ASEF set to contribute to Asia-Europe partnership

During the second working day of their 37th meeting in the central city of Da Nang on December 1, ASEF governors shared the view that the ASEF has achieved the 1997 goal of promoting Asia-Europe understanding via intellectual, cultural and people-to-people exchange as well as expanding links across culture, education, governance, sustainable development, health care and economy.

They proposed that ASEF should promote Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) reform via increasing interaction with other multilateral cooperation mechanisms and facilitating the involvement of all walks of life in the process, especially young people, women and businesses.

The meeting adopted 13 projects in six fields for 2018, including ASEF cultural policy dialogue, the 360-degree cultural programme, cultural events on the sidelines of the 12th ASEM Summit, seminars on education policies and public diplomatic skills, the Asia-Europe forum on environment, projects on public health care, roundtable workshops of ASEF editors-in-chief, among others.

Participants also approved Vietnam’s projects on holding the Asia-Europe Conference on life-long learning in combination with vocational training in implementation of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development initiated by the Vietnamese Ministry of Education and Training, and a workshop on sustainable development goals of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam. The meeting said the projects, scheduled for 2018, would contribute to the ASEAN Vision 2025 and the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development.

The next ASEF Board of Governors’ meeting will be held in Romania in 2018.

The ASEF Board of Governors’ 37th Meeting is one of the two most important diplomatic events within the ASEM framework hosted by Vietnam this year on the occasion of the ASEF’s 20th founding anniversary. It is also the second time Vietnam has hosted the event following the fifth ASEM Summit held in 2004.

Over the past two decades, Vietnam has partnered with the ASEF to launch 50 projects, mostly in climate change response, sustainable development, natural resources protection, social welfare, public health care, cultural and educational exchange, among others.