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Transparency and Access to Information Volume 3 • Number 2 Governance and Transnational Pipelines From Azerbaijan to Indonesia, improving pipeline governance Agents of Change Catalysing the shift in social enterprises Asia is Opening Up, Slowly Balancing the political and economic transparency Newsletter of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation Rapporteur October 2009

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Page 1: Rapporteur Oct 09

Transparency and Access to Information

Volu

me 3 • N

um

ber 2

Governance and Transnational PipelinesFrom Azerbaijan to Indonesia, improving pipeline governance

Agents of Change Catalysing the shift in social enterprises

Asia is Opening Up, SlowlyBalancing the political and economic transparency

Ne ws l e t t e r o f th e Ce n t r e o n As i a a n d Glo ba l i sat i o n

RapporteurO c t o b e r 2 0 0 9

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Rapporteur  |  October 20092

Contents14

8

18

10

1620

25

22

5

CAG SEMINAR

5    Agents of Change

CAG INITIATIVE

6 Business Leadership for a         Sustainable Southeast Asia

CAG RESEARCH

8 Developing Common Intellectual         Frameworks in Global Health Governance

10 Governance and Transnational Pipelines

13 Setting the Benchmark for Good Governance

SPECIAL FEATURE on Transparency

14 Building Knowledge on Transparency        Innovations

16 Unlikely Contenders in Championing        Transparency

18 Asia is Opening Up, Slowly

CAG TRIBUTE

20 Cory Aquino: One Singular Moment,         One Great Legacy

CAG INTERVIEWS

22 Kelley Lee: Quest for Governance         in Global Health

25 Simon Chesterman: Law & Order

CAG NEWS

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Rapporteur  |  October 2009 3

As the Centre on Asia and Globalisation enters its fourth year, we focus in this newslet-ter on a topic that has shaped much of our work from the beginning: Transparency. All of our work deals in one way or another with governance, and transparency is inherently part of that debate. In 2009, our transparency work included a major international workshop cosponsored with The Asia Foundation and numerous publications and interviews, de-scribed in the following pages. The year has also seen the beginnings of a collaborative research programme focused around transparency and other governance innovations in China, which will be the subject of future newsletters.

On the research front, CAG Research Fel-lows Toby Carroll and Benjamin K. Sovacool are wrapping up their work on the forms of gov-ernance associated with pipeline promotion, implementation and operation. CAG Senior Research Fellow Teresita Cruz-del Rosario is examining the governance mechanisms in the Nam Theun 2 Hydroelectric Project in Laos, which has one of the most complex and diverse funding structures ever undertaken in Asia.

Following up on the previous edition of Rapporteur, I’m pleased to report that our ambi-tious S.T. Lee Project on Global Governance, now in its second year, has become widely rec-ognised as the leading Asia-based initiative addressing the growing crisis in global governance. Since the launch conference in late 2008, we have formed international study groups on health and energy bringing together top scholars in Asia and the West. With generous support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Global Health Governance (GHG) study group held its first research workshop in late September at the Rockefeller Foundation’s breathtaking conference centre in Bellagio, Italy. The interview with Dr. Kelley Lee, the group’s co-chair, gives a good sense of the rich complexity of the group’s work in this vital area. In late October, the Global Energy Governance (GEG) study group followed suit with a meeting in Singapore. The group on Concepts of Global Governance will meet in December – see the interview with Simon Chesterman for insights into those issues.

The Centre continues to fulfill its responsibilities in public outreach and education through a number of programmes. In April, the Centre’s Programme on Social Innovation and Change (PSIC), headed by Durreen Shahnaz, launched the seminar series “Agents of Change”, marking the growth of a new sector – social entrepreneurs and enterprises who are playing a significant role in catalyzing the shift in social innovation. In early October, the Centre launched “Globalising Good” seminar series, which looks at some of the most compelling issues on the global govern-ance agenda today. In the pipeline is a new seminar series entitled “Corporations to the Rescue?”, which builds on the CAG’s Public Roles of the Private Sector programme to address crucial ques-tions about the roles of business in the age of crises. And to nurture the capacity of Southeast Asians to lead profound innovation in a world of fast-paced change, CAG will launch an executive education programme in early 2010.

As the newsletter also shows, we have had few transitions since April. It’s a great pleasure to welcome to the CAG family Sumi Dhanarajan and Jasmin Kaur. Sumi is spearheading the Public Roles of the Private Sector programme at the CAG and Jasmin is providing valuable sup-port in ever-so growing public outreach programmes of the Centre. Another newest addition to the CAG family is Olivia Sovacool, the beautiful daughter of CAG Research Fellow Benjamin Sovacool – Congratulations to Ben and his wife Kelly.

The final transition involves Yeling Tan, who left in September to pursue graduate studies at the Harvard Kennedy School. Yeling’s contributions in shaping a number of CAG research agendas, in particular the Global Health Governance study group of the S.T. Lee Project and the transparency work described above, have been extraordinary – so extraordinary that we have persuaded her to remain on board as a CAG International Associate.

Words from the Director

Ann FloriniDirector

EditorSung Lee

ContributorsToby Carroll, Teresita Cruz-del Rosario, Sumi Dhanarajan, Ann Florini, Jasmin Kaur, Melissa Ong, Saleena Saleem, Durreen Shahnaz, Benjamin K. Sovacool, Tan Hui Yee, Yeling Tan

DesignSung Lee, Nadiah Jailani (Bob Associates)

ProductionBob Associates Design Consultants www.bobassociates.com

Cover IllustrationDanny Snell

PhotosWill Chua, Wayne Kao, Sung Lee, Durreen Shahnaz, Benjamin K. Sovacool, Teresita Cruz-del Rosario, Naeem Mohaiemen, M-CRIL.

© 2009, CAG, LKYSPP, NUS. Rapporteur is published bi-annually.

DirectorAnn Florini

PA to DirectorEsther Yeoh

Senior Research FellowTeresita Cruz-del Rosario

Research FellowsToby Carroll, Melissa Ong, Benjamin K.Sovacool

Research AssistantsOng Yanchun, Saleena Saleem

Consultant, Public Roles of the Private Sector ProgrammeSumi Dhanarajan

Head, Programme on Social Innovation and ChangeDurreen Shahnaz

ExecutiveJasmin Kaur

Head of External Relations and Special ProjectsSung Lee

Printed on recycled paper 

Rapporteur

The Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy  brings together leading scholars and policymakers to address innovations in governance in a rapidly changing world. In addition to providing a home for world-class researchers, the Centre convenes seminars, conferences and policy dialogues to advance understanding of the shifting political dynamics driving regional and global issues.

About This Issue

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Rapporteur  |  October 20094

The Programme on Social Innovation and Change (PSIC) at the Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) marked this tectonic shift in the sectors and the emergence of a new sector – social enterprise – by celebrating players who are contributing significantly to catalysing this shift. Through a seminar series, ‘Agents of Change’, audiences were exposed to these leading social innovators who have developed unique solutions to complex problems in their respective countries and sectors, and who continue to persevere in the sphere of social enterprise.

The series was initiated by Mr. Sanjay Sinha, Founder and Managing Director of Micro-Credit Ratings International Limited (M-CRIL). M-CRIL is a company established to carry out professional assessments (ratings) of Microfinance Institutions (MFIs) and provide research and other services designed to promote the flow of investments into microfi-nance. Over the past 10 years, M-CRIL has undertaken nearly 600 ratings of some 330 MFIs in 32 countries, including Asia, Africa and Eastern Europe.

Mr. Sinha’s work has been critical in the microfinance sector because he has brought about transparency and matu-rity in an industry that, although growing at a record pace, has

not yet seen much analysis of its impact on its beneficiaries. His talk focused on the thinking behind M-CRIL, its meth-odology for rating MFIs, the impact of ratings on the growth of microfinance and emerging trends in the microfinance sectors of Asia and India.

Dr. Badiul Alam Majumdar was the next speaker in the se-ries. Dr. Majumdar is the Founder and Secretary of Shushanar Janniya Nagorik (SHUJAN) and also the Global Vice President and Country Director for Bangladesh of The Hunger Project.

SHUJAN made its debut in 2002 as an initiative of a group of concerned citizens of Bangladesh. Its purpose: pro-moting democracy, decentralisation, electoral reforms, clean politics and accountable governance. It is a volunteer-based movement in which citizens themselves invest both time and money to carry forward its work and not a non-governmental organisation supported by donors. As a non-partisan pressure group, it provides an effective platform for people to discover their voices and be heard.

Under the leadership of Dr. Majumdar since its inception, SHUJAN has mobilised thousands of citizens from all walks of life who are disenchanted with the present state of Bangla-desh’s politics and governance. In the process, it has become a large, decentralised network of committed individuals from the capital city down to the villages. SHUJAN has already achieved solid successes in its priority areas and its initiatives were featured in the 26 Dec 2006 issue of Time magazine.

The third speaker was Mr. Sasa Vucinic who brought his passion for independent media to the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (LKY School). Originally from Serbia, Mr. Vucinic is the Founder and Managing Director of Media De-

words Durreen Shahnaz

Agents of ChangeThe  world  is  no  longer  overseen  by  governments alone, but by an evolving combination of actors that draw from both the private sector and civil society.

