ESTABLISHMENT

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, or ASEAN, was established on 8 August 1967 in
Bangkok, Thailand, with the signing of the ASEAN Declaration (Bangkok Declaration) by the
Founding Fathers of ASEAN, namely Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand.

Brunei Darussalam then joined on 7 January 1984, Viet Nam on 28 July 1995, Lao PDR and
Myanmar on 23 July 1997, and Cambodia on 30 April 1999, making up what is today the ten
Member States of ASEAN.

AIMS AND PURPOSES

As set out in the ASEAN Declaration, the aims and purposes of ASEAN are:

1. To accelerate the economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the
region through joint endeavours in the spirit of equality and partnership in order to
strengthen the foundation for a prosperous and peaceful community of Southeast Asian
Nations;
2. To promote regional peace and stability through abiding respect for justice and the rule of
law in the relationship among countries of the region and adherence to the principles of
the United Nations Charter;
3. To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance on matters of common interest in
the economic, social, cultural, technical, scientific and administrative fields;
4. To provide assistance to each other in the form of training and research facilities in the
educational, professional, technical and administrative spheres;
5. To collaborate more effectively for the greater utilisation of their agriculture and
industries, the expansion of their trade, including the study of the problems of
international commodity trade, the improvement of their transportation and
communications facilities and the raising of the living standards of their peoples;
6. To promote Southeast Asian studies; and
7. To maintain close and beneficial cooperation with existing international and regional
organisations with similar aims and purposes, and explore all avenues for even closer
cooperation among themselves.

FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES

In their relations with one another, the ASEAN Member States have adopted the following
fundamental principles, as contained in the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia
(TAC) of 1976:

1. Mutual respect for the independence, sovereignty, equality, territorial integrity, and
national identity of all nations;
 2. The right of every State to lead its national existence free from external interference,
subversion or coercion;
3. Non-interference in the internal affairs of one another;
4. Settlement of differences or disputes by peaceful manner;
5. Renunciation of the threat or use of force; and
6. Effective cooperation among themselves.

ASEAN COMMUNITY

The ASEAN Vision 2020, adopted by the ASEAN Leaders on the 30th Anniversary of ASEAN,
agreed on a shared vision of ASEAN as a concert of Southeast Asian nations, outward looking,
living in peace, stability and prosperity, bonded together in partnership in dynamic development
and in a community of caring societies.

At the 9th ASEAN Summit in 2003, the ASEAN Leaders resolved that an ASEAN Community
shall be established.

At the 12th ASEAN Summit in January 2007, the Leaders affirmed their strong commitment to
accelerate the establishment of an ASEAN Community by 2015 and signed the Cebu Declaration
on the Acceleration of the Establishment of an ASEAN Community by 2015.

The ASEAN Community is comprised of three pillars, namely the ASEAN Political-Security
Community, ASEAN Economic Community and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community. Each
pillar has its own Blueprint, and, together with the Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI)
Strategic Framework and IAI Work Plan Phase II (2009-2015), they form the Roadmap for an
ASEAN Community 2009-2015.

Please click here for the ASEAN Political-Security Community Video.

Please click here for the ASEAN Economic Community Video.

Please click here for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Video.

Please click here for ASEAN History and Purposes.

ASEAN CHARTER

The ASEAN Charter serves as a firm foundation in achieving the ASEAN Community by
providing legal status and institutional framework for ASEAN. It also codifies ASEAN norms,
rules and values; sets clear targets for ASEAN; and presents accountability and compliance.

The ASEAN Charter entered into force on 15 December 2008. A gathering of the ASEAN
Foreign Ministers was held at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta to mark this very historic
occasion for ASEAN.
With the entry into force of the ASEAN Charter, ASEAN will henceforth operate under a new
legal framework and establish a number of new organs to boost its community-building process.

In effect, the ASEAN Charter has become a legally binding agreement among the 10 ASEAN
Member States.

