ASEAN Socio Cultural Community
Overview
The ASEAN Socio Cultural Community is all about realizing the full potential of ASEAN citizens. The ASCC Blueprint 2025 was adopted by the ASEAN Leaders at the 27th ASEAN Summit on 22 November 2015 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
ACSS is working towards:
- A committed, participative, and socially responsible community for the benefit of ASEAN people
- An inclusive community that promotes high quality of life, equitable access to opportunities for all, and promotes and protects human rights.
- A sustainable community that promotes social development and environmental protection
- A resilient community with enhanced capacity and capability to adapt and respond to social and economic vulnerabilities, disasters, climate change, and other new challenges, and
- A dynamic and harmonious community that is aware and proud of its identity, culture and heritage.
To achieve this, Member States are cooperating on a wide range of areas, including: Culture and Arts, Information and Media, Education, Youth, Sports, Social Welfare and Development, Gender, Rights of Women and Children, Rural Development and Poverty Eradication, Labour, Civil Service, Environment, Haze, Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance and Health.
Many of these issues, such as human capital development, social protection, pandemic response, humanitarian assistance, green jobs and circular economy, are cross-sectoral in nature. To manage both the cohesiveness of the pillar and also cross-sectoral issues, two platforms have been developed: (1) the ASCC Council, supported by the Senior Officials Meeting on the ASCC (SOCA), and (2) the Coordinating Conference on the ASCC (SOC-COM).
The ASCC Council ensures that relevant decisions of the ASEAN Summit pertaining to the ASCC pillar are implemented. It also serves to enhance coherence and consistency in ASCC policies and oversees the implementation of the ASCC Blueprint. The ASCC Council meets twice a year, with its first meeting held on 24 August 2009.
SOCA supports the work of the ASCC Council. It identifies, considers and provides recommendations to the ASCC Council on issues requiring a cross-sectoral approach, and also supports collaboration between ASCC Sectoral Bodies. Relevant working groups to address particular issues are formed as needed.
A Working Group on the Culture of Prevention (CoP) was established to ensure the implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on Culture of Prevention (CoP) for a Peaceful, Inclusive, Resilient, Healthy and Harmonious Society, adopted by the ASEAN Leaders at the 31st ASEAN Summit in Manila on 13 November 2017. This includes developing an ASEAN plan of action to promoting six thrusts as contained in the declaration, which are (i) a culture of peace and intercultural understanding; (ii) a culture of respect for all; (iii) a culture of good governance at all levels; (iv) a culture of resilience and care for the environment; (v) a culture of healthy lifestyle; and (vi) a culture supporting the values of moderation.
Analysis
Research and analysis serve as foundational pillars in driving evidence-based decision-making across diverse sectors within ASEAN. Within the policy sphere, robust analysis stands as an invaluable asset, guiding regional progress, nurturing relationships, and enriching the understanding among ASEAN citizens. Driven by the ASCC Analysis Division, these efforts contribute to informed policymaking, fostering collaboration, and advancing the socio-cultural landscape across the ASEAN community
Monitoring
Monitoring and evaluation of ASCC performance indicators and initiatives allow comprehensive assessment, fosters collaboration and cooperation, and strengthens data-driven decision and policy-making. The ASCC Monitoring Division implements the monitoring and evaluation of the ASCC Blueprint 2025.
Culture & Arts
Celebrating the rich cultural diversity and heritage of ASEAN remains an important driver of the culture and arts sector. Culture and arts cooperation serves as an engine for economic growth and sustainable development, a building block for social cohesion and transformation, an asset for regional pride as well as a vehicle for forging closer friendship and understanding.
Information and Media
Raising ASEAN awareness and facilitating greater information flow on the benefits of ASEAN developments are important priorities of regional cooperation in the information and media sectors. To better respond to the digital information age, the information sector is taking concrete steps to raise information and media literacy skills of ASEAN citizens. Policy and project initiatives targeting different segments of ASEAN societies are also developed to better equip ASEAN peoples to be more discerning in consuming information.
