and another $9.7 billion to be spent by 2016 on homeland security. India must capitalise on this opportunity by leapfrogging its technology sector to a higher level. Russia still provides 80 percent of India’s military hardware but in the last three years, India purchased over $3 billion worth of U.S. military equipment and is moving toward completing the largest defence transaction yet (about $2.5 billion), with the purchase of 10 strategic lift aircrafts.

Does increasing the purchase of defence equipment lead to a more solid India-U.S. alliance? There remains a gap between how India and the U.S. view and understand their strategic partnership. There are many ways to cut the “strategic cake:” by time, by space, by criteria, and by issues. There is a pressing need for both sides to bring greater clarity to the discussion to further strengthen this relationship.

Rajendra Abhyankar, former Indian Ambassador, is currently an Advisor with The Asia Foundation in India. He can be reached at rabhyankar@asiafound.org.

News stories have told the stories of thousands of Timorese people who suffered greatly during the 24-year fight for independence from Indonesia. However, perhaps a less told story is that many Timorese were also arbitrarily detained during that period, a violation of the principle of rule of law as stated in the constitution.

On Aug. 30, 1999, 78 percent of Timorese people voted for independence in a United Nations-sponsored referendum. In the beginning of 2002, 88 members of the Constituent Assembly drafted and approved a new constitution that states that Timor-Leste is to be a “sovereign, independent and unitary State based on the rule of law, the will of the people, and the respect for the dignity of the human person.” The new constitution helped to boost the confidence and hope of Timorese citizens in a secure democracy that respects the rule of law.

An officer stationed at the Tabesi Market records a complaint made by a local woman. Through the USAID-funded project Conflict Mitigation through Community-Oriented Policing, The Asia Foundation helps strengthen cooperation between police and communities in Timor-Leste. Photo by Conor Ashleigh.

Eight years later, one could ask if the application of rule of law as stated in the constitution is applied in practice in Timor-Leste. Although state sovereign bodies do work hard to obey the law, the State still makes some decisions that contradict the constitution. In some cases, other equally important issues need to be considered, including security and economic development. However, the State must continue to work so that these rights aren’t mutually exclusive.

Article 69 of the constitution defines the principle of separation of powers as: “Organs of sovereignty, in their reciprocal relationship and exercise of their functions, shall observe the principle of separation and interdependence of powers established in the Constitution.” Yet, despite this, the president and prime minister have intervened at times in the work of the judiciary. For example in 2008, the government denied the Court of Appeal’s decision to establish the Economic Stabilization Fund, which aimed to rebuild the economy through programs that address the effects of the economic crisis, including food security. Another example, as reported in the news was the prime minister’s decision in 2008 and 2009 to release a number of prisoners charged with crimes against humanity. This act violated articles in the constitution that state that  Court decisions shall be binding and shall prevail over the decisions of any other authority and that the State shall be subject to the constitution and to the law.

The recipricol relationship between democracy and the rule of law is paramount to Timor-Leste’s success as a genuine democracy. The courts are a central  means of implementing rule of law, but their ability to uphold the rule of law is required.

Members of local NGOs provide legal aid training at a workshop. Through its Access to Justice program in Timor-Leste, The Asia Foundation supports five legal aid organizations to provide free legal aid services to communities. Photos by Conor Ashleigh.

In general, to effectively establish rule of law in developing countries such as Timor-Leste, reform is critical, including law reform, institutional reform, support for and strengthening of the legal profession, and improving access to justice. With the help of international investment, much has been invested in Timor-Leste to empower bodies, including the justice sector, to govern based on the rule of law.

Despite what some might consider an arduous process, progress has been made. Timor-Leste has ratified nearly all of the UN treaties, including the International Convention on Anti-Corruption. But a formal signature is just the beginning. New laws and reforms must be implemented at home to ensure that rule of law is upheld in daily life.

The Asia Foundation works with local institutions in Timor-Leste to strengthen the rule of law and local governance, increase both citizen’s and the legislature’s roles in legal reform, advance women’s rights, and increase cooperation between citizens and police on local security. Read more about the Foundation’s work in Timor-Leste.