Framing ASEAN Community 2015 (AC15)

The ASEAN Leaders have declared that the 2009-2015 Road Map consisting of the three
Community Blueprints Economic (AEC), Political-Security (APSC), Socio-Cultural (ASCC)
-shall form the basis of the overall ASEAN Community (AC15). Of course, the ASEAN Charter
and other subsequent key initiatives would also define the AC15. By focusing on the broader
goals, objectives, strategies, and targets set in these instruments, the contours and key markers of
the AC15 can be easily framed, both in quantitative and qualitative terms as appropriate.

However, assessing the establishment of AC15 based on the implementation of the 1000-odd
mostly operational actions which at recent count by authorities averages 90% is just neither
right nor valid. The achievement of regional and national development goals is a combined effort
from all sources particularly national efforts; it is certainly not only from the Blueprints regional
actions which is just a drop in the ocean.

Describing AC15 as work-in-progress so early in the year seems apologetic and back-tracking.
Indeed the successes so far should lay the foundation for future work on ASEAN community
building, while learning from failures and what works and what doesnt.

Building the foundation: Prosperity, peace and people

The AEC is on track to eliminate tariffs on almost all goods by the end of the year. However, the
share of the intra-ASEAN trade in total GDP (2009-2013) has been stuck at about 24%, even
lower than the previous corresponding period. While intra-ASEAN investment (2009-2013) has
increased, the rate of increase is less than for extra-ASEAN. AEC is not fully utilizing its own
single market and production base.

More work needs to be done on trade facilitation, expedited uniform customs clearance, removal
of non-tariff measures, and facilitated movement of skilled persons. The Open Sky policy has
clearly benefitted the people resulting in a dramatic increase in air travel, physically bringing
ASEAN people closer for meaningful interaction and regional integration.

The fact that ASEAN has been a relatively peaceful region compared to the rest of the world
should score high for APSC. The Preah Vihear Temple, Sipadan and Ligitan Islands, Pedra
Branca, and even development issues such as the Malayan Railway Land deal between Malaysia
and Singapore have shown the States maturity in using bilateral, regional and international
mechanisms to resolve disputes amicably while accepting the verdicts gracefully.

Such multiple channels of dispute settlement should be pursued concurrently for the South China
Sea disputes.
ASEAN has also been affected by terrorism and transnational crimes. Ensuring a drug-free
ASEAN by 2015, on hindsight, is way off the mark, but with recent record-breaking seizure of
illegal drugs, coordinated enforcement, and severe penalties we should be moving steadily
towards that goal. The ASEAN Intergovernmental Commission on Human Rights is already
operational, and more needs to be done on human rights protection.

Surprisingly, ASCC gets the least attention though the issues are all about the people and their
daily lives. It is making its mark on disaster response, becoming more resourced, capable, and
confident and being recognized as the essential first responders in the region. The ASCC is
already operating on the basis of higher targets than that of the UN Millennium Development
Goals (MDG Plus).

The region has well-coordinated response mechanisms for pandemics based on the experiences
of SARS and Avian Influenza. The haze situation is still hazy, dictated by the vagaries of
weather, but countries are responding through well-coordinated regional and national
mechanisms through legislation, enforcement, and preventive activities on the ground.

AC15: Measuring and communicating progress

Contrary to its name, the AEC Scorecard is just a monitoring and compliance tool of agreements
and actions which, though necessary, does not articulate the impacts and benefits of the AEC.
However, to its credit, communications such as the AECs 2014 publication; AEC 2015:
Thinking Globally, Prospering Regionally setting out key messages and explaining clearly the
impact of the AEC, quoting real examples of how businesses and people have benefitted, should
be ratcheted up this year.

The ASCC has developed its own comprehensive Scorecard based on key impact indicators
related to the ASCC Blueprint goals, strategies and targets. It should now work on those agreed
indicators and quickly publish the 2015 ASCC Scorecard Report which should give a clearer
perception of what the ASCC, and consequently the AC15, is and how it has impacted the
people.

Diverse voices speaking as one

Malaysia and the ASEAN Secretariat should lead and coordinate the framing, scoping, delivery
of targeted information, and assessment of the AC15. Only recently the ASEAN Secretariat has
opened a tiny window on AC15 on their website; the Malaysian website could be more than an
event management site.

