HONOLULU (Aug. 15, 2011) – The Public Affairs Section of the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan, has awarded the East-West Center $1,087,762 over three years to continue and expand several training and exchange programs for journalists. The award will fund the continuation of the Center’s Pakistan-U.S. Journalists’ Exchange program, which was held for the first time in April this year, as well as funding participation by Pakistani journalists in the Center’s existing multinational Jefferson Fellowships and Senior Journalists Seminar programs.

Under the overall theme of “Deepening Democracy through Media in Pakistan,” the objectives of the East-West Center project are to promote free, fair and responsible media in Pakistan to help the country cope with its political and developmental challenges and to bridge the gaps in understanding between the United States and Pakistan.

Applications Now Open for
Research Fellowships in Washington, D.C.

HONOLULU (Jan. 18, 2012) -- The East-West Center has received an initial grant of $93,858 ­from the Center for Global Partnership at the Japan Foundation – renewable over three years for a total of approximately $281,574 ­– to support the EWC’s new Japan Studies Fellowship Program. The program will provide three- or six-month research fellowships for scholars and analysts from the United States and Japan to conduct policy-relevant research on issues related to the U.S.-Japan partnership, including economic, diplomatic, politico-security, social, and international topics.

Funded by the U.S. State Dept., cross-border project
focuses on ‘peri-urban’ development issues

HONOLULU (Feb. 3, 2012) – East-West Center environmental researchers have launched a new cooperative project with specialists in India and Pakistan to collaborate on studying development issues in critical ‘peri-urban’ areas that lie between cities and the countryside.

 This project “offers a rare opportunity for Indian and Pakistani researchers to work together on a shared exploration of the challenges and impacts of an issue that deeply affects both nations,” said EWC research fellow Sumeet Saksena, the project’s principal investigator.

HONOLULU (Aug. 28, 2012) – A group of scholars, officials, educators and business leaders from more than 20 areas all over Asia, the Pacific and the U.S. will gather at Peking University in Beijing Sept. 1-3 for an East-West Center international conference on the theme of "Community Building and Leadership in Asia Pacific."

The conference will feature more than 75 substantive presentations and panels on current regional topics, including international relations, economics, environment, education, arts and culture, health, and much more.

The Honorable Hao Ping, an East-West Center alumnus and Vice Minister of the Ministry of Education, People’s Republic of China, will offer a welcoming address at the conference’s opening ceremony, and the Honorable Gary Locke, United States Ambassador to the PRC, will give a keynote address.

Journalists from Pacific Plate countries invited to apply by March 12

HONOLULU (March 5, 2012) – The Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership has awarded the East-West Center close to $100,000 to conduct a journalism seminar focusing on disaster management and resiliency. Journalists from Japan, the U.S., China and other countries bordering the seismically active Pacific tectonic plate are invited to apply by the March 12 deadline. Click here for more information.

HONOLULU (May 4, 2012) – The East-West Center (EWC) has been awarded a contract for $458,276 from the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/AIDS (UNAIDS) to provide technical and financial support for the development and refinement of HIV/AIDS Incidence Estimation in the Spectrum software under the guidance of the UNAIDS Reference Group on HIV/AIDS Estimates, Modeling and Projection. Spectrum is a suite of policy models that provide policymakers with analytical tools to support decision making processes.

HONOLULU (May 30, 2012) – Internet information leader Google, telecom provider KT, auto manufacturer Hyundai, international relations insitution the Korea Foundation and the University of Hong Kong’s Journalism and Media Studies Centre have joined the growing list of corporate and foundation sponsors of the East-West Center’s 2012 International Media Conference, scheduled for June 22-24 in Seoul, South Korea. The conference theme is “Networked News: How New Media is Shaping Stories in Asia and the Pacific.”

HONOLULU (Nov. 2, 2012) – Eight journalists from various parts of Asia have begun the East-West Center’s special U.S. Presidential Election Reporting Seminar. On the 12-day tour immediately before, during and after the election, the journalists will visit Florida, Ohio and Washington, DC to gain inside perspectives on the American electoral system and the key issues involved in this year’s presidential contest.

HONOLULU (Nov. 8, 2012) -- For a number of years the East-West Center, with support from the U.S. Department of State, has fielded multinational election observation teams to learn about and offer suggestions for improving the ways in which elections are conducted in various Asia Pacific nations.

