Lasting policy change rarely begins with a headline. It begins when local leaders recognize a barrier that others have learned to live with and decide it does not have to remain.

Across Asia, Atlas Network partners are removing outdated laws, opening new paths for entrepreneurs, and strengthening the rights that allow people to plan for the future. The three finalists for the 2026 Asia Liberty Award show what becomes possible when rigorous research is paired with persistence, strong relationships, and a willingness to act when an opportunity for reform appears.

This year’s finalists are Centre for Civil Society in India, Samriddhi Foundation in Nepal, and Foundation for Economic Freedom in the Philippines.

The Asia Liberty Award is part of Atlas Network’s Regional Liberty Awards program, which recognizes think tanks that have made significant contributions to advancing individual liberty, free enterprise, and human progress. The awards reflect Atlas Network’s Coach, Compete, Celebrate!® model by encouraging organizations to pursue ambitious solutions, elevating work that delivers measurable results, and giving freedom champions the recognition they deserve.

The winner will be announced during Asia Liberty Forum, taking place Sept. 10–11, 2026, in Colombo, Sri Lanka. The gathering will bring together Atlas Network partners and colleagues from across the region to exchange ideas, learn from one another, build new connections, and celebrate the movement’s progress.

Samriddhi Foundation, Nepal

For decades, entrepreneurs in Nepal have faced overlapping registration requirements, discretionary approvals, restrictions on investment, and administrative systems that made starting or growing a business unnecessarily difficult.

Samriddhi Foundation saw that meaningful reform would require more than a single policy recommendation. It built relationships with policymakers, worked with public agencies, engaged journalists, and assembled coalitions capable of sustaining reform through Nepal’s frequently changing political environment.

That work helped advance a broad package of economic reforms. Industry registration and renewals have been digitized, reducing delays and opportunities for arbitrary decision-making. New rules recognize sweat equity, reduce compliance penalties, clarify investment procedures, and make it easier for emerging businesses to attract capital.

Nepali companies can also invest abroad legally for the first time in six decades, while changes to foreign investment rules have opened new opportunities for international capital and innovation-driven firms. Additional reforms established clearer standards for managing underperforming public enterprises and created opportunities for greater private-sector participation.

Together, these changes give entrepreneurs more control over their futures and replace a culture of permission with a more open, predictable environment for enterprise.

Centre for Civil Society, India

For entrepreneurs, outdated laws are not harmless words left behind in old legal codes. They can create uncertainty, invite arbitrary enforcement, and turn ordinary business activity into a legal risk.

For more than a decade, Centre for Civil Society has worked to identify and remove obsolete, redundant, and burdensome laws across India. The organization developed a systematic approach to reviewing the country’s legal framework, beginning with its influential recommendations to repeal 100 outdated laws.

Its research was cited by the Law Commission of India and contributed to the repeal of 23 central laws in 2015. Centre for Civil Society later expanded the work across state and national jurisdictions, identifying 534 laws for repeal and contributing to the removal of 216 laws by 2024.

The organization has also pushed India’s regulatory culture toward trust-based governance, making the case that civil and administrative penalties should replace disproportionate criminal punishments for many business-related offenses. Its recommendations have informed national efforts to reduce unnecessary criminal provisions and create clearer, more predictable rules for entrepreneurs.

By replacing legal clutter and punitive regulation with greater certainty, Centre for Civil Society is helping people across India pursue opportunity without unnecessary interference.

Foundation for Economic Freedom, Philippines

Building a tree plantation, restoring land, or establishing an agroforestry enterprise requires patience. These investments unfold over decades, making secure property rights and predictable long-term agreements essential.

In 2024, Foundation for Economic Freedom recognized an important gap in legislation that would extend leases on private land in the Philippines. Early versions of the bill did not explicitly include agroforestry or ecological conservation, leaving some of the activities most dependent on long-term certainty at risk of being excluded.

Foundation for Economic Freedom acted quickly. Through research, formal recommendations, legislative testimony, and direct engagement with policymakers, the organization helped ensure that agroforestry and ecological conservation were included in the final legislation.

Republic Act No. 12252, signed into law in 2025, replaced the previous 50-year lease with a possible 25-year renewal with a continuous 99-year lease. The reform provides greater certainty for Filipino landowners and their investment partners while creating new possibilities for tree farming, ecotourism, land restoration, conservation, and other long-term rural enterprises.

The law gives landholders greater freedom to make voluntary agreements and pursue opportunities that can support families and communities for generations.

Celebrating the people behind policy change

These three finalists worked in different countries and confronted different barriers, but each began with the same conviction: people flourish when institutions respect their freedom to act, build, invest, and shape their own futures.

The Asia Liberty Award recognizes the results they have achieved. It also recognizes the years of research, relationship-building, persistence, and courage that made those results possible.

At Asia Liberty Forum, that work will take its place on a regional stage. Partners will gather not only to recognize one winner but to learn from three examples of locally led reform and carry those lessons into their own communities.