Asean 2015: Inclusive, sustainable development for all

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) marks its 46th founding anniversary today against the backdrop of an impending economic integration.

Next year’s planned economic integration of the regional bloc will indeed have an impact on the estimated 600 million total population of Asean member-countries, or 8.8 percent of the world’s total population. According to the blueprint signed in 2007, member-countries will have a single market production base that will facilitate freer flow and exchange of goods, services, skilled labor, investments and capital through the creation of mutual recognition agreements. But despite the predicted rosy scenario, Asean leaders need to ensure that the planned economic integration would result in inclusive and sustainable growth and development for all.

Asean banks on agriculture as the key driver of growth in the region. Its member-countries rely on agriculture as the primary source of income for their peoples. Food security, livelihood and other needs of Asean citizens are at stake in the region’s vast resources, such as forests, seas, rivers, lands and ecosystems. However, climate change and inequitable access to productive resources are threatening shared growth with respect to natural resources.

Recent statistics on hunger and access to land and productive resources are alarming and ironic considering that Asia is home to two-thirds of the world’s food producers, on which the economies of Asean member-countries Thailand, Burma (Myanmar), Vietnam and the Philippines depend. The Food and Agriculture Organization says that at least 572 million people in Asia are chronically hungry and a huge percentage undernourished. Women make up more than half of the population in Asia, but they are not given equal access to resources. Only 12 percent of the 3 million landowners in Asia are women. Alongside this are the increasing cases of land-grabbing in the region, depriving small farmers and food producers of control over land and other natural resources. Also, opportunities created by growth often require skills that are often held by, for example, those who have access to education—a basic service that is until now not universally provided by all Asean governments.

Ironically, the same policies—globalization, technological innovation, market reform, structural adjustment, trade liberalization, and privatization—that produced exceptional economic growth and will enable the planned economic integration in 2015 are blamed by civil society groups as having exacerbated, if not caused, the pervasive poverty and gaping inequality in Asean.

Organizations like Oxfam-GROW Campaign East Asia, Greenpeace Southeast Asia, Eastern Regional Organization for Public Administration, Ateneo School of Government, Asiadhrra, Asian Farmers Association, Myanmar Climate Change Watch, and Indonesia Legal Resource Centre, together with experts and members of the academe from Southeast Asia, have called for an economic community in 2015 that would ensure growth and development for all and promote healthy and productive ecosystems.

Asean must ensure that its economic community building is geared toward low-carbon development anchored on sustainability and inclusive growth. It can start by ensuring that regional policies in public and private investments in agriculture and energy do not threaten food security, improve resilience against climate-related disasters, and respect asset reform policies and the rights of small food producers.

In terms of climate change mitigation, Asean needs to harmonize existing policies on coal and level the playing field where renewable energies can compete with other sources of energy. Furthermore, the 2015 economic integration must be clear on charting a low-carbon development plan for the region.

Asean leaders must also ensure that policies will be in place to shift the funding support from industrial agriculture to sustainable agricultural practices promoting agro-ecology and sustainable ecosystems. Furthermore, they must encourage the allocation of sufficient financial resources for community-driven climate change adaptation practices while working with communities and peoples’ organizations on knowledge-sharing and learning best practices.

At the global climate negotiations of the United Nations Framework Convention for Climate Change, Asean leaders must unite behind a fair and binding agreement toward building a global climate deal in Paris next year.

Asean must also adapt a regional regulatory framework that will ensure that rights of small food producers will be protected against the threat of land-grabbing and unfair land investments.

Fostering inclusive growth, dismantling inequality, improving resilience, and promoting sustainable development are the key toward the success of an Asean economic community.

Jed Alegado is Oxfam’s media and communications officer in the Philippines. He holds a master’s degree in public management from the Ateneo School of Government.