Programs > By Location > Asia and the Pacific
Programs By Location: Asia and the Pacific
ICNL has conducted projects in the following Asian countries:
Current Project Highlights
Afghanistan: Critical to the re-building of Afghanistan are the efforts of non-governmental organizations (NGOs). With the appropriate enabling legal environment in place, NGOs will be able to support and complement governmental efforts to provide health, education, agricultural, and social services to the people of Afghanistan. Therefore, ICNL in partnership with Counterpart International, worked to provide technical assistance in drafting a progressive NGO law in Afghanistan. As a result of these efforts, a new NGO law was implemented in June 2005. ICNL continues to work in Afghanistan to focus on promoting appropriate implementation of the law. Specifically, ICNL trained the staff of the NGO Department on implementation issues. ICNL also trained NGO representatives on the law and prepared a plain-language guide for NGOs on re-registration.
South Pacific: ICNL has initiated a three-year project, funded by NZAID: Law and Civil Society in the South Pacific, in partnership with the University of the South Pacific, Voluntary Service Overseas (VSO), the Pacific Islands Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (PIANGO), and other regional and national civil society organizations (CSOs). This unique project targets reform of the legal and regulatory structures affecting CSOs in Fiji, Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, and Samoa. In addition it embraces civic education, local legal capacity building, and investigating ways to explicitly relate universal human rights principles to traditional and customary values and practices. ICNL has been working in the region via short term projects for five years, and the current project is expected to enable those groundbreaking efforts to bear fruit.
Components of the project include: 1) plain language public education to build awareness of the value and purpose of CSOs, and the need for public involvement in policy decision-making affecting national development; 2) law courses, continuing education, and clinics for building local capacity to deal with legal and regulatory matters affecting CSOs; and 3) technical assistance to governments, lawmakers, CSOs, and others engaged in the law reform process.
ICNL is advising the Fiji Law Reform Commission in its current undertaking to comprehensively review the legal framework for CSOs and to update the inherited body of laws in light of current societal needs. Similarly, in Vanuatu civil society and government have entered into a compact, and ICNL is participating in follow-on discussions intended to lead to a reform process. As a new government is formed in the Solomon Islands, CSO law reform is likely to be a priority; a contribution to the efforts to restore a more peaceful and collaborative society and move forward on economic and social development. In Samoa as well, voices are speaking out for a review of the existing legal framework.
For background information, please see country reports on Fiji, Vanuatu, and the Solomon Islands in our library and ICNL and USP publications Law and Civil Society in the South Pacific and The Rule of Law, Custom, and Civil Society in the South Pacific.
Completed Project Highlights
China: ICNL co-organized a seminar on international charity law in China. The seminar was opened in the Great Hall of the People and received high-level backing from the Chinese government. Recognizing that there is no single model for charity law reform, ICNL brought together leading experts from Australia, Japan, Germany, the Netherlands, South Africa, the United Kingdom, the United States, and elsewhere to share comparative perspectives with their Chinese counterparts.
Vietnam: ICNL worked with the Vietnamese government and local NGO leaders in the final stages of the development of a new legal framework for “associations” in Vietnam. In recognition of ICNL’s work on this project, VNAH President Ca Van Tran remarked, “ICNL’s cooperation and its diplomacy in providing expert technical assistance has been vitally important in achieving the progress made so far.”