Timor-Leste: The History and Development of Asia’s Newest Nation is a study of how a small Asia-Pacific nation has emerged from protracted conflict and successfully navigated a path to durable peace and sustainable development. Despite early setbacks, Timor-Leste has made an amazing turnaround and today finds itself in a new era in which it will certainly continue its advance toward the goal of long-term stability and prosperity, leaving permanently behind the past that was once marked by a descending spiral of destruction.
Yet, a number of development challenges lie ahead for Timor-Leste, particularly in strengthening human, institutional, and infrastructural capacities in the short to medium term, and in transforming the national economy from oil-based to more diversified and better balanced in the longer run. Other countries may draw valuable lessons from Timor-Leste’s experience, especially those that are emerging from as well as are currently affected by conflict and instability. Such lessons would center on the questions such as management of natural resources, empowerment of the vulnerable, implementation of transparent and accountable governance, advancement of women, and mobilization of civil society and the public in general for democratization and the national development process.
