Southeast Asia
Australia’s comparative advantage in climate transition
Australia’s $2 billion Southeast Asia Investment Financing Facility (SEAIFF) is a catch-all response to diverse objectives. It was a “deliverable” – or at least an “announcable” –…
Invisible victims: How counter-trafficking efforts leave people with disability behind
Dao (not her real name) came to Thailand from Laos when she was 17. With her hearing impairment, she had struggled to find work in Laos. Dao’s aunt told her that she could find…
Australia’s Southeast Asia trade stumbling block
Australia recently announced the creation of a $2 billion Southeast Asian Financing Facility to increase trade and investment in the region. While this is a good start, to get the…
Mind the gap: China’s megaproject promises fall short of reality in Southeast Asia
In Bangkok in 2010, Chinese and Thai authorities were discussing a dream: the possibility of working together on a high-speed rail project, which would be Southeast Asia’s first…
A multilateral bank for the Indo-Pacific?
Governments around the world are facing complex intersecting challenges: how to achieve supply chain diversification and resilience while simultaneously pursuing more ambitious…
Gender equality financing: Spotlight on Southeast Asia
You can’t manage what you can’t measure, as the adage goes. And in terms of measuring gender equality and women’s empowerment, considerable barriers exist. While significant…
The parts within the whole: Understanding Southeast Asia’s economies
Southeast Asia is home to almost 700 million people and collectively amounts to the fifth-largest economy in the world. Over the past two years, it has grown between 4-5 per cent,…
Israel-Hamas: A globalised conflict
The atrocities perpetrated by Hamas on 7 October 2023 and the war in Gaza that followed caught much of the world off guard. Most governments appeared surprised both by the…
Go big or go home: Australia should invest at scale in Southeast Asia’s energy transition
Australia is looking to lift its engagement with Southeast Asia. Australia’s Special Envoy to ASEAN, Nicholas Moore, last year set out a new economic strategy to deliver on that…
How to stop any repeat of the Australia-China sonar incident
Soviet warships regularly sparred with Western navies during the Cold War years, conducting close-in ship-to-ship manoeuvres and pointing lasers against their foreign opponents at…