Naeem Mohaiemen

CAG Seminar

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Rapporteur  |  October 2009 5

velopment Loan Fund (MDLF) and has been recognised by the World Economic Forum as a Global Leader of Tomorrow and by the Ashoka Foundation as Senior Global Fellow.

MDLF is a social investment fund for independent news media in the developing world. It provides low-cost capital, new technology solutions and management know-how to assist journalists working in challenging environments to build sustainable businesses around professional, respon-sible and quality journalism. Founded in 1995, MDLF has since provided about US$ 90 million in affordable financing to independent media companies in 24 countries.

At the seminar, Mr. Vucinic discussed shifts in technol-ogy that have changed the way we create, deliver, and con-sume news and knowledge, thus rendering traditional media economics and business models untenable. Mr. Vucinic made the audience think – what is the value of independent media in these new circumstances? Are there any new, emerging, promising business models? And why should societies have to protect and support independent media outlets?

Mr. Alfie Othman joined the series as a local social en-trepreneur who has been a change maker all his life. Mr. Oth-man detailed a journey that he has been centrally involved in over the last five years in PERTAPIS, a Singaporean philan-thropic entity. While there were undoubtedly bumps along the road, he noted that the end result was the birth of a new culture within the spheres of social enterprise development and preventative education. He also shared his view on how the Singaporean community embraces and understands the concept of social enterprise and, most importantly, what is required in order to move a social enterprise forward.

Mr. Khalid Quadir, another agent of change from Bangla-desh, capped off the seminar series. Mr. Quadir built a success-ful career growing numerous social purpose businesses in Bang-ladesh and was a key member of the founding team of Grameen Phone – the most successful for-profit social enterprise in the world, with a current market value of over US$ 3 billion.

Mr. Quadir’s talk focused on his work and on Bangladesh, a country once known for its cyclones and political unrest, but which is now known as a beacon of social innovation. He discussed the innovation factors that continue to propel the country forward – its tenacious people, creative organisations, entrepreneurial spirit and the important female workforce. Despite various economic and natural challenges, Bangla-desh continues to produce innovative people, products and services which are transforming the development and social landscape for the world.

With that note of optimism and passion, the ‘Agents of Change’ seminar series drew to a close, leaving its mark on the LKY School students and community, sowing the seeds of fu-ture change agents for Asia. R

Seminar presentations are available as podcasts on the CAG homepage.

Sowing the seeds of future change agents for Asia

M-CRIL.

CAG Seminar

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Rapporteur  |  October 20096

“When the storm clears, we cannot expect the

world to be as before…in the aftermath of the

crisis, the redrawn global landscape will be less

benign and predictable”

Southeast Asia needs corporate leaders who can shape business models that are 'fit for purpose' in an environment where confronting sustainability challenges will be far more relevant to operations then ever before. The Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) has led in the development of an executive programme that nurtures such individuals through a unique blend of leadership methods, knowledge sharing and scenarios thinking.

Business

for a Sustainable Southeast Asia

L E E S H I PA D R

This is the age of crises – climatic, financial, health and governance. For Southeast Asia, the impact of these challenges will, if not managed effectively, disrupt current endeavours to create a prosperous and dynamic region.

Consider the following:

• Southeast Asia is one of the most vulnerable regions to the impacts of climate change. According to the Asian Development Bank, Southeast Asia’s exposure to

increases in drought, severe weather-related disasters and rising sea levels will lead to economic and social impacts that could amount to a loss of 6.7% of their combined gross domestic product by 2100 – more than twice the world’s average – if urgent and immediate ac-tion is not taken.

• The global recession will have significant impacts on the region. Many of its export-oriented economies will contract considerably leading to dramatic increases in unemployment, income inequalities, and decreases in

“When the storm clears, we cannot expect the world to be as before…in the aftermath of the crisis, the redrawn global landscape will be less benign

and predictable.”

SR NathanPresident of the Republic of Singapore

words  Sumi Dhanarajan & Melissa Ong

CAG Initiative

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Rapporteur  |  October 2009 7

consumer spending. For example, it is estimated by the International Labour Organisation that the number of working poor living on less than a dollar a day could rise by some 40 million, and those on two dollars a day, by more than 100 million. A large proportion of these people will be from this region.

For companies operating in Southeast Asia, ‘busi-ness-as-usual’ is no longer a viable option. Thought-leaders speak of a new world order emerging post-crisis

– one that emphasises the deep interconnectedness between markets, the environment and sustainable development; one that demands greater accountability for business impacts upon the environment and society; and one that requires businesses to be ‘future-proof’ in the face of unpredictable and complex disruptions of an unprecedented scale.

Remaining competitive and sustaining profitability for the long run will thus require businesses being prepared for:

• Risks to operations – production, distribution and sales – posed by climate change and far-reaching eco-nomic, political and social repercussions of the finan-cial crises, businesses will need to embrace what were once seen as externalities – the environment, poverty, human rights – into core business operations;

• Capital to come with conditions as investors increas-ingly equate a company’s ability to demonstrate good environmental, social and governance standards with strong long-term investor performance;

• Supply-chain partners requiring compliance for companies to be more responsive to threats posed by climate change, through the provision of goods and services that are eco-friendly in the way they are made, used and disposed of;

• Rising expectations from consumers for companies to be more responsive to threats posed by climate change through the provision of goods and services that are eco-friendly in the way they are made, used and disposed of;

• Adapting to contextual realities of crises – intensify-ing vulnerability to poverty will be reflected in the purchasing power of consumers and productivity of workers, especially in emerging economies;

• Promoting a process of generality where an individual organisation’s advanced beneficial behaviour tran-scends throughout an entire sector;

• Governments ratcheting up their requirements upon businesses to operate in ways that support rather than sustain development efforts; and

• Greater engagement with the public sector and civil society to address problems that are collective in na-ture through public policy frameworks as well as col-laborative action.

Critically, it also requires public sector actors who recognise the value of businesses that are committed to embracing these challenges, and who actively work with

them to maximise sustainable approaches through the right policies and incentives.

Similarly, it needs civil society actors who stand ready to lend their deep insights and experiences with societal needs to businesses, and who are also open to learning how businesses operate and how best to en-courage change.

Thriving in this new operating environment requires in-sightful, strategic and bold leadership that:

• Makes sense of complex contexts, identifies key trends and strategic uncertainties related to these issues, and insights into how these can apply to their organisa-tions, sectors and systems;

• Employs change management strategies that deal not only with the complexities that crises bring, but also encourages innovative and transformational ap-proaches to problems and solutions; and

• Understands the collective nature of the challenges around climate change and sustainable development and actively seeks out opportunities to work cross-sectorally to meet them.

The Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) has de-veloped an executive education programme to nurture the potential of Southeast Asians to become thought-leaders capable of profound innovation in a world of fast-paced change. The first course focusing on climate change will run from 22 to 26 Feb 2010.

The course offers a unique blend of leadership methods, up-to-date insights into the climate change agenda and its impacts on businesses. There will also be opportunities to conduct scenario planning and a chance to hear practitioners share their experiences on implementing successful environmental strategies within their companies. R

Thought-leaders speak of a new world order emerging post-crisis - one that emphasises the deep interconnectedness between markets, the environment and sustainable development; one that demands greater accountability for business impacts upon society; and one that requires businesses to be 'future-proof' in the face of unpredictable and complex disruptions on an unprecedented scale.

For further inquiries, email  Sumi Dhanarajan  [email protected]

CAG Initiative

Page 8: Rapporteur Oct 09

Rapporteur  |  October 20098

The Bellagio Workshop on Global Health Governance is part of the Centre’s S.T. Lee Project on Global Govern-ance, a three year multi-disciplinary research project to develop insights and recommendations on how to govern a world that includes an increasingly important Asian region.

The project is comprised of three study groups (Con-cepts of Global Governance, Global Health Governance,

and Global Energy Governance). The Study Group on Global Health Governance (GHG) is chaired by Dr. Tikki Pang, Director of Research Policy and Cooperation at the World Health Organisation (WHO) and Dr. Kelley Lee, Head of the Public Environmental Health Research Unit at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine.

The GHG Workshop was attended by 15 researchers based in Asian, European and North American institu-tions. The purpose of the meeting was to agree on a com-mon analytical framework for understanding GHG. Prior to the meeting, researchers completed ten-page ‘think pieces’ on a range of case studies, fleshing out key ideas and research questions to be addressed. The workshop allowed participants to share these initial thoughts and get feedback from the study group, as well as to develop a shared understanding of six important GHG issue areas: tobacco control, pandemic preparedness, international health regulations, global health and development, glo-bal health research governance and, finally, access to knowledge products.

Specifically, the participants discussed the way GHG is being shaped by four broad trends: (1) the impact of globali-sation; (2) the emergence of new actors exercising authority

The Centre  on  Asia  and Globalisation  convened a  workshop  of  the  Global  Health  Governance (GHG)  Study  Group  at  the  Bellagio  Rockefeller Foundation  Centre,  Bellagio,  Italy  on  28-30 September, 2009. 

Developing Common Intellectual Frameworks in Global Health Governance

CAG Research

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Rapporteur  |  October 2009 9

on global issues; (3) competing normative approaches to global health; and (4) the shifting geopolitical order, includ-ing the formation of regional bodies and like-minded clubs.

