ASEAN Community and the Sustainable Development Goals: Positioning Sustainability at the Heart of Regional Integration

of the organisation’s Socio-Cultural pillar, separate from its Economic and Political-Security pillars. ● This arrangement has served ASEAN well in promoting conventional socio-economic development in areas such as trade and education, but not sustainable development, which requires more cross-sectoral coordination and policy integration—something ASEAN in its current form cannot operationalise. ● The framework of ASEAN, as a major regional organisation, could help member states formulate and pursue sustainable development models but needs to be ‘rewired ’ in order to do so. ● Weak coordination over disparate policy areas and lack of engagement with non-state actors are the two Achilles heals of ASEAN’s current framework. This chapter argues that sustainable development (and related development goals) would be better promoted via: (i) strengthened overall institutional and financial capacity of ASEAN’s Secretariat; (ii) opening up ASEAN to greater engagement with non-state actors, including the scientific community; and (iii) establishing an SDG Expert Committee to support the ASEAN Secretariat and its member states in coordinating sustainable development actions that are regionally significant. The above activities should be funded equally by all ASEAN member states. 1