Climate disruptions highlighted factors likely to shape the contours of climate change in Laos. Among these, regional relationships and resource-driven development continued to be important, as did inequality within Laos. Popular dissatisfaction with the capacity of the Lao state continued, exacerbated by environmental disasters and continuing limitations on free speech.

As usual, there is mostly continuity in Laos: solid economic growth, a strong ruling communist party, increasing dependence on China, growing inequality, and tight control of civil society. A new trend, apart from the return of a socialist rhetoric, is an official appraisal of self-sufficiency and anti-globalization.

This paper seeks to understand the learning outcomes that prevail across key subpopulations in China today. Data from a nationally representative survey show that rural youth are two years behind urban children in math and Chinese. Non-Han minorities, children in poorer counties, and children with less-educated parents are the most vulnerable.

While the economy, and socioeconomic inequality, continue to grow rapidly, the leadership of Laos has returned to a rhetoric claiming to pursue the goal of establishing a socialist society. However, the social structures that have evolved historically make make it very unlikely that the country’s contemporary policies will create even development and balanced socio-economic levels.

This year saw continued economic growth but increasing discontent over inequality and dispossession. Mindful of upcoming elections, Prime Minister Hun Sen declared a ““war on land-grabbing,”” with little practical effect. Infighting within the political opposition consolidated the government's electoral prospects, while the protests of the poor were forcibly suppressed.

Decentralization in post-Mao China has widened regional gaps in the provision of basic education. Reforms since 1994 have not reversed that trend. More recently, the government started centralized spending projects on rural education, which have significantly narrowed the urban-rural gap in education spending since 2001. However, interprovincial disparities remain large and growing.