With these broad trends in mind, the Study Group members also addressed three conceptual areas of global governance:

• Sovereignty and World Order: The growing tensions between the need for collective action and the princi-ple of national sovereignty in the field of GHG;

• Conceptions and Contributions from Asia: the ways in which GHG is conceived in Asia and how Asia connects with concepts of GHG which were mostly developed in the West; and

• Institutional Diversity and New Governance Mecha-nisms: emergence of new non-state actors, networks

and partnerships, new information sharing and dis-closure mechanisms as well as new international rules.

Based on the feedback gathered at Bellagio, field re-search and analysis for each research paper will now take place from October 2009 onwards and the final papers are scheduled to be completed by March 2010. R

A cart pulled by too many horses?The  Centre  on  Asia  and  Globalisation  (CAG) launched a seminar of the S.T. Lee Project on Global  Governance  series  titled  “Globalising Good”  on  12 October,  2009  at  the  Lee  Kuan Yew  School  of  Public  Policy.    The  first  series, titled  “Global  Health  Governance:  A  cart pulled by  too many horses” was delivered by Dr. Tikki Pang, Director of Research Policy and Cooperation at the World Health Organisation (WHO)  and  also  the  co-chair  of  the  Global Health  Governance  Study  Group  of  the  S.T. Lee Project on Global Governance. Here is the synopsis of his talk:

From pandemic influenza H1N1 to chronic diseases, and from fragile health systems in times of financial crisis to the health impacts of climate change, the world faces a staggering array of diverse and trans-national threats to health and well-being. Health equity remains elusive and the realization of the health-related Millennium Development Goals remains a distant dream. The developing world bears the brunt of the burden, with many of the largest de-veloping countries located in the Asia Pacific region (home to 60% of the world's population).

Global health governance has an important im-pact on contemporary health policy which, at the level of individual countries, must deal and respond to these health threats. Unfortunately, and despite

unprecedented resources, global health governance itself is in disarray due to fragmentation, poor coor-dination, inappropriate priorities, lack of account-ability and transparency, and the absence of a com-mon, shared vision. New measures and innovative thinking are needed to overcome these barriers to effective global health governance. Importantly, Asia has much to contribute in the form of ideas, experience, values and resources towards the devel-opment of more effective and sustainable models of global health governance. R

www.lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/CAGWatch Dr Pang’s seminar on the CAG homepage

The final report of the Bellagio Workshop will be available on the CAG homepage in late 2009.

Read an in-depth interview with Dr. Kelley Lee, Co-Chair of the Global Health Governance Study Group of the S.T. Lee Project on P22.

Special FeatureCAG Seminar

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Rapporteur  |  October 200910

Empirical evidence suggests that the role transnational hydrocarbon pipelines play in energy policy  and  security,  human  rights,  and  international  politics  is  complex.  Transnational pipelines impact upon interstate and state-society relations, local-level community dynamics and, of course, ecosystems. 

In recent years, non-governmental organisations have raised critical issues associated with high-profile transnational pipeline projects, such as the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline, the Chad-Cameroon pipeline and the pipeline between Burma and Thailand. However, little scholarly work has been done to understand the patterns of governance associated with the promotion and operation of  transnational hydrocarbon pipelines. Recognising  this  gap, in late 2007, we embarked upon a project that would both detail the forms of governance associated with pipeline promotion, implementation and operation, as well as analyse the interaction between pipelines and socio-cultural, economic, political, and environmental landscapes.

Governance and Transnational Pipelines

words Toby Carroll & Benjamin K. Sovacool

CAG Research

Page 11: Rapporteur Oct 09

Rapporteur  |  October 2009 11

Initially, the project focused upon the Trans-ASEAN gas pipeline (TAGP) network – an ambitious set of pipelines (existing and proposed) that traverse the borders of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) countries. Subse-quent external interest in the project, and the securing of a grant from Singapore’s Ministry of Education led us to expand our geographical focus and take a comparative look at one of the most important contemporary theatres for transnational pipeline governance: the Caucasus.

The project has essentially looked at the governance of pipelines in two interrelated ways. Firstly, governance is understood in a quasi-managerial sense. That is, in analys-ing both the TAGP network and the BTC pipeline in the Caucasus, we were interested in assessing the structures and strategies associated with the construction and opera-tion of oil and gas pipelines across national boundaries.

Transnational pipelines incorporate complex financ-ing arrangements which often necessitate the involvement of a mix of public and private funders that bring with them specific conditions for both companies and governments to fulfill. Hydrocarbon companies, having been earlier sub-jected to criticism from civil society, now operationalise environmental and social impact assessments to mitigate risks along pipeline routes and require new codes to be applied to sub-contractors and government agencies. International treaties, such as the Energy Charter Treaty and new transnational contractual arrangements are now regularly at-tached to transborder pipeline projects, impacting upon domestic legal frameworks.

Further, pipeline projects are now important elements in broader regionalist projects. Taken as a whole, these structures and ap-proaches constitute a technocratic form of pipeline governance that is now increasingly found around the world in pipeline and other infra-structure projects.

The second form of governance that the project has focused upon has been the political formations and shift in state-society relations that transnational pipelines put into effect. The construc-tion and operationalising of transnational pipelines affects many actors at varying scales. There are issues of land ten-ure and compensation, royalty and revenue expenditure and the consolidation of particular political regimes, not to mention the perennial concerns of transparency, account-ability and issues of representation.

The TAGP NetworkWith these dimensions of pipeline governance in mind, our initial research focused upon the TAGP network.

Once completed, the TAGP network would include a se-ries of natural gas pipelines spanning 10 countries spread across 4.5 million square kilometres of land. Operating according to a master plan articulated by ASEAN, the pri-mary stated purpose of the TAGP network is to connect the gas reserves in the Gulf of Thailand, Myanmar, and Indonesia to the rest of the region. Importantly though, despite ASEAN’s intention that the TAGP network be an

important part of building regional cohesion, in reality, the project has unfolded in a fairly ad-hoc way, subject to the overriding concern of market demand and the vicissitudes of the global political economy.

In this situation, energy-hungry ASEAN members, such as Thailand and Singapore, have sought to secure increasing quantities of gas from regional neighbours such as Burma and Indonesia, respectively. While this has meant that supplier

countries have been able to earn incomes for their exports, this has not come without costs for domestic interests in gas supplying states.

On Batam Island in Indonesia, which hosts one piece of the TAGP network between Sumatra and Sin-gapore, the transnational connection has impacted industry and raised the ire of Batam residents. In the case of the pipelines between Burma and Thailand, there have been significant human rights concerns which have

resulted in high-profile international court cases, bringing negative attention to the region and the relationship be-tween particular regimes and the hydrocarbon industry.

Further, on the specific issue of regionalism, the TAGP network operates as a network in name only, with the project really being a series of individual pipelines. The TAGP network demonstrates that talking about regional energy cooperation and regional pipeline projects is much easier said than done, with the TAGP network plagued by conflicting goals and priorities, differing concepts of energy security, increasing protectionism and suspicion.

Pipeline projects are now important elements in broader regionalist projects. Taken as a whole, these structures and approaches constitute a technocratic form of pipeline governance that is now increasingly found around the world in pipeline and other infrastructure projects.

CAG Research

Page 12: Rapporteur Oct 09

Rapporteur  |  October 200912

The BTC PipelineThe BTC pipeline transports crude oil more than 1,700 kilometers from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean. The US$ 3.6 billion pipeline spans three countries – Az-erbaijan, Georgia and Turkey – and was financed by a com-plex array of international public and private investors. As the main conduit for exporting Azeri oil in the Caspian to world markets, the BTC pipeline traverses difficult ter-rain, passes through or close to several conflict zones, and impacts upon marginalised ethnic groups.

The BTC pipeline is an interesting case of pipeline governance in that the BP-led consortium responsible for the project set out from the very beginning to make the pipeline an example of best practice. Significant efforts were made to ensure that villages were consulted on rel-evant issues, oil funds were used in responsible ways, and environmental social safeguards were applied.

While some suggest that the impressive array of mechanisms that accompanied the BTC pipeline re-sulted in a better outcome, the BTC pipeline still raises very real questions of pipeline governance. Issues of land compensation, environmental risks, and the management of sub-contractors have been prominent with the BTC pipeline, as has the bigger issue regarding the use of oil revenues – in particular by a centralised and repressive regime in Azerbaijan. Further, there is the broader issue of how a project like the BTC pipeline figures within geo-politics, being a key piece of infrastructure that has come to symbolise a new ‘Great Game’ being played out in the Caucasus between the West and Russia.

Going Forward: Improving Pipeline GovernanceFrom the outset, we intended that the research project would not only attempt to map the forms of governance ac-companying transnational pipelines but would also provide policy suggestions that could mitigate or prevent some of the problems of existing forms of pipeline governance.

In many ways, at first glance, the managerial form of govern-ance noted above on a project like the BTC pipeline looks good and constitutes current best practice In the case of the TAGP net-work, even on paper, there is significant room for improvement.

However, in actuality, significant governance problems remain in both cases. Crucially, many of the least attractive elements of contemporary pipeline governance are issues of representation and could only be lessened and/or avoided by new opportunities for public participation in decision-making. Of course, these can be costly in terms of time, resources and the realisation of particular interests. How-ever, if transnational pipeline projects are to remain viable and legitimate recipients of public money, not to mention contributors to more positive forms of regionalism, many of these costs cannot be ignored indefinitely.