Timotio de Deus is The Asia Foundation’s Senior Law Program Officer in Timor-Leste. He can be reached at tdedeus@asiafound.org.

The 68-nation London conference at the end of this month will focus on the future of Afghanistan, against the backdrop of major new military commitments by the United States and NATO, promises from the international community of increased civilian assistance, and pledges of new anti-corruption measures from President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan.

But assuring Afghanistan’s future will require more than a military and civilian surge and better Afghan governance. A diplomacy surge is also required. Specifically, in the words of a recent statement signed by 20 former foreign ministers led by Madeleine K. Albright, “there needs to be a regional solution to Afghanistan’s problems.”

To reach the goal of a stable and peaceful Afghanistan, the country must have better relations with its powerful neighbors, including Pakistan, Iran, China, India, and Russia.

Afghanistan’s neighbors have reached the conclusion (some grudgingly) that support for a stable, independent, economically viable Afghan state is preferable to the past three decades of chaos in that country and its spillover effects of extremism and terrorism.

Despite this, the region’s opportunistic states will revive their interference in Afghanistan in the event of a failing Kabul government or an international community that reneges on its commitments to help secure and rebuild the country.

While dealing with the Taliban insurgency must be the first order of business, the best way out of this morass is to return Afghanistan to its traditional policy of neutrality – of noninterference by others in its internal affairs and by it in other countries – and to take Afghanistan “off the board” for future “Great Game” rivalries.

Read the full piece originally published in The International Herald Tribune on January 21.

Asia Foundation trustee Karl F. Inderfurth is the former Assistant Secretary of State for South Asian Affairs and Chinmaya R. Gharekhan served as India’s special envoy for the Middle East and is a former U.N. under secretary general.

“I operate daily under extremely dangerous situations in the south and southwest regions of Afghanistan, especially in Helmand Province. While there, I am expected to be completely covered in a Burqa and am advised to not carry a women’s style handbag or laptop bag. My phone should be off so that it is never heard ringing. Shaking hands with men is a taboo and talking directly about women’s rights could be punishable by death. However, the secret behind my success is that I am educated and have established contacts with local elders – and I abide by all these conditions. This is why I am able to run my development projects successfully,” said an Afghan woman who recently spoke to me on condition of anonymity due to security concerns.

Under the Taliban’s regime, women endured unspeakably harsh conditions and were deprived of basic rights. After the Taliban were overthrown in late 2001, the hope and optimism of Afghan women was revived with a new presence of the international community and international forces, and budding support for women’s participation in social, economical, and cultural aspects of life.

Despite impressive efforts made since 2001, and some significant strides in education, in many ways things remain extremely difficult for women. While some things are better, old problems persist and new problems have presented themselves.

Findings from the chapter “Women and Society” from The Asia Foundation’s 2009 Survey of the Afghan People reveal the biggest problems Afghan women face. Education and illiteracy, tops the list, followed by lack of job opportunities and equal rights for women (see graph below).

These problems are interconnected and have reciprocal effect on each other – making lasting solutions even more difficult. According to past surveys, lack of education for women is consistently seen as the biggest problem: 41 percent in 2006, 48 percent in 2007, 45 percent in 2008, and 49 percent in 2009. Lack of employment opportunity was 10 percent in 2006, 13 percent in 2007, 24 percent in 2008, and 28 percent in 2009. However, such an increase in awareness of the problem unemployment presents to women itself might be considered as good news, as it points out that more people are beginning to consider employment of women first as something normal and, second, as something more and more important. This also shows that there is increased awareness within Afghan families that employment opportunity for “their” female members is important, and linked to education, since better educated women can get better – and higher paying – jobs.

Given the country’s current social, political, cultural, and economical situation, there are a variety of factors that exasperate these problems.

An Afghan woman polls local villagers for The Asia Foundation’s Afghan survey.

Illiteracy and Education

Afghanistan’s literacy rate is very low compared to other countries. In Afghanistan, only 23.5 percent of the population above 15 years old is literate, while the rate for women is even worse at 12.6 percent. At 36 percent, Afghanistan’s enrollment of girls in primary schools is low compared with 90.4 percent in Iran, 67 percent in Saudi Arabia, and 62 percent in Pakistan.

