Description
The Asia Foundation (TAF), as a preeminent international development organization committed to the Asia-Pacific region, has long sought to nurture emerging leaders as part of its efforts to strengthen U.S.-Asia relations, encourage international understanding and enhance long-term prospects for bilateral and multilateral cooperation. In 1980, for example, it launched a Young Diplomats Program, which enabled junior and mid-level officials from China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to earn a one-year master’s degree in international relations in the United States. The Luce Foundation assisted that effort, primarily through a reciprocal program component for American graduate students and scholars to spend time in China, to broaden their exposure to current intellectual and policy trends there.
TAF now seeks funding to launch a redesigned and expanded Young Asian Diplomats Program to bring mid-career officials from Asia to the U.S. for a shorter term of leadership development activities and exchange. The program’s aim is to help train the next generation of Asian diplomats and foreign affairs leaders who will shape the region’s response to development and policy challenges, and familiarize them with the American context.
Each year, TAF, through its network of field offices in Asia and in cooperation with foreign ministries and other ministerial level agencies in the region, proposes to select ten diplomats with five to ten years of service and a strong record of accomplishment. Participants will be drawn primarily from Southeast Asia, whose younger generation does not enjoy the same level of exposure as their better-resourced counterparts elsewhere do, but representatives from East Asia will also be considered.
Over 18 days each summer, the cohort will take part in three key activities across the United States. A newly constituted Leadership and Exchange Programs unit within TAF will be responsible for coordinating all activities. The program will begin with an intensive, week-long session organized by the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy, part of the Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, where the group will study the factors shaping American domestic and foreign policy and visit key institutions. This will be followed by a three-day Leadership Development Workshop in Charlottesville, Virginia, led by faculty and staff experts of Presidential Precinct, a consortium of six Virginian institutions including Monticello, the University of Virginia and the College of William and Mary. The workshop, focusing on facilitated skills development training, is designed to foster the participants’ capacity to articulate their respective country’s policies and interests, present nuanced viewpoints and appreciate alternative perspectives. The visit will conclude with a study tour to the San Francisco Bay Area, where TAF is headquartered, and one or two other parts of the country to introduce regional perspectives on policy issues. Through meetings, site visits, dialogues and other activities, the young diplomats will interact with a wide range of Americans in government, academia, business and civil society, in urban and rural settings. In year one, in addition to spending time in Charlottesville and its surrounds, the group will visit Montana, with local programming assisted by the Maureen and Mike Mansfield Center at the University of Montana. This third portion of the program will take place in different locations each year. Throughout the travel together, the cohort will have the opportunity to establish personal bonds and build professional networks. An alumni engagement platform will be built for continued exchange within and across cohorts.
Terrence Adamson and Mary Brown Bullock are trustees of The Asia Foundation.
Recommendation: That the Directors of the Henry Luce Foundation approve a four-year grant of $750,000 to The Asia Foundation for the Young Asian Diplomats Program: Strengthening an Emerging Generation of Asian Leaders.