While modest improvements to pipeline governance have been made with efforts such as the Extractive Indus-tries Transparency Initiative and Publish What you Pay, not to mention the involvement of civil society groups in monitoring aspects of a project like the BTC pipeline, there is still a great deal of room for stronger transparency and accountability mechanisms and importantly, an expansion of the political space in which such mechanisms operate. Guaranteeing a fair and prudent representation of interests under repressive regimes (such as those in Myanmar and Azerbaijan) is far from straightforward.

This said, it is not unfathomable that ASEAN (in the case of the TAGP network) or some of the parties involved in the BTC pipeline could establish supra-state governance institutions that could recommend, enforce and adjudicate on matters of pipeline governance. Of course, the ever-present issue of political will makes such endeavours a for-midable challenge. However, to remain complacent on tackling issues of pipeline governance could have very seri-ous implications for those promoting and operating tran-snational pipelines, not to mention the populations that the pipelines affect. To date, the research project has charted many of the key difficulties in the patterns of governance associated with transnational pipelines, the vastly more dif-ficult task however remains establishing positive policy changes to effectively address these difficulties. R

Benjamin K. Sovacool, ‘Reassessing Energy Security and the Trans-ASEAN Natural Gas Pipeline Network in Southeast Asia’, Pacific Affairs, vol. 82, no.3, Fall 2009, pp. 467-486.

Toby Carroll, ‘Pipelines, Participatory Development and the Regionalism of the Caucasus’, Centre on Asia and Globalisation Working Paper no. 7, August 2009. http://www.lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/CAG/Handler.ashx?path=Data/Site/SiteDocuments/CAG/CAGWorkingPaper_007.pdf

Benjamin K. Sovacool, ‘Energy Policy and Cooperation in Southeast Asia: The History, Challenges, and Implications of the Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline Network (TAGP),’ Energy Policy, vol. 37, no. 6, June 2009, pp. 2356-2367.

Toby Carroll and Benjamin Sovacool, ‘Contested Region-alism in Southeast Asia: the Politics of the trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline Project’, Centre on Asia and Globalisation Working Paper Working Paper no. 2, September 2008. http://www.lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/docs/fac/benjamin-sovacool/Working%20Papers/CAGWorkingPaper002.pdf

Related Publications by Ben and Toby

For further inquiries, email

Ben   [email protected]

Toby   [email protected]

CAG Research

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Setting the Benchmark for Good GovernanceThe  Nam  Theun  2  Hydroelectric  Project  in  Laos  provides  an  illustrative  case  of  an  energy  governance  innovation  anchored  on  multi-stakeholder  participation.  Despite  ongoing  criticisms,  the  project demonstrates a mechanism by which different stakeholders can propose, defend, and perhaps even adjust their perspectives.  

The Nam Theun 2 Hydroelectric Project in Laos is easily the biggest and most ambitious hydropower project for Laos. It is funded by a consortium of international funders that include nine international commercial banks, seven Thai commer-cial banks, and equity par-ticipation from the World Bank (WB), the Asian De-velopment Bank (ADB), and the European Investment Bank (EIB). Altogether, the project is financed under 11 different debt facilities, making it one of the most complex and diverse funding structures ever undertaken in Asia. The total project cost is US$ 1.29 billion.

The underlying rationale for this project is prima-rily to provide Thailand with clean energy in support of Thailand’s industrialisation programme. This will, in turn, help reduce Thailand’s dependence on natural gas. As hydropower is considered a clean and safe source of energy with very low carbon emissions, it is estimated that Thailand will avoid generat-ing, on average, a total of 2 million tons of carbon diox-ide per year. In turn, Laos will benefit considerably from the sale of electricity to Thailand via an agreement between the two countries on a pricing structure that commits Thailand to purchase hydropower from Laos over a period of 25 years. The estimated earnings for Laos are US$ 2 billion, thus contributing substantially to the achievement of development goals for Laos.

While formal construction commenced in June 2005, the process of consulting various stakeholders from all over the region began in earnest over a decade ago. The share of project lending from the WB and the ADB is small compared to the other financiers. However, due to the

potential negative social and environmental impacts of the project, the Lao Government insisted on the participation of the multilateral institutions (MIs), specifically in terms

of drawing up a “compli-ance list”, that is, a series of measures that will mitigate an array of financial, social and environmental risks as a precondition to their partici-pation. Thus, the WB and the ADB spearheaded a consulta-tion process to include inter-national, regional, national and local stakeholders. The affected communities in the Nakai Plateau were likewise consulted, and an elaborate resettlement plan was drawn up to include the replacement of livelihoods that were lost due to their displacement.

This case study is a de-tailed account of the govern-ance mechanisms put in place by the WB and the ADB to ensure that compliance is ad-hered to by all partners. More importantly, the Nam Theun 2 Hydroelectric Project provides a “model” for other forthcoming hydroelectric projects in Laos that will be funded by private financiers without MI participation and sets the benchmark for future

similar undertakings both for the Lao Government and its financing partners. As this is the first of its kind in Southeast Asia, the Nam Theun 2 project is an illustrative case of an energy governance innovation that could potentially be replicated in other countries facing similar concerns. The case study also incorporates the views of other stakeholders who remain opposed to the project.

For further inquiries, email

Tess  [email protected]

words Teresita Cruz-del Rosario

The Nam Theun 2 Hydroelectric Project provides a “model” for other forthcoming hydroelectric projects in Laos that will be funded by private financiers without MI (multilateral institutions) participation 

and sets the benchmark for future similar undertakings both for the Lao Government 

and its financing partners.

CAG Research

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Building Knowledge on Transparency Innovations

On 4-6 Mar 2009, The Asia Foundation and the Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) of  the Lee Kuan  Yew  School  of  Public  Policy  in  Singapore  jointly  hosted  the  International Workshop on Transparency and Access to Information. The event brought together academics, civil society and government  officials  from China,  India, Korea, Mexico,  Singapore,  the United  States  and Vietnam, to discuss ongoing innovations and challenges in the use of transparency regulation in strengthening local governance.

Danny Snell

Special Feature - Transparency

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Significant global-based trends are combining to make transparency and disclosure regulation among the most im-portant and exciting areas in which government and civil so-ciety can work to transform and strengthen local governance architectures. Not only are advances in electronic and digital communications enabling people to access information that governments may not want publicised, ideas and norms have also fundamentally shifted. It is increasingly expected across societies that ‘good’ governments are transparent and open, and practitioners are also actively recognising that transpar-ency can be a useful regulatory tool to improve performance across a range of governance sectors, from economic to envi-ronmental, health and corruption.

The timing of the workshop facilitated prodigious sharing on the various approaches and obstacles for transparency regu-lations that spanned the whole policy-making process. At the policy-drafting stage, Vietnam’s National Assembly has agreed to include an access to information law into the 2009 legisla-tive agenda and has assigned the Ministry of Justice to head the drafting committee, with the expectation for the law to be promulgated in 2010. At the implementation stage, China’s Open Government Information (OGI) regulation came into force on 1 May 2008 and efforts are ongoing to implement the regulation at the local level. On the enforcement and sustain-ability question, countries such as Korea and Mexico have had access to information laws in place for over a decade, placing them in a position of being able to share plentiful lessons in implementation, and efforts at improvement over time.

The diversity of country experiences gathered in Singa-pore made for some intense discussion on the wide-ranging approaches to enacting transparency regulations. For exam-ple, India’s noteworthy transparency law was the result of a sustained and extremely widespread campaign carried out by a vast network of civil society groups across the country. Chi-na’s OGI regulation, in contrast, was driven by a combination of top-level political commitment and sustained bottom-up experimentations by local governments.

The workshop saw participants engaging in lively dis-cussion on the various roles of government, civil society and academia in advancing the use and understanding of trans-parency as a governance tool. Some emphasised that civil society demand for information is crucial to the successful practice and implementation of access to information laws and regulations, and underscored the need for civil society to be constantly vigilant and to act as a check against the government. Others placed greater emphasis on the need to have strong government leadership and political will to drive reform and overcome the myriad of vested interests within the system – so as to create an effective system of dis-closure and transform the mindsets of public officials. Still more participants commented that it would be important to debunk some of the common myths and misconceptions leading to fears about the potentially destabilising effects of government openness. Academia plays an important role in this process, in building up research projects that rigorously investigate the relationship between transparency regula-tions and governance performance.

Participants also tackled the relationship between trans-parency regulations and democracy. It was pointed out that in Mexico, a gradual and steady process of democratisation led to transparency being viewed as an important component

of the democratic system. Some argued that transparency can only flourish in a culture where the principle of transparency is tightly coupled with the democratic notion of access to information as an individual right.

On the other hand, it was also argued that transparency regulations can work across a wide range of political environ-ments. For example, Vietnam has an investigative media and a culture of strong public opinion, which has combined to create an environment that favours transparency – as evidenced by the vigorous debate in the media on the Vietnam government’s recent stimulus package. One presenter suggested a few broad guiding principles for the enactment of successful transpar-ency laws: first, the laws should be compatible with the existing political environ-ment; second, the law has to benefit public officials as well as the people so that there are proper incentives for successful implementation; and third, imple-mentation efforts should involve p a r t i c i p a t i o n from civil society and the media.

