The Asia Foundation

San Francisco and Canberra

As the international community searches for new ways to deliver aid and assistance in places affected by conflict and state fragility, the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) and The Asia Foundation have formed a strategic partnership to enhance current approaches and explore new methods for supporting development, building peace and prosperity, and improving aid effectiveness. The agreement was signed at the Australian Embassy in Washington, D.C. on March 26, 2010 by Peter Baxter, Acting Director General of AusAID, and Douglas Bereuter, president and CEO of The Asia Foundation.

“This partnership is formed to bring together our collective experience in order to better address some of the most challenging questions facing the international community today,” said Douglas Bereuter, president and CEO of The Asia Foundation. “How can we think differently, and act differently, to improve conditions for those in turbulent, fragile societies, where people live in constant threat and development cannot take hold? The combined experience of our two organizations includes nearly every conflict-affected and fragile country in the Asia-Pacific region. I believe that this partnership has the potential to transform the way we work together across the region—and will contribute to global efforts to improve aid effectiveness.”

The goal of the partnership is to deepen and expand the strategies of AusAID, The Asia Foundation, and the international community to deliver aid and security in regions where the pace of development has fallen dramatically, especially where conditions have deteriorated. The partnership will include regular dialogue, collaboration, and joint program activities in Asia through June 2013. This new international effort builds on AusAID’s expertise in post-conflict reconstruction and The Asia Foundation’s recognized strengths in working on protracted sub-national conflicts, and building extensive networks in conflict-affected nations and regions.

Engagement between AusAID and The Asia Foundation has increased significantly in recent years, and the partnership agreement covering the next 39 months is designed to complement existing agreements at the country level by promoting greater sharing of knowledge and strategic concepts between the two organizations.

ABOUT AUSAID
AusAID is the Australian Government agency responsible for managing Australia’s overseas aid program. The objective of the aid program is to assist developing countries reduce poverty and achieve sustainable development, in line with Australia’s national interest. In 2009–10 Australia will provide $3.8 billion worth of official development assistance. Australia’s aid program focuses on the Asia Pacific region. The international community recognises Australia’s leading role in the region, particularly in PNG and the Pacific. The geographic focus of Australia’s aid program also makes sense given that two thirds of the world’s poor, some 800 million people, live in the Asia Pacific, yet receive less than one third of total aid flows. Australia’s broadened aid program provides assistance to Africa, the Middle East, the Caribbean and South America, primarily through scholarships and by working through international and non-government organisations.

For more information, please visit our Press Room.

In a USAID press release announcing the religious leaders conference in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on “the role of religious and community leaders in advancing development in Asia,” The Asia Foundation is credited for co-hosting the three-day event March 21-24. Read the full article: “U.S. Sponsors Bangladesh Conference for Religious and Community Leaders on Advancing Development in Asia.”

San Francisco

The Asia Foundation announced today the appointment of Dr. George Varughese as Country Representative in Nepal. Dr. Varughese moves to Nepal from the Foundation’s office in Afghanistan, where he has worked since 2005. In Nepal, he replaces Nick Langton, who has held the post in Kathmandu since 1999 and will move to New Delhi to open the Foundation’s new resident office in India later this year.

“We are extremely pleased about Dr. Varughese’s appointment,” said Asia Foundation President Douglas Bereuter. “With over 20 years of personal and professional experience in Nepal, Dr. Varughese is particularly well qualified and positioned for the challenges ahead.”

Dr. Varughese most recently served in The Asia Foundation’s Afghanistan office, first as Deputy Country Representative and then as Country Representative, where his many contributions to the development, expansion, and success of the Foundation’s program were well recognized both within and outside the Foundation.  His achievements include leading the internationally-respected annual Survey of the Afghan People and its companion studies on state building and developmental challenges in Afghanistan; overseeing capacity-building initiatives in the center of Afghan government; and advocating for increased attention to sub-national governance.

Before serving in Afghanistan, Dr. Varughese was the Foundation’s deputy country representative in Nepal working on programs that encouraged greater respect for human rights, particularly during conflict; promoted local-level dispute resolution; strengthened civic participation in local government accountability; and supported policy reforms in the economic sector with regard to small business.

Dr. Varughese has worked in the fields of political economy of development, social science research, and management in Nepal, India, Madagascar, and the United States. Prior to joining The Asia Foundation, he served as Country Program Development Advisor with the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) in Nepal.

