PH Calls for an Ambitious but Realistic ASEAN Community Post-2025 Vision

Members of the High-Level Task Force (HLTF) on the ASEAN Community’s Post-2025 Vision (HLTF-ACV). (ASEAN Secretariat photo)

JAKARTA 23 February 2023 – During the 6th Meeting of the High-Level Task Force (HLTF) on the ASEAN Community’s Post-2025 Vision (ACV) held on 20-21 February 2023 in Jakarta, the Philippines called for an ambitious but realistic ASEAN Community’s Post-2025 Vision taking into account megatrends of the next twenty years. This vision should hopefully lead to a more agile, responsive and efficient ASEAN that its citizens could identify with. 

ASEAN Member States agreed that the Vision Statement will include the challenges facing ASEAN, megatrends that will remain relevant in the next 20 years, what ASEAN has done to address these challenges, and what ASEAN still needs to do fill up the gaps and challenges to map out and contextualize the vision for ASEAN in the future. The Vision will be accompanied by blueprints/ strategic plans covering core elements that aim for institutional reform; and strengthening the political/security, economic, socio-cultural communities, and connectivity. 

To realize a Vision Statement that is responsive to the needs of its people, the HLTF-ACV will conduct interfaces with ASEAN’s stakeholders. This time they met with the ASEAN Foundation and the ASEAN-Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (ASEAN-IPR). The Executive Directors of both institutions provided suggestions to the HLTF on what they perceive are needs of the future ASEAN. The Philippines commended the work of the ASEAN Foundation and the ASEAN-IPR in their efforts to address the opportunities and challenges facing ASEAN today and in the future, including the work of ASEAN-IPR on its inclusion of women and youth in the peace and security agenda and enjoined it to operationalize the ASEAN Women for Peace Registry. 

Ambassador Elizabeth P. Buensuceso was joined by Ambassador Luis T. Cruz, the Philippines’ High-Level Representative to the HLTF-ACV in the Meeting. 

The HLTF-ACV aims to finalize the Vision Statement and its attendant documents (Strategic Plan) for adoption by ASEAN leaders in 2025. END

Eminent Person of the Philippines Ambassador Elizabeth P. Buensuceso at the 6th Meeting of the HLTF-ACV. (ASEAN Secretariat photo)