The work-shop also saw substantive discussion on the challenges of the implementation process. It was noted that there are several challenges lying ahead for the implementation of the OGI regime in China. Areas for improvement include: a clearer articulation of the principle of openness in national and local legislation; a clearer definition of secrecy and exemptions to disclosure in existing laws and regula-tions; stronger participation from civil society; and stronger ac-tion from the courts. Particular attention was given to the work being done by the Legislative Affairs Office of Hunan Province, in partnership with The Asia Foundation.

In general, participants noted a wide range of challenges on the implementation front. First, challenges can arise from a culture of secrecy within the government and bureaucracy, and a lack of political will and commitment. Second, is the challenge of having adequate resources, building the proper systems, procedures for archiving, record-keeping and dis-closure, and training for public servants. Third, is to establish consistency between new disclosure regulations and existing laws, particularly secrecy laws. Fourth, it is critical to generate sufficient awareness within the government bureaucracy and publicly across business and society. Without outside pressure and demand for information, the government faces little incen-tive to implement disclosure systems properly.

Moving forward, workshop participants agreed on an set of research and programmatic agenda for future collabora-tions. There was an enthusiastic reception to the idea of form-ing global networks between academic institutions, civil soci-ety organisations and governments so as to promote long-term sharing of knowledge and learning in transparency thus help-ing to create awareness and build norms across sectors. R

It is increasingly expected across societies that ‘good’ governments are transparent and open, and practitioners are also actively recognising that transparency can be a useful regulatory tool to improve performance across a range of governance sectors, from economic to environmental, health and corruption.

Special Feature - Transparency

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Unlikely Contenders in Championing Transparency Imagine the global contest for leadership as a battlefield. The front lines aren't just military and economic: Ideas are at least as crucial. And in this struggle, openness and transparency are growing ever more important. The United States, which once had an enormous advantage in terms of transparency, lost its position during the Bush-era rollback of civil liberties. Meanwhile, two surprising contenders have entered the lists.

words Ann Florini and Yeling Tan

Special Feature - Transparency

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The first is India. India's rambunctious, sprawling democracy has long been highly secre-tive, in keeping with colonial British traditions. But this started to change in the early 1990s, when grass-roots groups began demanding access to documents held by local governments. Day labor-ers, who are often left un- or undercompensated for government projects, demanded to know who else was getting paid, and how much. Villagers wanted to know why their schools remained unfinished. The movement spread rapidly, based on the notion that transparency was essential not just to liberty but to survival.

By 2005, this nationwide grass-roots campaign led to one of the world's most sweeping right-to-know laws. Indeed, the Indian Right to Information (RTI) Act is proving to be a muscular instrument for empowering citizens’ vis-à-vis India's notori-ously ponderous bureaucracy. When police can't be bothered to accept a complaint about a theft, citizens can file RTI applications to find out why not, which often prompt the police to do what they should have done in the first place. Public works contractors must publish their contracts at their work sites, allowing local citizens to measure how work is going. The government and nongovernmental organizations have launched evaluations of the act's impacts, both still underway. But already campaigners are finding that some two thirds of focus group participants said that greater access to information would help solve many of their problems.

The far more surprising second contender is China. Conventional wisdom in the West por-trays China as authoritarian, secretive, and rigid. Yet in 2008, China's State Council proactively established a set of nationwide open government information regulations. Now, via gazettes and Web sites, the government discloses an increas-ing array of statistics and details about health, education, budgets, economic programmes, and urban planning. The same regulations allow citizens to request the release of information from the government.

This move, drawn from several years of ex-periments with transparency and accountabil-ity at local levels, represents a major political shift. China's system, traditionally dominated by secrecy and the rationing of information, is

increasingly premised on openness and public scrutiny. One year in, the regulations are ac-tively being used by citizens addressing griev-ances in land requisition, by environmental groups monitoring corporate standards, and by lawyers and public intellectuals scrutinizing everything from government toll collection to budget spending.

The sea change is likely due to strategic party calculations, rather than an embrace of demo-cratic principles. Indeed, the Chinese Communist Party has found that secrecy can cripple its own efforts to foster growth and stability in a globalized world. For instance, China needed to improve its economic transparency to join the World Trade Organization. The global health and economic damage brought by the 2003 SARS outbreak and 2008 melamine poisoning scandal further spurred the government to become more open and stamp out malfeasance within its system.

The calculations are also domestic. China has to deal with official corruption that is not only endemic, but spreading. Its citizenry is increas-ingly informed, networked, and assertive. With pressures on these multiple fronts intensifying, the leadership has come to recognize that it must build in checks to its own administrative power if the country is to enjoy the economic growth and political stability upon which the party's contin-ued dominance depends.

Thus, the contours of a new global contest are emerging. Western countries no longer have a monopoly over the definition and value of open-ness and disclosure. India's grass-roots approach champions transparency as a critical means of empowering the poor. China's state-driven ap-proach wields transparency fundamentally as an alternative (rather than a prerequisite) to demo-cratic reform. If the United States and other Western countries want to avoid losing the battle, they'll pay close attention to developments in these two countries. R

This article, originally titled "Transparent Warriors", was first published in Foreign Policy.

Western countries no longer have a monopoly over the definition and value of openness and disclosure.

Special Feature - Transparency

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Asia, she declares, is a hotbed of experiments in this area.Democratic India passed the Right to Information Act in 2005, giving citizens the right to inspect and take copies of anything from contracts to circulars to e-mail of the government.

Last year, China — with a long-standing reputation for closed govern-ment — allowed relevant government information relating to “production, livelihood, scientific research” to be released to citizens.

Socialist Vietnam, meanwhile, is looking to implement similar regula-tions in the next year or two, she says.

It was such developments that led the US researcher here three years ago, to head the newly formed think-tank Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG) at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

It aims to bring “Asians and West-erners together as equal partners in fig-uring out how we run the world”. The outfit, which is staffed by 12 people from around the world, has its premises in Bukit Timah and looks into topics like politics and energy policy.

She says she came here to exam-ine at close quarters Asia’s take on governance — a Western-dominated topic linked to issues like transparency.

“You’re used to thinking of transpar-ency, freedom of information as being

Western concepts. They’re really not. They’re basic concepts of how you do governance,” she says.

Singapore, she says, is “almost schizophrenic” on this score. World Bank governance indicators show that the Republic consistently gets top marks in areas like “government effec-tiveness”, and “control of corruption”.

But it sinks near to the bottom when it comes to “voice and account-ability”, which covers areas such as freedom of expression. In 2007, the Republic scored around the 35th percentile in that aspect globally, even lower than Timor Leste, Mongolia and Albania. The top performing countries on this score include Switzerland (99.5 percentile), New Zealand (97.1 per-centile) and Sweden (96.6 percentile).

In Singapore, she notes, there is a clear separation between economic transparency — which allows people to access information to run busi-nesses, for example — and political transparency.

On this duality, she says: “To what degree are other countries also trying to separate these two categories and is that sustainable? Over the long term, my guess would be: No.

“Because once you get people in the habit of expecting the government to answer their questions and once you get up rules that say citizens have

the right to go to the government and demand this information, it becomes harder to draw limits.”

In China, many citizens are using the recent open information rules to access records on land ownership in the light of recent land grabs by local officials, who seize plots for sale to property developers without proper compensation.

“The question of who owns this land: Is that an economic issue or is that a political issue? Is that a power is-sue? It kind of straddles everything. It becomes harder and harder to say this information will be disclosed and this information will not.”

All governments, she notes, ha-bitually shy away from disclosure. “It doesn’t matter whether you are talking about an authoritarian government or a democratic government. Govern-ments are always trying to keep secrets. How well they can get away with that depends on a large part on the strength of civil society.”

But civil society, she maintains, does not stand in opposition to the government. “If you have a broad-based civil society, you have ways in which cit-izens can organise themselves to bring issues to the government or to deal with problems themselves directly...If you don’t have that, it’s not clear what the alternative mechanisms are.”

Asia is Opening Up,

SlowlyThe seemingly opaque world of 

Asian governments is anything but these days as several are trying to 

open up to scrutiny. Asia is a hotbed of experiments in this area, 

says Ann Florini, Director of CAG. 

words Tan Hui Yee

Special Feature - Transparency

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A reliance on top-down decision-making prevents a society from becom-ing resilient enough to withstand the major shocks she expects Asia to face in coming years. The environmental havoc caused by climate change and threat of global pandemics, for exam-ple, are just signs of things to come.

She thinks a resilient society is one where people are accustomed to looking to themselves and their peers and networks for solutions. A resilient society rolls with the punches, she says. “If you go back to the American response to the Sept 11 attack, on that day, there was no panic in New York City. And that was because you had a society where people were able to cope, were not waiting to be told what to do. If you talk to people who actually fled the scene in New York, obviously there was horror, there was despair, but there was no panic. That’s a strong sign of a pretty resilient society.”

One can build resilience by “mak-ing sure that everybody has basic edu-cation, has been taught how to think, and think for themselves. It’s partly by making sure you have networks within the society so people can turn to each other without having to wait for some centralised decision-maker to do something’.