In spite of such low figures, Afghanistan has experienced a few major achievements in the education sector for women, including the adoption of certain guarantees in the constitution (Article 44) regarding development of balanced education for women; the enrollment of 2.2 million girls in primary schools (unprecedented in Afghanistan’s history); and permission to establish higher education institutes in specialized fields and basic literacy schools (Article 46). However, many obstacles lie ahead, such as discrimination on the basis of sex, patriarchy, and male domination in the society; local traditions and discrimination against women’s education; lack of female schools in villages; lack of proper education infrastructure; lack of personal security; and lack of female teachers, to name a few. There are also socio-cultural beliefs that consider education unnecessary or even hazardous for women, further preventing girls from attending schools. Even in seminaries, the number of female students is very low due to lack of interest in women’s education and lack of female religious teachers.

Lack of access to education remains one of the biggest challenges women face in Afghanistan, according to The Asia Foundation’s Afghan poll.

Other impediments that hinder women’s education are violence against women, underage marriages, forced marriages, economic problems, and marriage as a solution to family disputes (known as baad).

Lack of Job Opportunities

Up from 31 percent in 2008 to 35 percent in 2009, unemployment is cited as the second biggest problem Afghan women face. A separate study indicated that only a quarter of government positions are occupied by women.

Although Article 48 of the constitution stipulates that every Afghan has the right to work, the government does not pave the way for women to gain positions in government. Other factors also contribute to unemployment, such as low literacy rates and professional skills among women; disagreement over a woman’s right to work outside of the house (in this survey, only 67 percent of respondents agree with a woman’s right to work outside of the house, while 23 percent do not agree); issues over women working in an office or environment with men; poor security; and women’s historical economic dependence on men. Parents often hold a double standard regarding children’s education, with more attention given to the education of boys than to that of girls.

Support for women’s basic rights should not be limited to written guarantees, but should be used as legal basis for more balanced development of women alongside men. On the eve of the establishment of a new government and a second international forum on Afghanistan tomorrow, January 28 in London, the government should focus on long-term programs to improve women’s education, and to create a monitoring mechanism that enforces gender equality in the education sector.

Public awareness programs that reinforce the Islamic notion that all men and women should have access to knowledge in order to mitigate discrimination against women are critical. Such programs could be implemented by religious scholars and clergies, civil society organizations, or government institutions.

Better training for female teachers on a local level must be implemented, as well as additional assurance and encouragement to parents to send their daughters to school. Vocational training for women should also be considered to enhance skills that would increase employment opportunities.

Without safety, however, improvements for Afghan women are remote. The international community must work alongside the Afghan government to restore security, especially for women and girls so that they can gain greater access to education and play a larger role in stabilizing their country.

Najla Ayubi is a Program Director for Law, Human Rights, and Women’s Empowerment with The Asia Foundation in Afghanistan and is a former judge and a former commissioner with the Independent Election Commission of Afghanistan. She can be reached at tafag@asiafound.org.

At the foot of the Khyber Pass, Peshawar is on the front lines of Pakistan’s war against militants. In one recent month, 221 people were killed and nearly 500 wounded in bombings. Many more lives have been lost on the trek from Peshawar through the Pass to reach Afghanistan’s Jalalabad.

It is this route that containers of 15,000 books – sent from a warehouse in San Leandro, California – must take to reach Kabul, and finally to outlying areas throughout Afghanistan. The route is fraught with great travel obstacles – bureaucratic, logistical, and physical challenges abound – and perseverance is a necessity, as reaching Kabul can take from three to four months.

The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia program re-started its book donation program in Afghanistan in 2002. Just two years later, it was nearly forced to shut down. Strict import restrictions and a grueling bureaucratic process to clear each shipment with authorities had nearly halted the deliveries. However, after many discussions with the Ministry of Information and Culture on the value of books for education, the officials worked to help improve the process. Certifying the books as “not against Islam and Afghan culture,”at the very beginning of the process, allowed the books to get to their final destinations in a more timely manner. The process, however, in a war-torn place like Afghanistan, is still far from efficient.