This year, for the first time, the Center’s Pacific Islands Development Program hosted a multinational group of election officials and journalists and during the 2012 U.S. presidential election. The program sought to provide participants with first-hand knowledge and experience of America’s national, state and local electoral systems through direct observation and interaction with a diverse range of individuals engaged in the electoral process.

The participants included:

HONOLULU (Jan.16, 2013) — The Pacific Islands Climate Services Forum to be held next week in Suva, Fiji, will feature discussion of the recently released 2012 Pacific Islands Regional Climate Assessment (PIRCA) report, titled Climate Change and Pacific Islands: Indicators and Impacts.  The Forum provides an opportunity for dialogue between climate experts and decision makers, including resource and disaster risk managers and community planners, as well as government ministries and policy makers from across the region. PIRCA editors will present a summary of the report, which incorporates findings of the more than 100 scientists who assessed climate change impacts in Hawai‘i and the US-Affiliated Pacific Islands.

HONOLULU (May 8, 2013) – The East-West Center has received a grant of $423,975 from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health as part of a project funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on “Realizing the Demographic Dividend for Africa.”

HONOLULU (May 22, 2013) -- The East-West Center has received $108,000 from the Swedish International Centre for Local Democracy to study how local governance mechanisms can be enhanced to address natural disasters more effectively. The ICLD grant of $108,000 will fund a collaborative research project to be conducted with partner institutions in Bangladesh and China, with EWC Senior Fellow G. Shabbir Cheema as Principal Investigator.

YANGON, MYANMAR (June 25, 2013) -- Sixteen distinguished journalists from 10 Asia Pacific nations, including the U.S., are currently visiting Myanmar on a study tour, as the East-West Center brings its internationally recognized Jefferson Fellowships journalists’ exchange program to the country for the first time in the program’s 46-year history.

HONOLULU (Dec. 3, 2013) -- Five high school students and one teacher from Burma who were recent participants in the Southeast Asia Youth Leadership Program at the East-West Center have won a grant of $7,000 in a project proposal competition sponsored by the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Education and Cultural Affairs, which funds the SEAYLP program.

The EWC program alumni received their award for a proposal to educate the public in the city of Mandalay about environmental issues – with a special focus on outreach to adolescents – and to decrease the amount of litter in the community through clean-ups and placement of recycling bins.

HONOLULU (Feb 11, 2014) – The East-West Center has been awarded a three-year, $750,000 grant from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) to study land-cover and land-use change in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam.

Over the past half-century these countries have witnessed a major shift from subsistence agrarian economies to commercialized agriculture and, in the case of Thailand and Vietnam, industrialized societies. The project will study transitions in forests, boom crops and urban areas using remote sensing data sources and socioeconomic databases for the 2000-2012 period. The project’s aim is to enhance the conceptual underpinnings of land change science by integrating aspects of global markets, land use and political ecology to explicitly link land changes to local, national and international drivers.

(WASHINGTON, D.C.) May 23 -The East-West Center has announced the appointment of three 2014 Japan Studies Fellows at the East-West Center in Washington. The fellowship provides residence of three or six months to scholars and analysts who wish to undertake policy-relevant research and writing on key issues of relevance to the U.S.-Japan partnership, including in the diplomatic, politico-security, economic, social and international fields.

Mary McCarthy is currently an Associate Professor at Drake University. She will conduct research on “Identity Through Historical Memory: The ‘Comfort Women’ Issue in U.S.-Japan Relations.”

HONOLULU (Sept. 26, 2014) – The East-West Center is pleased to announce that former Harvard Senior Associate Dean Paul Keenan has joined Center as Interim Director of Development. His part-time appointment is for an initial period of six months, beginning Sept. 23.

“Paul has proven relationship development skills, built over his 25 years of high-level experience in strategy development, marketing and organizational behavior and design,” said East-West Center President Charles E. Morrison. “We are greatly looking forward to his contributions to our strategic planning process and working with him to increase fundraising at the Center.”   

Honolulu (Feb. 12, 2015) -- The East-West Center has been awarded a grant of  $267,186 from the Japan Foundation’s Center for Global Partnership for a three-year dialogue and travel-exchange program focusing on community participation in long-term recovery after a major disaster. 