Apart from organising workshops to bring regional governance scholars and policymakers together, her centre is now translating case studies of regional governance experiments into English to allow them to reach a wider audience.

This is because the issue of govern-ance has become more challenging in recent years, she says. While the bulk of resources to solve problems lies with national governments, “most of the problems don’t respect national borders”. And Western-dominated decision-making systems “don’t make sense in a world that is no longer Western-dominated”.

In this new world, Asia needs to figure out what kind of responsibility it should bear, instead of waiting to “react to Western proposals”, she says. “Part of what comes with becoming a great power, which India and China are, is taking responsibility for managing the world. There has been a great tendency

to say: ‘We still have so many huge internal problems that we can’t take responsibility for anything outside.’ They are far poorer countries. But their own countries are going to suffer unless they play a more pro-active role on the global stage.”

She stresses that this is not about Asian countries putting in money that they can ill afford, but about “intellec-tual engagement”.

This means attending events like the recent G-20 meeting in London with an idea of what rules they want implement-ed and what they are prepared to live by.

Such intellectual clout can come about only with more academic free-dom. At the Brookings Institution, for example, donors may fund a project but have no say over its agenda. That is set by the scholars themselves.

“If you want to have a rich intel-

lectual community...you have to allow that kind of freedom. It’s messy, it can seem incredibly inefficient, but it’s how you build intellectual capacity.

“Decision-makers often don’t know what kind of questions they need to be asking. That’s the role of the intellec-tual community.”

At this point, the question of “Asian values” crops up. The term is of-ten equated with Confucian precepts like frugality and hierarchy, and has been championed at various times by regional leaders such as Singapore’s Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

Asked what role “Asian values” would play in the intellectual inter-action between Asia and the West, she replies without hesitation: ‘I have been married to an Asian for over 20 years. I’ve now lived in Asia for 21/2 years. I have yet to see what Asian values are that are distinct from Western values.

“The claim is always made that Westerners are more individualistic and Asians are more communitarian. But certainly in terms of how that plays out in governance, you can use claims of individualism to avoid responsibility, and you can use claims of communitar-ians to avoid accountability.’

“Asian values” will be a point of contention on a global level only if Asian leaders “choose to hide behind them”. “It’s the same way that the US was using freedom and democracy pro-motion over the last eight years... you can use it as a way of trying to beat the rest of the world over the head.”

But there will always be a range of people who are more deferential to authority and those who are not, and this spectrum exists in all societies, she feels.

“When you actually look at how the societies function and how the citizens want them to function, the similarities are much greater than the differences. People want government to be ac-countable and they want power to be constrained, and they want services to be provided.” R

This article was written by Tan Hui Yee and first published in The Straits Times on 15 April 2009.

If you want to have a rich intellectual community... you have to allow that 

kind of freedom. It’s messy, it can seem 

incredibly inefficient, but it’s how you build intellectual capacity.

Special Feature - Transparency

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Rapporteur  |  October 200920

In 1981, I went to Harvard Kennedy School of Govern-ment as a Mason Fellow. There, I met Senator Benigno

“Ninoy” Aquino who was then in exile with his family. He was a fellow at the Center for International Affairs and had been giving speeches all over the intellectual community in Massachusetts. I made sure I listened to each one of them.

From the first night he spoke at Kennedy School in the fall of 1981 to talk about Philippine-US history, I recognized the power of his speech. His voice was unwavering; he was sharp, fast, and crisp as he recanted the bitter memories of the Philippine-American War at the turn of the 20th century. Harvard honed his speaking skills as well as his propensities for methodical research. From the glib politician I listened to as a student activist in the early 70s just before Martial Law was declared, Ninoy became in my eyes a seasoned public speaker, the kind that held audiences at the edge of their breath, as he traveled across a range of topics that was the envy of any aspiring politician and public lecturer.

Then he was shot dead on August 21, 1983, minutes after

Mrs. Cory Aquino, the only President I have ever served,  would  perhaps  be  best  remembered for  her  inspiration  to  the  global  democratic movement.    Hers  was  a  one-term  presidency dedicated  to  accomplish  a monumental  task  --- to  restore  a  democracy,  however  imperfect  and oftentimes flailing, so that it can resist any and all future attempts to demolish it. 

One Singular Moment ,One Great Legacy

words Teresita Cruz-del Rosario

CAG Tribute

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She gave the Philippines its one singular moment when millions of Filipinos ventured out into the streets, armed with nothing more than their faith, to confront a 

bankrupt dictatorship and force its demise.

his plane touched down, supposedly by an assassin on a hit mission by the New People’s Army --- the armed guerrilla force of the Communist Party. The television news showed both dead bodies on screen lying on the tarmac, deathly cold on the sweltering airport pavement. In Manila, the entire city was awake and agitated with the news of his as-sassination. Cory Aquino, his widow, was already being interviewed non-stop in her home. That old familiar rage of my undergrad years as a student activist returned.

Shortly after the 1986 uprising, I returned to the Philip-pines and interrupted my graduate student career. Cory Aquino became president of the newly-democratized Phil-ippines after a spectacular four-day people power uprising. I decided it was time to shed the cloak of safety at Harvard and venture into the messy task of democratic governance.

For two years, I worked with Cory Aquino’s government, contributing my share to what I regarded was an important period in my country when the structures of democracy were being crafted and made to work. Her government, besieged by seven coup attempts, was struggling to recover its footing with each military misadventure and preserve the infantile democracy that it had just won through the popular upris-ing of 1986. At the same time, this period comprised the acid test of applying the lessons learned during my activist and graduate student days to the concrete tasks of reform and social change within the context of state power.

It was tough.

Cory Aquino inherited a collapsed economy that was the result of excessive cronyism and outright misrule. She also inherited a centuries-old social structure that was beset by severe inequality, made worse by years of government neglect for the conditions of the poor and the marginalized.

At the Department of Agrarian Reform where I served as Assistant Secretary, I and my colleagues faced severe pol-icy conflicts ---- those that in graduate school were termed

“policy trade-offs.” Government however was non-textbook stuff, but constituted a real struggle between an industriali-zation agenda and a social redistribution programme. The tensions were clear: convert thousands of agricultural land into industrial zones to give way to domestic and foreign in-vestment or award land tenure rights to farmers to provide them with economic assets. In the end, the policy choice

was made: economic redistribution and social equity took a backseat, and land conversion out of agriculture saw its heyday in Cory Aquino’s government even while the large landholdings owned by her family remained untouched. Not very long after, we --- a bunch of ex-activists wanting to give government a fair shake --- resigned in frustration.

In circles too many to enumerate, Cory Aquino was often criticized for having missed the “reformist moment”, succumbing instead to the dictates of family and clan inter-est to preserve social status, power, and wealth derived from concentrated landholding.

Perhaps this is a fair judgment of her six years as presi-dent. But it is a fairer judgment still, that her contribution to the global democratic movement through peaceful and direct citizen action cannot be discounted. If indeed she in-spired the succeeding people power movements across the globe, this alone towers above her domestic shortcomings. Hers was a one-term presidency to accomplish a monumen-tal task --- to restore a democracy, however imperfect and oftentimes flailing, so that it can resist any and all future attempts to demolish it.

Back to the hallowed halls of academe, I reflect on Cory Aquino, the only president I have ever served. I recognize full well what she has left behind: she gave the Philippines its one singular moment when millions of Filipinos took their courage and ventured out into the streets, armed with nothing more than their faith to confront a bankrupt dicta-torship and force its demise. That’s surely more than anyone can expect from one lifetime. R

Tess Cruz-del Rosario is a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre on Asia and Globalisation at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore. She served as Assistant Secretary for the Department of Agrarian Reform in 1990 and as Special Assistant to the Minister of Agriculture in the Philippines in 1991. In both these capacities, she worked to ensure that farmers, fisher-men, and rural workers would receive tangible benefits from government. Her recently published book Scripted Clashes (Verlag Springer) analyzes three people power uprisings in the Philippines.

An edited version of this article was published in The Straits Times on 4 August 2009.

CAG Tribute

Page 22: Rapporteur Oct 09

Rapporteur  |  October 200922

QWhat is “global” about global health governance (GHG)? Or is global health nothing more than the

sum of the national health problems of all countries?

AWhile the term “global health governance” has become widely used, a lot of imprecision persists about what

the term actually means. In large part, this is because it has inherited a lot of conceptual baggage from the term “global health”, which has been even more widely used and, in my view, [used] with even less precision.

My understanding of global health is rather strict – the concept of “global” begins by seeing the world as a whole, as the unit of analysis, rather than individual states. If we are speaking about states or collections of states, the term

“international” is more appropriate. Global health, as such, concerns health deter-minants and outcomes which transcend ter-ritorial space and have the potential to impact on the world as a whole.

Primary examples are the global spread of pandemic diseases such as influenza, and the health impacts of climate change or global financial crises. GHG, in turn, concerns the collective means by which societies respond to such issues through agreed rules, procedures and institutions. Such responses go far beyond national governments to embrace collective efforts from the local

(sub-national) to the global levels, and to include both state and non-state actors.

Q If the challenge of global health is more than just the sum of each country’s national problems,

then are there some distinctively “global” health functions that can only be discharged through col-lective global action, and which cannot really be fully discharged at the national level?