The wide-ranging multifaceted efforts of community building should be properly classified into
clusters, subjects, or thematic areas targeting the main interest groups businesses, intellectual
community, and the general public for a year- long constructive discourse on the AC15. Greater
use of social media should make these platforms fully interactive to generate interest,
engagement, discussion, feedback and effective participation.
Malaysia could emulate the well-structured communication strategy of its National
Transformation Policy for AC15. All other member states should equally do so, for example,
pitching AC15 on their national commemorative events such as Singapores SG50.

ASEAN may well engage relevant stakeholders for working level interactions during its over
1000 official meetings this year; and all these meetings should singularly focus on generating
key outputs and messages for AC15, and planning for the post-2015 agenda.

In other words, ASEAN should seriously start implementing the ASEAN Communication Master
Plan which has elaborated in detail what should be done for communicating AC15 beginning
right now.

ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) Blueprint

The ASCC Blueprint represents the human dimension of ASEAN cooperation and upholds
ASEAN commitment to address the regions aspiration to lift the quality of life of its peoples.
The goals of the ASCC are envisaged to be achieved by implementing concrete and productive
actions that are people-centred and socially responsible. This set of cooperative activities has
been developed based on the assumption that the three pillars of the ASEAN Community are
interdependent and interrelated and that linkages are imperative to ensure complementarity and
unity of purpose.

The ASCC Blueprint was adopted by the ASEAN Leaders at the 14th ASEAN Summit on 1
March 2009 in Cha-am/Hua Hin, Thailand.
Ten Southeast Asian nations will form a single economic bloc at the end of 2015. Agroforestry,
forestry and agricultural policies, implementation and law enforcement are lagging behind. The
gap threatens millions of livelihoods, environmental safety and national abilities to adapt to
climate change, despite some inspiring progress.

'For ASEAN economic integration to work for the millions of citizens and national budgets
reliant on agroforestry, forestry and agriculture', said Delia Catacutan, 'we need a change of
mindset and behaviours as well as new, integrated policies, real implementation and
enforcement. The risks of failing to provide for our people are real. And the consequences will be
severe.'

Dr Catacutan was speaking on the sidelines of the 6th ASEAN Social Forestry Network
Conference at Inle Lake, Shan State, Myanmar, 1-5 June 2015. As the country coordinator of the
World Agroforestry Centre Viet Nam, with a wealth of experience throughout Southeast Asia and
Africa, she is well placed to be sounding a warning.

At the end of 2015, the ten countries that make up the Association of Southeast Asian Nations
(ASEAN) will form the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC), opening trade, investment and
labour markets, supported by a new, integrated transport network through previously remote,
forested areas that are home to millions of indigenous, poor, smallholding farmers.

While economic growth will likely follow, what's not yet known is the impact on the 3.4 million
hectares of treed and agricultural landscapes that represent the major sources of livelihoods for
the majority of the region's citizens and are the primary drivers of national economies.
Experience from other parts of the globe suggest what's likely to happen is more deforestation,
large-scale commercial monoculture crops, extraction of natural resources, environmental
degradation, income disparities, environmental degradation and a lack of resilience to climate
change that will create a 'perfect storm' that threatens not only the region but the planet. Unless
the nations work together, quickly, to address some glaring gaps.

But is this likely to happen by the end of 2015? According to Ramon Razal from the University
of the Philippines Los Baos and the Non-Timber Forest Products Exchange Programme, who
conducted a study on the forest sector's readiness for integration, awareness and preparations
vary across sectors and countries.

With the exception of Viet Nam, knowledge about the AEC is low, even among government
forestry officials, with claims that what little they know about the AEC is what they have learned
from the media', he said. 'Furthermore, the AEC is weak in terms of resolving trans-border
issues, such as haze from forest fires and illegal trade in forest products. There is a need to
strengthen law enforcement and install a regional grievance mechanism to resolve conflicts', he
added.

ASEAN covers 4.4 million hectares and has a population of 617 million growing at 1.3% a year.
Agricultural land covers 1.26 million hectare or 29.4% and forests another 2.14 million or
around 50%. Not surprisingly with statistics such as these, the main sources of livelihoods for the
majority of the region's citizens are agriculture and natural resources. Perhaps more surprisingly,
average gross domestic product of the ten nations combined is 5.7 % per year, suggesting rapid
exploitation of the resource base to fuel such growth.