After a list of the book titles is circulated to ministry offices and customs authorities, a sampling of around 25 books is sent to the 12-member Department of Monitoring and Evaluation on the Import of Publications. The members, made up of ministry representatives, including the Ministry of Haj and Mosque/Religious Affairs and teachers, review the content. (Religious content is not allowed into Afghanistan; however, books on topics such as philosophy, evolution, and biology are in great demand.) Once cleared, the books are initially stored in Kabul and sorted for distribution to the many institutions that request them: universities, schools, ministries, public libraries, cultural organizations, and informal NGO-run schools. Books are also provided to recently-established, publicly-accessible reading rooms at Paktia University, Kandahar University, Afghan Women’s Lawyers Council, and the Legislative Department of the Ministry of Justice.

Getting books to Afghanistan’s 34 provinces is both an odyssey and an achievement. First, containers of books are broken down in Kabul where they are sorted, boxed, labeled, and depending on the distance and the mode of transportation, broken down into smaller boxes to fit in cramped luggage areas of long-distance passenger buses. Bus trips to places like Afghanistan’s northwestern province of Badghis are rarely direct, requiring a secondary, or even third, bus to switch out the boxes for another journey on to smaller towns and villages. This kind of logistical maneuver requires strong partnerships with the institutional authorities and school leaders, and it requires trust and an informal partnership with the bus drivers themselves, that they will see the books through to their safe and completed delivery.

Today, many Afghan families displaced by years of war who fled to Pakistan and Iran are – after nearly three decades – making the slow return back to Afghanistan. And, many of the children were taught English in schools. Although less than 30 percent of Afghanistan’s adult population is literate – a major hurdle to sustainable development there – the demand for English-language books remains high. Since 2002, Books for Asia has distributed over 300,000 English-language books, journals, and training CDs to institutions in all 34 provinces of Afghanistan.

With the slow return of Afghans displaced from war, the demand for English-language books is on the rise.

Despite the increase in demand for books, some say the life-threatening reality of attending school in Afghanistan is worsening, especially for girls. Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) reported that between January 2006 and December 2008, 1,153 education-related attacks or threats took place in Afghanistan. In 2009, that number nearly tripled to 670. Forty percent of the attacks targeted schools for girls.

Still, some communities have reasons to be optimistic, as recent years have seen a rise in the number of schools, particularly NGO-funded, being constructed. In 2002, The Asia Foundation, in partnership with the National Geographic Society and the Richard and Rhoda Goldman Fund, helped rebuild 14 classrooms and established five science labs at Rabia-e Balkhi Girls’ High School in Kabul. The school was destroyed during the civil war and left in rubble until late 2001 after the Taliban fell and girls were allowed to return to school. Since then, a library and resource center have been built, and the teachers and school leaders are being trained to develop budget management skills so that they are able to manage their school’s finances to ensure the future education of the 3,500 girls at Rabia-e Balkhi.

Girls walk home from the Rabia-e Balkhi High School in Kabul.

But access and security, as well as a shortage of qualified teachers, remains a challenge. University-level qualified teachers, many of whom fled overseas during the war, are few.

Addressing insufficient training and low enrollment in higher education (only around 60,000 students are currently enrolled in Afghanistan’s government-run universities) are high priorities for The Asia Foundation there. Four years ago, the Foundation launched preparatory training courses in partnership with the Ministry of Education to train teachers to conduct courses that prepare grade 12 students for the national entrance exam required for acceptance into university. Through the course, conducted in Dari and Pashto, over 6,000 teachers are trained each year, reaching nearly 80,000 students.

Read more about The Asia Foundation’s Books for Asia Program in Afghanistan.

Mohammad Bashir is The Asia Foundation’s Senior Program Officer for the Foundation’s Books for Asia program in Afghanistan and Alma Freeman works in the Foundation’s Communications office. They can be reached at mbashir@asiafound.org and afreeman@asiafound.org, respectively.

Sri Lanka’s presidential election will be held on January 26, 2010. The race has been more competitive than people expected. The incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa from the Sri Lanka Freedom Party (SLFP), elected in 2005, is battling for a second term against the former army chief, General Sarath Fonseka, who together with the president and his defence secretary defeated the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) in May 2009 and ended Sri Lanka’s three-decade-long civil war.