A This is correct. While much can, and must, be achieved through effective national level action, the transborder

nature of the global challenges faced requires new ways of thinking about collective efforts beyond the state.

The classic example is global disease surveillance, moni-toring and reporting. National level systems play a central role in this function, but there must be global level sys-tems in place that bring together information from both state and

non-state sources, and then collate and disseminate such in-formation to the world. Importantly, this suggests that GHG is not somehow detached from the national level. Rather, GHG could be seen as encompassing collective action at many levels, bringing together and adding value to many levels of governance to address shared health concerns.

Quest for Governance in Global HealthKelley Lee is internationally recognized as a leading scholar in global health governance.  She is presently Head of the Public and Environmental Health Research Unit at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), UK and concurrently co-chairs the Global Health Governance Study Group of the S.T. Lee Project on Global Governance.  

as told to Sung Lee

GHG could be seen as encompassing collective action at many levels, bringing together and adding value to many levels of governance to 

address shared health concerns.

Kelley Lee

CAG Interviews

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Rapporteur  |  October 2009 23

Q Global health issues concern the future of the world, and therefore all citizens. However, there

seems to be a gap between political leadership at various levels and citizens. How would you narrow the gap between political leadership and citizens?

A This is a critical question and perhaps one of the most difficult to address. The Westphalia states system, dat-

ing from the 17th century, to a large extent still provides the basic structure of international relations. Its two defining principles – territoriality and the exclusion of external actors from domestic authority structures (i.e. sovereignty) – shape the relationship between political leaders and citizens. Thus, national governments have defined themselves for centuries in terms of their authority over their territorial domains and the populations within it – governments see themselves as acting on behalf of their citizens.

As we all know, of course, the world has changed remarkably over the past 400 years and especially over the past half century. We still have states but we also have many globalising processes that cut across and transcend the state and its authority. This is leading to complex political changes, including the nature of the political leadership we need. It is clear that the traditional “head down” form of po-litical leadership, whereby governments pursue national self-interests in the name of their territorial domains and domestic constituencies, is increasingly obsolete. Climate change, pandemic diseases, organised crime, financial crises, food and energy security, and many other issues re-quire political leaders to see the world as a whole, and to act collectively, rather than as individual self-interested states.

In some ways, individual citizens are ahead of their politi-cal leaders in achieving this fundamental paradigm shift. This is evident in the increased activism of civil society. I see this as a sign of discontent with current political leadership – people feel disempowered by current state-based governance and want a voice in how their lives are governed. Political lead-ers should not see this as a threat, but as a sign that we are in a period of political transition. This transition will require, above all, a renegotiation of political authority but this will be necessary to achieve forms of governance that will allow humanity to tackle the critical issues that affect us all.

Q Many of the seemingly intractable problems in global health could be addressed through im-

proved GHG. What are the major steps that need to be taken in order to improve this?

AI see the underlying problems of GHG as normative rather than technical, financial or institutional. The

tangled mess of global health initiatives we have today is a reflection of a highly unequal battle of normative frames. For example, self-interested realists narrowly define global health in terms of acute pandemic diseases which threaten their national security. The funding of initiatives to tackle these perceived disease threats, and the stockpiling [of] drugs to protect homeland security, is a particular interpre-tation of GHG.

Similarly, a human rights approach begins with a very different set of values which, in turn, frames GHG in terms of initiatives that address social justice and health inequities.

These are very different takes on GHG. Making these normative frames explicit is an important starting point to having an open and honest de-bate about which should define GHG. Dressing

up values as “common sense” or hiding behind “evidence-based” policies unhelpfully obscures how global health is being socially constructed in favour of some, [and] at the expense of others.

QWhat are the knowledge gaps on the GHG chal-lenges that require further research?

AThere are many knowledge gaps in GHG that need ur-gent attention. The 10/90 gap (10 percent of worldwide

expenditure on health research and development is devoted to the problems that primarily affect the poorest 90 percent of the world's population) tells us that resources are heavily and dangerously skewed in favour of high-income countries. There are initiatives to tackle “neglected diseases” which is seeking to rebalance this priority setting.

However, if we look at what really affects people’s health around the world, the biggest challenges are pneumonia, diarrhoeal diseases, tobacco use and obesity-related conditions. Basic scientific knowledge on how to tackle these major public health problems is well-established. The real knowledge gap lies on the applied side – how do we put existing knowledge into effective practice where it matters? Ensuring we have good data is a start. Do we really need yet another study of smoking behaviour among left-handed males in a small United States town when we do not even have basic prevalence data for whole countries? In terms of governance, we then need to better understand the legal

Climate change, pandemic diseases, organised crime, financial crises, food and energy security, and many other issues require political leaders to see the world as a 

whole, and to act collectively, rather than as individual self-interested states. 

The real knowledge gap lies on the applied side – how do we put existing knowledge into effective practice where it matters?

CAG Interviews

Page 24: Rapporteur Oct 09

Rapporteur  |  October 200924

and regulatory measures needed to underpin public health gains. Should food companies face stronger restrictions in terms of advertising and marketing, labelling and ingredients disclosure? More research on policy transfer across countries is much needed.

Finally, we need [a] far better understanding of the politics behind GHG. As I stated previously, the problems we face in GHG are fundamentally political. We can tinker all day with finding new coordination mecha-nisms and setting up initiatives. What is [how-ever] needed is some fresh ideas about how we tackle the intransigence of those who hold power

– how do we get certain governments to buy into GHG? How do we engage non-state actors effectively? What should be the appropriate roles of various players and what political systems are needed to ensure right political checks and bal-ances? Where should accountability lie? Could we learn from other issue areas grappling with global governance such as the environment or transnational crime?

Q Global health initiatives have poured billions of dollars of health development aid to developing

countries but due to poor governance, health dispari-ties continue. Is this a fair assessment and if so, what would be some possible solutions in the future?

AThis is a fair assessment, although importantly, those guilty of poor governance are not exclusively located in

developing countries. Those doing the pouring have a lot to answer for too! Indeed, a lot of questions need to be asked about how decisions are taken about where resources go, what these scarce resources are used for, and generally who sets the priorities in global health. Some serious soul-searching on the part of both the donor and recipient communities is needed.

One possible solution is clear although it may not be politically palatable. Briefly, the key problem is that each funder holds tight to decision-making over how their money is spent. This is because they think they know best or because of fears that they will be held accountable to certain constituencies. The result is a plethora of different agendas, sometimes competing, rarely coordinated, which causes untold chaos for aid recipients. There is an oppor-tunity in global health, where initiatives have proliferated significantly, to achieve better governance if funders are

willing to cede some of their decision-making authority. A number of ideas have been put forth to create a “higher body” that would make more collective decisions about how scarce resources should be allocated. For example, it has been suggested that [the] World Health Organisation (WHO) create a Committee C, as a forum for global health

initiatives to meet. Such a body could lead to more rational use[s] of resources, requiring funding to be linked more closely to health needs or encouraging open debate about the values underpinning such initiatives.

The interesting aspect of health devel-opment aid is that the

face of the donor community is undergoing a transition. Asian countries, in particular, are rapidly becoming more prominent. I hope very much that Asian countries can be part of the solution, rather than add to the current prob-lem of weak governance of health development aid.

QWhat are the limitations of GHG for controlling the global dimensions of the tobacco epidemic?

ATobacco, might be described as the most neglected public health challenge of the 20th century despite 100

million deaths worldwide. WHO’s successful framing of tobacco control as a global challenge led to the adoption of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), often cited as a key pillar of GHG. Ostensibly an international treaty, in practice, its longer-term effectiveness in preventing and reducing tobacco-related death and disease will come down to implementation at the national level. As difficult as it was to reach [an] agreement on the FCTC, the real work is turning the broad principles of the agreement into real action.

There are two main hurdles to achieving this. First, in most countries of the world and among global health ini-tiatives, there remains a stark lack of resources for tobacco control in countries where the tobacco pandemic is grow-ing most rapidly. My research has found that Asia is a prime target of transnational tobacco companies, and that vast budgets are being devoted to tap this “emerging market”. The funding for tobacco control, in contrast, is relatively miniscule. By any standards – economic, public health, social, gender – tobacco control is money well spent. R

The problems we face in GHG are fundamentally political. We can tinker all day with finding new coordination mechanisms and setting up initiatives. What is [however] needed is some fresh ideas about how we tackle the 

intransigence of those who hold power.

CAG Interviews

Page 25: Rapporteur Oct 09

Rapporteur  |  October 2009 25

Law & Order

Q What is global administrative law? Why is it needed and what role would it play in global

governance?

A Global administrative law is the intentionally unexciting name given to the formalisation of certain global proc-

esses. It encompasses procedures and normative standards for regulatory decision-making that falls outside domestic legal structures and yet is not properly covered by public in-ternational law. The standards that are being imported into this new sphere of regulatory activity draw upon administra-tive law principles common in many jurisdictions, such as transparency, participation and review. As a response to the demand for accountability in globalisation, this is distinct from demands that globalisation be more “democratic”; in-stead, these developments aim to make it more “reasoned”.

Q How is global administrative law understood in Asia?