Education
Education is a powerful transformative force in the lives of ASEAN peoples. Thus inclusive and quality education is key to the sustainable development of the region. Quality education leads to better health outcomes, higher social capital, peaceful and gender-equal societies, and decent work opportunities.
Youth
Youth comprise approximately a third of the combined population of ASEAN, constituting the largest ever cohort of ASEAN youth. The youth population of the region is projected to peak at over 220 million by 2038.
Sport
Across ASEAN region, sports have ancient roots and remarkable legacies that crosses time, age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion and nationality. More than as a mean to a healthy body and mind, sports promotes the values of respect, inclusion, fairness and unity.
Gender, Rights of Women and Children
Women make up slightly over half the population in ASEAN and significant progress has been made for women and girls in the region especially on access to education, participation in the labour force, increased quality or reproductive health and widened space to express their voices and exercise their agencies. However, numerous challenges impeding the realization of full potentials of women and girls remain.
Rural Development and Poverty Eradication
In the past two decades, ASEAN has seen a steady decline of poverty, from 47% in 1990 to 15% in 2015. However, it persists especially in the region’s rural areas. Poverty goes beyond a mere lack of income. It manifests through the inability to afford and access basic needs, such as food, health and education. Poor people face multiple challenges that deprive them of living long and healthy lives, and realising their full potentials. Different forms of deprivations have been experienced by many in the region especially the poor and the vulnerable. Exacerbated by recurring risks and shocks both human-induced or natural disasters, they are prone to sliding back to poverty. Moreover, poverty is also driven and reinforced by gender inequalities and discrimination and thus affects women and girls differently than men and boys.
Labour
Civil service
As ASEAN continues to anticipate changes due to technological advancement, globalisation, ageing societies, climate change, and greening economy, among others, the civil service sector is evolving along with it. It must be equipped with the necessary capabilities and capacities to administer public resources responsibly and innovatively to meet the increasing needs, challenges, and expectations of the people. According to an OECD-ADB study, ASEAN Member States have implemented digital government strategies to keep up with the rapid digital transformation and disruptive technology and to accelerate the establishment of an agile civil service.
Environment
ASEAN is home to 20 percent of all known species of the world and is the centre of the world’s marine biodiversity. All these rich natural resources, however, is confronted with immense environmental challenges and stresses. Increasing population, rapid urbanisation and progressive economic development has led to increase demand and consumption of food, water and energy. ASEAN region has also been facing a rise in average and extreme temperatures, increases in wet season rainfall, rainfall intensity and duration, and greater frequency of extreme events such as droughts, floods, land and/or forest fires.
Haze
During the1980s and 1990s, ASEAN experienced major episodes of fire and transboundary haze pollution. One of the most damaging haze pollutions in recorded history happened between 1997-1998. It affected Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, and is estimated to cost the region more than USD 9 billion in economic, social and environmental losses. Environmentally, it released an estimated 1-2 billion tonnes of carbon[1].
Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance
ASEAN is also the most natural disaster-prone region in the world with more than 50 percent of global disaster mortalities occurred in the region during the period of 2004 to 2014. The rising frequency and intensity of disasters have resulted in greater economic loss, increase in the rate of disaster mortality and the number of displaced populations in the region. Reducing disaster risks is one of the top priorities of ASEAN to ensure that the region will achieve the target of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) and the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030. The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) sets as policy backbone for the ASEAN Member States to enhance their collective efforts in reducing disaster risks and responding to disasters in the region.
Health
Rapid growth and changes in ASEAN pose challenges to the health systems of its Member States. Communities are faced with overpopulation, pollution and environmental health problems. Poverty remains an important determinant for health status — mainly for marginalized and vulnerable groups, including those living in remote, isolated, mountainous, island communities or resource-poor areas.
Social Welfare and Development
The region is home to a diverse population of persons with disabilities, ranging from children with disabilities, women with disabilities, and older persons with disabilities, with varying types of impairments and support requirements. Such intersectionalities of disabilities with sex, gender, race and age continue to impinge upon their accessibility, mobility and meaningful participation in decision-making processes. This condition has often times led to marginalisation and exclusion from services, fair treatment and complete information which is a manifestation of discrimination, violence, neglect and abuse.