The disconnect can be seen more clearly when the Food and Agriculture Organization of the
United Nations informs us, in 2014, that 10% of the total population, or 60 million people, have
insecure food supplies, that 900,000 hectares of forest were lost annually from 2000-2010 and
that many of the countries are amongst the most vulnerable in the world to the impact of climate
change in the form of extended and untimely droughts, extreme and unpredictable storms and
floods, landslides and rising altitudes for plant growth, which is a major issue for a largely
mountainous region.

Can ASEAN meet these challenges?

'It will be difficult', Dr Catacutan told delegates in the session she led on 'Agroforestry in
multifunctional landscapes: its contribution to social forestry and climate-change mitigation and
adaptation in the context of ASEAN economic integration'. She pointed out that in a study of
government effectiveness in the 25 countries responsible for 95% of global forest-based
emissions during 1990-2005, of the ASEAN member states only Malaysia and the Philippines
appeared in the top six most effective; Indonesia was at ninth position but also had the second-
highest forest-based emissions of the 25; Cambodia was nineteenth; and Myanmar second last.

'With the planned infrastructure developments funded by the new Asian Infrastructure
Development Bank and other international development funders, we will see major expansion of
road and rail networks, which can help improve agriculture and forest production and incomes
by reducing the costs of transporting inputs and outputs and reducing post-harvest losses' she
noted. 'But building new roads and railways and improving existing ones can have significant
negative ecological impacts directly through habitat loss and fragmentation and, indirectly, by
encouraging settlement and land conversion for agriculture'.

According to Dr Razal, it's already happening in one of the poorest and most vulnerable parts of
ASEAN: 'Because Lao PDR is landlocked, it has strong dependence on its neighbors for trade.
But Lao is crisscrossed by old and new highwayswith more plannedthat connect Thailand in
the west to China and Viet Nam in the north and east and Cambodia in the south. Not only have
these roads opened up remote forests to illegal activities but they have resulted in social
problems in communities along them', he said.

Dr Grace Wong from the Center for International Forestry Research, speaking on 'Community-
based livelihoods and conservation in forested landscapes', added that, 'Benefits to communities
who are granted management of forests, particularly those linked to the global agreement known
as 'reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plus conservation' (REDD+),
are tied strongly to the rights to land. This becomes really challenging because throughout
ASEAN the legal regimes and implementation on the ground vary from place to place. In nearly
all cases, procedural equity is very important and provides legitimacy for communities. Our
research shows that in some REDD+ pilot projects, allocation of rights is more desired than
monetary incentives. Rights are a contentious topic that is centuries old but are mostly more
important than tenure, or ownership, in the areas I've worked. On that note, the AEC could bring
more risk in places where there is greater uncertainty and conflict. On the other hand, the AEC
could potentially bring greater transparency in decision-making and participation in those
decisions, and this is critical'.

All agreed that the solution was in greaterand swiftercommunication between governments,
communities and the private sector accompanied by clear, integrated policies at national and
ASEAN levels that are backed up by accelerated implementation of community forestry,
agroforestry and agricultural agreements with the millions of smallholders who face an uncertain
future under current arrangements.

'Despite all these challenges', concluded Dr Catacutan, 'I am confident that the people of ASEAN
and their respective governments will be able to affect the needed shift of mindset and behaviour.
In research-for-development projects dotted throughout the region supported by fellow travellers
in securing a stable future for our planet, such as the Swiss International Development Agency,
Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research, European Union, Federal Republic of
Germany, CGIAR Research Program on Forests, Trees and Agroforestry and our many friends in
national and international non-governmental organizations, we see model examples of how poor,
smallholding communities enthusiastically embrace new ways of working that increase their
wellbeing and incomes while protecting the environment. If we embrace the ASEAN tradition of
humility and respect for our traditions, we can preserve what is most valuable to us and
simultaneously take the place on the world stage that is waiting for us.'