A I think the non-threatening approach of improving decision-making is being cautiously welcomed. New

York University School of Law recently convened a meet-ing at Tsinghua Law School in Beijing that involved a large number of Chinese academics in a fruitful discussion on the topic. Within Southeast Asia, the move to transform ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) into a rules-based organisation is very much consistent with the global adminis-trative law approach. We hope to organise a meeting to extend this conversation sometime in the next two years.

Q What is lacking in existing global governance ar-chitectures? What is working, and not working?

A There are, broadly, two types of criticisms of the cur-rent architecture. The first is that the liberal order con-

structed in large part by the United States after the Second World War is losing its claim to legitimacy. The second is that globalisation has revealed governance gaps suggesting that the present order is in any case, no longer effective. The first may be understood as a political challenge to the top-down hierarchy that dominates this order; the second, as a bottom-up practical challenge to the relevance of existing institutions. Some things work – institutions such as the United Nations (UN) Security Council in peace and security or the World Trade Organisation in international trade – but the question that unifies these critiques is, “for whom?”

Q Global issues concern the future of the world, and therefore all citizens. However, there seems

to be a gap between political leadership at various levels and citizens. How would you narrow this gap?

A I think there [is] a preliminary question [as to] whether global institutions and processes should be improved

in the sense of better “reasoned” decisions, or in the sense of more “democratic” processes. Making these institutions more “democratic” is understood by some in the sense of rearranging the membership of these institutions [to] better reflect global politics. [Therefore] change the members of the UN Security

Simon Chesterman is Global Professor and Director of the New York University School of Law Singapore Programme, and an Associate Professor of Law at the National University of Singapore.  He is also a member of the Concepts of Global Governance Study Group of the S.T. Lee Project on Global Governance. 

as told to Sung Lee

Simon Chesterman

CAG Interviews

Page 26: Rapporteur Oct 09

Rapporteur  |  October 200926

CAG Interviews

International Workshop on Energy Security Concepts and Indicators for Asia

Corporations to the Rescue seminar series

The Concepts of Global Governance Study Group Meeting, S.T. Lee Project on Global Governance

WEF Global Redesign Initiative Singapore Hearing

Executive Education Programme on

Business Leadership For a Sustainable Southeast Asia

Date

Venue

14-16 November 2009

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

1 December 2009

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

1-2 December 2009

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

February 2010

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Date

Venue

3 November 2009 and 4 December 2009

Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy

Date

Venue

Date

Venue

Date

Venue

CAG Calendar

Council; abandon the practice of the World Bank being headed by an American and the International Monetary Fund being headed by a European. [However] it can also be understood at a more local level, in the sense that populations should par-ticipate in the decisions of their governments, public interest should be considered in development projects and so on.

Q Are there account-ability deficits? Do

these deficits weaken the effectiveness and le-gitimacy of global policy making?

A Of course there are deficits, but some pose effectiveness problems and they

are not always the same as those that pose legitimacy prob-lems. A more legitimate UN Security Council, for example, might better reflect global demographics but that might in fact make it harder for the Council to do anything. A more effective way of dealing with climate change might be for a handful of scientists to prescribe realistic measures, but that is clearly not a regime that would be accepted by the vast majority of governments.

Q And what can realistically be done to reduce such deficits?

A Well, it depends on one’s perspective of what the prob-lem is, and at what level solutions can be found. If you

think the key problem is the legitimacy of existing institu-tions, political solutions would include rearranging or real-locating the seats at the table. If you think the key problem is the effectiveness of what we have got, you might plump

for new institutions: the G-20 (Group of Twenty Fi-nance Ministers and Cen-tral Bank Governors), a possible World Environ-ment Organisation, and so on. Such system-wide re-forms depend, however, on political will that has been available only in times of

crisis. It took the First World War to bring about the estab-lishment of the League of Nations, and a Second to see the creation of the UN and the Bretton Woods Institutions. It is possible that current crises – of climate change, public health, financial markets – will be sufficient to bring about similar tectonic shifts, but overcoming the underlying col-lective action problems requires a level of enlightened self-interest that is rare in international affairs, even if one as-sumes that political or institutional solutions to these crises exist. For this reason, some accounts like global adminis-trative law, focus less on institutions and grand politics and more on process. R

The real knowledge gap lies on the applied side – how do we put existing knowledge into effective 

practice where it matters?

Page 27: Rapporteur Oct 09

Rapporteur  |  October 2009 27

CAG News

New Faces at CAG

Sumi  Dhanarajan  is  a  consultant  to  the  Public  Roles  of the Private Sector programme at  the Centre on Asia and Globalisation (CAG). She is an experienced advocate and practitioner  in  the  field  of  corporate  responsibility  with particular  expertise  on  the  impacts  of  the  private  sector on poverty reduction and human rights. She has engaged with  companies  from a number  of  key  sectors  including pharmaceuticals,  retail,  agricultural  commodities  and extractive industries with a focus on access to medicines, labour standards, fair trade, human rights and sustainable 

development. From 1998  to 2008, Sumi served as Senior Policy Adviser and Head of  the private sector  team to an international development agency, Oxfam GB.  Sumi also served as a Senior Legal Adviser to the Secretariat for Leg-islative Councilors of the Hong Kong Democratic Party and established the human rights desk for  the Malaysian Bar Council. Sumi holds an MA in Understanding and Secur-ing Human  Rights  from  the  Institute  of  Commonwealth Studies, University  of  London and an  LL.B  from Durham University. She was called to the Bar in July 1997.

Jasmin  Kaur  is  Executive  at  the  Centre  for  Asia  and Globalisation  (CAG).  Jasmin  was  previously  with  the American Association of Singapore where she worked as  an  Events  &  Sponsorship  coordinator  in-charge of  organising  a  number  of major  events  of  the  Asso-ciation.  Jasmin also assisted in sourcing for potential sponsors and managing the relations between the As-

sociation and the strategic partners.    In addition, she performed administrative duties such as managing the membership database, accounting duties and website management.    She  holds  a  Double  Major  Degree  in Marketing and E-Commerce from Edith Cowan Univer-sity, Perth, Australia.

 Awards 2009 Nautilus Silver Award in "Ecology/ Environment/ Sustainability” to Benjamin K. Sovacool for his book:  The Dirty Energy Dilemma: What's Blocking Clean Power in the United States

Selected PublicationsScripted Clashes – A Dramaturgical Approach to Three Philippines UprisingsTeresita del-Cruz RosarioApril 2009

Risky Riparianism: Cooperative Water Governance in Central Asia Teresita del-Cruz Rosario Australian Journal of International Affairs, September 2009

Social Development as Neoliberal Trojan Horse: The World Bank and the Kecamatan Development Programme in IndonesiaToby CarrollDevelopment and Change, 2009

Identifying Future Electricity Water Tradeoff in the United StatesBenjamin & Kelly SovacoolEnergy Policy, July 2009

Contextualizing Avian MortalityBenjamin K SovacoolEnergy Policy, June, 2009

Energy Policy and Cooperation in Southeast Asia: The History, Challenges, and Implications of the Trans-ASEAN Gas Pipeline Network (TAGP)

Benjamin K SovacoolEnergy Policy, June, 2009

Op EdsCory Aquino’s One Great Legacy Teresita del-Cruz RosarioThe Straits Times, 4 August, 2009

Creating Social Stock Exchange AsiaDurreen ShahnazThe Daily Star, 22 April 2009

Media InterviewsAsia is Opening up, SlowlyAnn Florini The Straits Times, 15 April 2009

The Energy-Water NexusBenjamin K. Sovacool IEEE Spectrum, Aug 19 August 2009

Wind Energy in Denmark: What can the U.S. Learn?Benjamin K. Sovacool New Republic, 30 July 2009

China, New Energy Technologies, and Climate ChangeBenjamin K. Sovacool Newsweek International, 12 January 2009

Sumi [email protected]

Jasmin Kaur [email protected]

Page 28: Rapporteur Oct 09

This is the age of crises: climatic, financial, health and security. For Asia, the impacts of these challenges, if not managed effectively, could disrupt current endeavours to grow, prosper and successfully fight poverty. Businesses, with their resources, their potential to create jobs and generate income, and their capacity to innovate, play a critical role in the search for solutions to these collective problems.

This seminar series will ask crucial questions relating to the problem-solving role of business in the age of crises: Do current approaches to corporate social responsibility (CSR) allow the business community to rise to the challenge? What role will government and public policy play in enforcing the social contract that exists between business and society? What pressures will drive more responsive strategies and long-term solutions from the private sector?

Public Roles of the Private Sector Programme

Corporations to the Rescue ?Seminar Series of the Centre on Asia and Globalisation

Corporations to the rescue?Business responsibilities in the age of crises

Planned Seminar Topics & SpeakersMaking Human Rights Your BusinessSpeaker: Mark Hodge, Director, Global Business Initiative Health and Access to MedicinesChristophe Weber, Senior VP and Area Director, Asia Pacific, Glaxo Smith Kline

Climate change (Film screening of In Good Company: Corporate India and the Climate Challenge. Includes a commentary by the film’s producer)Malini Mehra, Director of Centre for Social Markets & Film Producer

Poverty and InequalityAshvin Dayal, Asia Director of the Rockefeller Foundation

Seminar dates to be confirmed – visit CAG homepage • for details.

Contact CAG Research Fellow Ms Melissa Ong for more • information (e) [email protected]

www.lkyspp.nus.edu.sg/CAG