Southeast Asia is a region of extraordinary dynamism and diversity. The region's rapidly growing economies are bringing about dramatic improvements in the lives of, and new opportunities for, half a billion people. Economic dynamism is accompanied by equally profound social and political changes. Previously closed societies are opening to the outside world and governments are consciously moving towards more decentralized systems in which the state plays a less pervasive role in society and more space is opened for nongovernmental enterprise and initiative.

These changes often conflict with long-standing, deeply-embedded, and highly diverse beliefs, values, practices, and institutions both within and among the countries of Southeast Asia. The histories, cultures, and religions in Southeast Asia vary greatly. So also do the political systems and traditions — monarchy, military rule, one-party authoritarianism, and adaptations of western style representative government. Disparities between rich and poor, urban and rural, and men and women, are wide and in many cases growing. The resulting tensions weaken the bonds that hold peoples and societies together and undermine prospects for peace and progress, both within and among the countries of Southeast Asia.

Throughout the region, institutions and individuals are working to make their societies more productive, just and humane. Providing support to these innovative actors has been the major objective of the Ford Foundation in Southeast Asia since the Foundation began its grant-making there in the early 1950s. That the focus of this essay is on the Ford Foundation in Southeast Asia is in no way intended to minimize the important roles played by other American foundations in the region post World War II. The Rockefeller Foundation's Education for Development Program (1961–81), for example, contributed greatly to the development of Gadjah Mada University in Indonesia, the University of the Philippines, and Kasetsart, Mahidol, and Thammasat Universities in Thailand. Rockefeller's related work on agricultural research, public health, and the arts, and its current regional programme focused on the Greater Mekong Subregion, are also hallmarks of Rockefeller's long history of constructive involvement in Southeast Asia.