Participants from the cities of Kobe and Kesennuma in Japan, and New Orleans and Galveston in the United States, will share experiences, perspectives, and best practices for increasing citizen input on post-disaster policy and decision-making. 

International group of 15 accomplished journalists will travel together to China,
the Philippines, Singapore and Hawai‘i to study South China Sea conflicts

HONOLULU - (March 19, 2015) -- The East-West Center has announced the selection of 15 accomplished international journalists for its 2015 Jefferson Fellowships travel-study seminar. The journalists from 12 countries and territories will travel together in May to China, the Philippines, Singapore and Hawai‘i to study territorial conflicts, resource issues, environmental concerns and more in the South China Sea. Participants represent a range of top news organizations including the Associated Press, Washington Post, PBS NewsHour, Times of India, Straits Times, Kyodo News and others.

HONOLULU (Dec. 15, 2015) – The East-West Center has announced the names of EWC alumni, volunteers and alumni chapters that will be honored at the Center’s upcoming international alumni conference in Manila, Philippines Jan. 15-17, 2016. The honorees are being recognized for their outstanding personal accomplishments and service toward the Center’s mission of helping to promote better relations and understanding among the peoples of Asia, the Pacific and the United States.

Distinguished Alumni Award

International group of 14 accomplished journalists will travel to China, Japan and Hawai‘i to explore the economic future of the Asia-Pacific region.

HONOLULU - (March 23, 2016) -- The East-West Center has announced the selection of 14 accomplished international journalists for its 2016 Jefferson Fellowships travel-study seminar. The print and broadcast journalists from 10 countries and territories will travel together in May to China, Japan and Hawai‘i to gain on-the-ground perspectives, deepen knowledge of regional issues and build a professional network of contacts. Participants represent a range of top news organizations including CNN International, National Public Radio, Times of India, Straits Times and others.

The selected Jefferson Fellows are:

HONOLULU (Aug. 8, 2016) – The East-West Center has been awarded a three-year grant totaling $300,000 from the Doris Duke Foundation for Islamic Art and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation in support of the Center’s Senior Journalists Seminar media exchange program, which seeks to enhance media coverage and elevate the public debate regarding U.S. relations with Muslim majority regions.

Former Punahou President is chosen by fellow board members to head EWC’s governing body; Bank of Hawai‘i’s Peter Ho named Vice Chair 

HONOLULU (Oct. 1, 2019) – Members of the East-West Center’s Board of Governors have elected board member and former Punahou School President Dr. James K. Scott to serve as the board’s new chairman. At a meeting Sept. 30, the board named Scott to succeed attorney Richard Turbin, who had served his maximum term as chairman but remains on the board as a member.

HONOLULU (May 4, 2018) -- The East-West Center’s Board of Governors has unanimously approved a forward-looking plan to substantially recast and rejuvenate the Center’s longstanding Pacific Islands Development Program (PIDP).

Previous scholarship recipients from throughout the Pacific mark the program's 25th year with a conference on professional opportunities

FIJI (Dec. 10, 2018) – Over this past weekend, 29 alumni from the US South Pacific Scholarship Program (USSP) attended a conference in Fiji titled ‘Connecting the Dots: Using your USSP Experience as a Path to Professional Opportunities.’ The conference held at the Outrigger Resort in Sigatoka gathered alumni from eight of the 11 countries where scholarships are awarded. The participants learned from each other’s experiences and shared how their experiences in the United States have changed their lives and helped their communities.

HONOLULU (Aug. 6, 2019) – Juan “Jay” Avecilla, a 16-year veteran of the U.S. Foreign Service, has joined the East-West Center as Diplomat-in-Residence. He will be posted at the Center until June 2020.

Prior to his arrival in Honolulu, Mr. Avecilla served as Management Officer in the U.S. Consulate General in Milan, Italy. Previously, he has served in various management positions at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan and in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs in Washington, D.C.  His other overseas assignments included tours as Consular/Management Officer in Fukuoka, Japan, Consular Officer in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Economic Officer in Hanoi, Vietnam.    

HONOLULU (April 30, 2020) – Hawai‘i Governor David Ige has appointed former Governor John Waihe‘e III and communications executive Lynn Miyahira to three-year terms as members of the East-West Center’s Board of Governors. They succeed outgoing Board members R. Brian Tsujimura and Richard Turbin.