Dr. Varughese holds a joint public policy doctorate in political science and public administration from Indiana University, Bloomington, U.S.A. His publications include, among others, “Practical Challenges: Conducting Survey Research in Afghanistan” Public Opinion Pros, LFP Editorial Enterprises, LLC, www.PublicOpinionPros.com (April 2007).

Read more about The Asia Foundation’s projects in Nepal. For media inquiries, please visit the Press Room.

Deputy Country Representative, Nepal Sagar Prasai is quoted in a Bloomberg article about Nepal’s Prime Minister Puspa Kamal Dahal resignation after his firing of the army chief split the coalition government. Read the full article: “Nepal’s Premier Resigns Amid Row Over Army Chief.”

Washington, D.C.

Luncheon Discussion with Nick Langton, The Asia Foundation’s Representative in Nepal and Country Director designate for India

Thursday, April 2
12:30 pm
The Shotwell Room
1779 Massachusetts Ave, NW
Washington, D.C.

Nick Langton has been The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Nepal since 1999. He has extensive experience with the Foundation, having served as Country Representative in the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka/Maldives. Prior to joining the Foundation he was Assistant Director of the Southern Sudan Refugee Assistance Project. He also previously worked for CARE in the United States and was a Peace Corps volunteer, trainer, and consultant in Nepal. Langton will be taking on a new assignment as The Asia Foundation’s Country Director for India in late spring.

Nick Langton will speak about current political events in Nepal including constitutional reform as well as the impact of the global economic crisis in the country.

To RSVP for this event, please contact dfernandez@asiafound-dc.org.

Sagar Prasai, The Asia Foundation’s Deputy Country Representative in Nepal has been quoted on the new Nepalese government’s free market policy. Read “Nepal’s Maoists, Split on Ideology, Chart Path of Revolution.“

Each year, thousands of young women are trafficked within and outside of Nepal and forced into exploitative labor situations, including prostitution. Extreme poverty, illiteracy, and internal conflict contribute to the tragic cycle of this illegal practice. The Asia Foundation has provided more than 2,300 trafficking survivors and those at risk of being trafficked with vocational training and education, enabling them to become economically self-reliant. Some are now mechanics and drivers. With support from Give2Asia, The Asia Foundation’s philanthropic partner, the Foundation helps program graduates establish “one-stop shops” where customers come for motorcycle and electronic repairs. The program challenges gender stereotypes and provides the young women with good jobs and useful businesses that directly reduces their risk of being trafficked.

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The Antenna Foundation Nepal is far from a typical news organization. These Kathmandu-based reporters and producers strap mobile transmitters on their backs, “doko-style,” and trek into remote areas in the Himalayas to reach extremely isolated communities. Once there, they find a bamboo tree to fashion a tall, make-shift antenna and hook up receivers, so residents can hear what’s going on in their country. Then, they turn the microphones over to villagers and let them tell their stories. Back in Kathmandu, Antenna broadcasts their grassroots story-gathering in an effort to keep government officials in touch with their rural constituents.

This spring, in partnership with The Asia Foundation, The Antenna Foundation Nepal will pack up their equipment and trek across the United States to uncover stories of their own Nepalese diaspora. Their interviews and reports will explore questions about why people leave Nepal, what they find in the U.S., social and cultural experiences in both countries, and reflections on life in America, against a backdrop of one country struggling to hold Constituent Assembly elections, and another’s drawn out presidential primary season. Antenna’s findings will become a 12-part radio magazine, Postcards from America, which will be broadcast to approximately 8.5 million listeners across Nepal.

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Kathmandu

The Asia Foundation, a non-profit organization devoted to Asia’s development since 1954, and The McConnell Foundation are entering a new phase of a program to provide community mediation services across 12 districts in Nepal, a country coming out of a decade of insurgent rebellion. The absence of effective courts and the breakdown of traditional methods of dispute resolution in Nepal’s communities have led to a distinct need for new mechanisms of village-based conflict management. The new two-year project will build upon previous Asia Foundation mediation efforts in Nepal funded by McConnell and other donors.

Since 2002, The Asia Foundation has been working in Nepal to train and certify long-term mediation service providers who are skilled at finding solutions acceptable to all parties involved in a dispute. Because of these efforts, communities across Nepal are beginning to experience quick, inexpensive, and effective resolution of disputes, an improvement in social and family relations, and improvements in social justice. This has been achieved in the face of significant shifts in village society and the effects of ten years of guerilla insurgency.

