Themes

The ASEAN Socio Cultural Community (ASCC) Blueprint 2016-2025 is a statement of commitment of and a guideline for ASEAN in building a community that engages and benefits ASEAN’s peoples, one that is inclusive, sustainable, resilient, and dynamic. As the year 2020 is a pivotal year that marked the halfway of the Blueprint implementation, ASCC Monitoring Division (AMD), through the support of the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF), conducted the Mid-Term Review (MTR) of the implementation of ASCC Blueprint 2025 and a series of capacity building activities on the development of monitoring and evaluation system of the ASCC Sectoral Bodies work programmes in the ASEAN Member States. Both projects generated lessons learned for ASCC to keep the Blueprint relevant for the Member States and the people of ASEAN.

On 30 August 2021, the ASEAN youth ministers launched a report on “Understanding How Young People See ASEAN. The study aims to fill in the missing puzzle piece of the ASEAN Youth Development Index launched in 2017: its fifth domain, the ASEAN Awareness, Values and Identity.

The World Expo, with its  170-year-long history,  has become the birthplace of the world’s greatest inventions and iconic structures.  It is often dubbed as the “world’s greatest show” and is held only every five years. 

Climate change remains one of the most challenging environmental issues of our generation and is an ongoing  threat to global  security. Its adverse impacts are manifested across communities around the world including in the Southeast Asian region. Significant research has uncovered notable changes in climate variables and climate related hazards in the region, including intensified extreme weather events.

The ASEAN Member States joined the global call for “urgent and integrated action” to protect biodiversity at the first part of the 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 15) held on 11–15 October 2021 in Kunming, China.

Reducing poverty and promoting rural development remain high on ASEAN’s agenda, especially in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Around 140 to 160 million people are estimated to have fallen into poverty in 2021 due to the pandemic, and people living in rural areas are the hardest-hit. In the Asia and the Pacific region, an estimated 89 million more have been pushed back into extreme poverty.