General Fonseka entered the race in early December as a joint opposition candidate bearing a grudge against the president and defence secretary after feeling personally slighted by them after the war. Fonseka was encouraged to run by Ranil Wickremesinghe, the leader of the main opposition party the United National Party (UNP), because his own chances of winning were slim. Mr. Wickremesinghe is hindered by the fact that he was the architect of the unsuccessful peace process with the LTTE from 2002 to 2004. The peace process is so discredited and Mr. Wickremesinghe so closely associated with it that a Wickremesinghe-led UNP could not hope to mount a serious challenge to the popular war president. Opposition leaders were grateful that Fonseka was available, none more than Mr. Wickremesinghe.

A campaign poster for the incumbent President Mahinda Rajapaksa. Photo by Karl Grobl.

Had Mr. Wickremesinghe stood as the UNP’s candidate for president and lost, it would have been more difficult for him to retain control of the party going into the crucial parliamentary elections that will follow on the heels of the presidential election. While Sri Lanka has had a competitive two-party system for decades, there is little internal democracy within parties. Leaders are chosen through back-room deals among party bosses; party rules make it virtually impossible for the rank and file to get rid of an unpopular leader.

It is an unlikely cohort of parties that are supporting Fonseka’s bid – the center-right UNP, the leftist Sinhalese nationalist People’s Liberation Front, the Tamil National Alliance, and the Sri Lanka Muslim Congress. The “joint opposition” is a temporary marriage of convenience; the only thing that unites them is their desire to see the back of the president.

When the campaign began, most observers expected President Rajapaksa to win handily because he is credited with providing the political leadership needed to defeat the LTTE. However, the issues that have made the election close are corruption and nepotism. General Fonseka has accused the president of both, and this accusation has stuck in the minds of many voters. However, in a cynical electorate that expects the worst from its politicians and believes they are all the same, it may not be enough to offset the advantages of incumbency.

A campaign poster for opposition candidate General Sarath Fonseka. Photo by Karl Grobl.

In the absence of rigorous, freely available public opinion surveys it is impossible to say who is leading on the eve of the election. Foreign commentators and journalists who rely heavily on the Colombo intelligentsia for their insights have argued that the election will be extremely close and some have hinted of a Fonseka win. They make two crucial assumptions:  the Sinhalese vote, comprising 73 percent of the electorate, will be evenly split between the two war heroes and that minority voters (Sri Lankan Tamils, Muslims, and Upcountry Tamils) will vote overwhelmingly for Fonseka. These are crucial assumptions and if neither pans out – if Fonseka’s share of the Sinhalese vote falls short and if the minority vote is fragmented – President Rajapaksa is likely to win by a comfortable margin.

If the party-less General Fonseka wins, it will be a political earthquake of the likes Sri Lanka has not seen in decades. If President Rajapaksa is re-elected, we may look back on the last two months as little more than an entertaining diversion from the real predicament of Sri Lankan politics:  the leadership crisis in the UNP that has deprived Sri Lanka’s two-party system of its historical balance of power and competitiveness. Politics in Sri Lanka have become a one-horse race dominated by President Rajapaksa and the SLFP. If the country’s political system is to be regularly accountable and responsive to all of its citizens, Sri Lanka must have two strong and capably-led national parties, not just one.

Nilan Fernando is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Sri Lanka. He can be reached at nfernando@asiafound.org.

On January 12, a 7.0-magnitude earthquake hit Haiti and devastated thousands of lives. The panic, the sorrow — and the desire to help — are all too familiar, given the many disasters that have occurred in recent years all over the world. But we can draw on lessons from each of these catastrophes as we plunge into the recovery phase.

My organization, Give2Asia, has served as a leader in U.S. philanthropy for short-term and long-term recovery in times of disaster. Our recent work has supported survivors of the 2008 China earthquake, Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008 and typhoons Ketsana and Parma in Southeast Asia this past year.

These experiences have taught us a lot. If you are interested in supporting the disaster relief and recovery efforts and helping the survivors in Haiti, I would like to share some tips and advice based on our experiences.
Read the full piece originally published on CNN.com.

Gillian Yeoh is a Program Officer for The Asia Foundation’s affiliate Give2Asia. She can be reached at gyeoh@give2asia.org.