“Mediation is a far more viable option for most Nepalis than taking a dispute to court, which is expensive and contentious,” says Nick Langton, The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Nepal. “While litigation results in losers, the win-win possibilities of mediation are more suited to village communities. Establishing mediation services throughout Nepal will take many years, and The McConnell Foundation’s willingness to make a long-term commitment to the program is an important contribution to this process.”

With renewed funding from The McConnell Foundation, The Asia Foundation will expand its efforts. These efforts include increasing community and government support for mediation services, strengthening mediator competency, mobilizing community members as catalysts for peaceful interaction and ongoing community dialogue, and conducting research to deepen understanding of Nepali approaches to community mediation and social harmony.

The Asia Foundation will partner with five local NGOs in Nepal to implement project activities: the Center for Legal Research and Resource Development; the Forum for Protection of Public Interest; the Institute for Governance and Democracy; Service to Underprivileged Sectors of Society; and the Rural Women’s Unity and Development Center.

San Francisco

The Asia Foundation to Manage the Coalition for Constituent Assembly Support in Nepal

The Asia Foundation, the premier non-profit international organization devoted to peace and development in Asia since 1954, announced today its assistance to a groundbreaking, 18-month program to ensure that all Nepali citizens are informed and equipped to participate in building a new and durable constitution for Nepal, following the recent cessation of hostilities. The Foundation will serve as the manager for a project that supports the newly formed Coalition for Constituent Assembly Support, an alliance of several Nepali organizations that includes the Center for Legal Research and Resource Development (CeLRRd), the Forum for Protection of Public Interest (Pro Public), the Forum for Women, Law, and Development (FWLD), and the Institute of Governance and Development (IGD). This Coalition was awarded $1.3 million by the Rights, Democracy, and Inclusion Fund (RDIF), which includes Australian AusAID, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), and the UK Department for International Development (DFID).

In the months leading up to constituent assembly elections, scheduled for June 2007, the Coalition will reach all 75 districts of Nepal through broadcast media programs and more than 7,500 public meetings. Following the elections, the Coalition will engage elected constituent assembly members to ensure they are knowledgeable of constitutional issues and to strengthen their accountability to those who elected them.

After a decade of civil war, Nepal’s Parliament was reinstated and a peace agreement signed between the government and Maoist rebels in June 2006. This new political landscape has yielded an opportunity for reconciliation and the inclusion of historically marginalized groups in rebuilding a more responsive and accountable Nepali state. Critical to sustaining the peace process is the drafting of a new constitution by an elected constituent assembly.

“The constituent assembly process will be a complicated undertaking involving many interest groups,” said Nick Langton, Country Representative for The Asia Foundation in Nepal. “The Coalition partners are uniquely suited to support this process through their experience and skills on issues of law and governance, knowledge of the on-the-ground reality in both urban and rural areas of Nepal, and an extensive network of local partner organizations that span the entire country.”

Before participating in any constituent assembly process, Nepali citizens must understand the principles and processes of democracy and good governance, such as public participation in political debate and holding elected representatives accountable to the people for their actions. To this end, the Coalition will prepare and disseminate analyses of constitutional issues, conduct civic education, and facilitate public discussion on the purpose of the assembly, procedures, and the constitutional issues to be decided.

“The process of educating Nepali citizens on their democratic rights to voice their opinions and hold their representatives accountable is vital to moving Nepal past an era of conflict,” said The Asia Foundation’s President, Doug Bereuter. “The Asia Foundation is proud to support this critical effort aimed at a more inclusive, representative, and responsible system of government in Nepal.”

Deepak Thapa, the first recipient of The Asia Foundation’s William P. Fuller Fellowship in Conflict Resolution, recently appeared on the PBS program “Foreign Exchange” to discuss the recent political turmoil in Nepal. Thapa is considered one of the foremost authorities on the Maoist insurgency in Nepal, and as the Fuller Fellow, came to the U.S. to study theoretical and applied approaches to conflict management and resolution.

To view the interview, visit the Foreign Exchange web site, and choose one of the links next to “Watch the Show Online.” The interview with Deepak Thapa is the first segment, and lasts approximately 6 minutes.