Asia & the Pacific Policy Studies最新文献

The purpose of this study is to explore the limitations to girls' access to adolescent friendly sexual and reproductive health services in public health institutions in Kaski, Nepal. Seven interviews with health workers and eight group interviews with adolescent girls are analysed using the conceptual framework of access to health care by Levesque, Harris, and Russell and an understanding of gender as embedded in all matters and choices concerning sexual and reproductive health. We find that girls demonstrate poor literacy about sexual and reproductive health, and that most challenges and barriers occur before girls reach health institutions. The strict gender norms, stigmatisation and lack of autonomy are the highest barriers for adolescent girls in seeking care. We find that health institutions are not adolescent friendly and have a passive outreach strategy.

When new governments come to power they often claim they will address corruption better than their predecessors. While policymakers and scholars recognise that interrogating these claims is important, few studies have analysed how anti-corruption commitments made by incoming governments change over time. This article addresses this gap in the literature by comparing anti-corruption allocations and spending—key indicators of political will—from two of Papua New Guinea's most recent governments: the Peter O'Neill-led government (2011–2019) and the government led by James Marape (2019 to present). Drawing on this analysis, we argue that policymakers need to monitor and respond to an anti-corruption funding cycle whereby new governments initially increase budgetary allocations but then, over time, reduce allocations and underpay and undermine anti-corruption organisations as accusations of corruption and frustration with anti-corruption efforts intensify.

How does public opinion influence national asylum policymaking? This article analyses the change in Japan's asylum policy towards Kurdish asylum seekers from Turkey in the mid-2000s. Although the conservative government of Japan has maintained a strict asylum policy, the government exceptionally applied an ad hoc and more generous policy to Kurdish asylum seekers. After the deportation of two Kurdish asylum seekers to Turkey was politicised in the mid-2000s, Japan's stringent asylum policy was continuously attacked by criticisms, expressions of doubt, and requests for reform from the public, media, humanitarian activists, and opposition parties. As a result of mounting public criticism, the government suspended the deportation of Kurdish asylum seekers and expanded the opportunities for them to be pardoned from deportation. In Japan and many other democracies, asylum policymaking is complex, but the study concludes that public opinions can be an important factor in its evolution. Certainly, it has significantly influenced the change in Japan's policy towards Kurdish asylum seekers in the mid-2000s.

This article examines the impact of the legal candidate quota for women in Indonesia following the 2019 general elections. It argues that the legal candidate quota is working to increase women's numerical representation, even if progress is gradual and hard won. Second, it has become clear that the position of candidates on party lists is critical for electoral success. Awareness of this issue empowers women candidates and activists to lobby political parties to improve women's positions on party lists as a demonstration of political parties' commitment to gender equality. A third observation is that the turnover of women parliamentarians remains high, which means women still struggle to build careers as legislators and to effect legislative change in the interests of women. The article also addresses the role of political parties in selecting and promoting a minimum of 30% women candidates and argues that party structures are an obstacle, especially party organisations that purport to promote women's issues. Findings from this study suggest that Indonesia does not need major electoral reform to strengthen women's numerical representation in parliament. However, women candidates will need more support from political parties if they are to win and retain more seats.

In this article, we conduct the first-ever systematic study of Australian aid project appraisals. Using a previously unstudied data set of appraisals, we study project and recipient country factors influencing Australian aid effectiveness. We find effectiveness varies more within recipient countries than between countries. We find larger projects are more likely to be successful. Humanitarian projects are more successful on average than development projects. We also find that Australian aid is less likely to succeed in the Pacific than elsewhere, a significant finding given Australia's increased focus on the region. Finally, we show that Australia does not appear to be an unusual donor: when we compare Australia with other donors in a global data set, we find similar variables are correlated with effectiveness for most donors, including Australia.

This article discusses the first hurdle for consular diplomacy in the digital age: the communicative challenge. Providing information and assistance to nationals abroad is a major challenge, and governments are well advised to go about this activity in a more citizen-centric fashion. It is therefore important for ministries of foreign affairs (MFAs) and their consular divisions to acquire a deeper understanding of their nationals' communicative behaviour. Creativity from a new generation of tech-savvy diplomats is going a long way in applying digital tools to consular challenges, but greater control across communication channels, and therefore management capacity, is required. Getting through to citizens in a fragmented communication environment in the 2020s implies the strategic coordination of various forms of offline and online communication. Framing consular services in market terms and identifying citizens as customers would, however, go against the MFAs' own interests. Governments would do well to view consular assistance as part of their growing diplomatic engagement with domestic society. Analysis of consular policy and practice also suggests that there are good reasons for MFAs to articulate existing links between consular assistance and wider foreign and security policy, rather than seeing ‘consular’ as a self-contained activity.

Kiribati is one of the poorest and most remote Pacific nations but has the largest productive tuna fishery. The Vessel Day Scheme implemented in 2012 led to unprecedented growth in fishing revenue between 2012 and 2015, with similarly unprecedented expansion of government expenditure from 2016 to 2019. For the first time in its history, the Kiribati Government, rather than any foreign development partner, is the single largest financier of public investment. Whereas the general economy and government finances have benefited greatly from the fisheries boom, questions have been raised around recent government spending and how long there will be the fiscal space to support such discretionary decisions in the context of rapidly increasing operating costs. Fishing revenue alone will not be enough to fundamentally shift the development trajectory of the Kiribati people. A new period of reform is needed.

Under a centrally planned system, China made significant achievements in gender equality. Half a century later, China has joined the ranks of upper-middle-income countries, and decades of rapid growth have accompanied major structural changes in the economy. We assess the evolution of women's economic opportunities during the period, focusing on labour force participation, occupational segregation, leadership in business, and the gender wage gap, as well as informal sector employment and migration. We undertake a review of existing research and conduct new empirical analysis using a combination of data sources, including four waves of Chinese population census data through 2010, and province-level migration data. We focus especially on migrant women, a group typically excluded from similar studies. Although investments in human capital have advanced prospects for better-paid jobs for women, we find that rapid economic growth has not alleviated discrimination against women rooted in cultural and social norms and that the implementation of existing laws designed to protect and support women needs to improve.

Rural–urban migration is a defining feature of socio-economic change in contemporary China. It is estimated that internal migrants in China account for 20% of its population of 1.39 billion, providing manpower to the expanding urban industries. Yet internal migrants have long faced barriers to accessing health and other social services in urban destinations, and the migration process may expose them to novel health risks and inequities. Based on the analysis of policy documents and associated material, this article reviews the historical development of health policy in China in relation to internal migrants, identifying elements of continuity and change in the policy agenda and the ways in which migrants have been framed in policy formulations. Against this background, remaining gaps in the current policy framework and implementation challenges are discussed.

This paper argues that rising food staple prices can pose a significant barrier to the growth of labour-intensive manufacturing by raising real wage rates. This is important because an expanding manufacturing sector has both comparative static and dynamic effects on labour productivity growth. The experience of Indonesia is used to illustrate these ideas.