People at the heart of ASEAN

In 2024, the ASEAN Secretariat estimated the total population of the 10 ASEAN member-states at 676.6 million. The ASEAN is the third most populous region in the world, after China and India. With this large population, the ASEAN has made their well-being a priority, echoed in the ASEAN Community Vision 2045 — Resilient, Innovative, Dynamic, and People-Centered ASEAN.

Officially, however, there are only 81 ASEAN entities registered with the ASEAN under Annex 2 of its charter, of which 48 are classified as civil society organizations (CSOs). These 81 entities cannot encompass the challenges, priorities, and interests of 676.6 million people. While a people-centered ASEAN is a noble ambition, there is a long path ahead for this goal to become reality.

CSOS AND ASEAN
When asked about “ASEAN,” the ordinary Filipino would look at you in confusion and a shrug. ASEAN awareness is low, regrettably so in the Philippines, where students and many sectors have little to no understanding of what the ASEAN is and what it does. An organization that wants to become people-centered must be known to the people and have considerable levels of impact on their lives.

The 2025 Baseline Study of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint looked at how the ASEAN and its member states have carried out the visions and plans for 2021-2025. What is most noticeable is that the people-centered aspect only seems to apply to what governments do for their citizens. The limited participation and low visibility of CSOs in decision-making and community building is apparent. Connections are not made with CSOs throughout the region, and engagement remains rather vertical.

GEOCIVIC DIPLOMACY IN ASEAN
Foreign Policy Community Indonesia (FPCI) Founder and Chair, Dr. Dino Patti Djalal, has said that more than geopolitics, there needs to be a “geocivic” approach to the ASEAN. FPCI is an independent foreign policy organization based in Jakarta, Indonesia that conducts research on Southeast Asian foreign policies and organizes grassroots conferences in the region.

The goal of geocivic diplomacy in the ASEAN is to build a bottom-up ASEAN community and make the ASEAN process a two-way street, based on concrete and real issues among ASEAN communities.

There needs to be continuous engagement that results in actual results. CSOs advocate for issues they believe need to be addressed. These issues include gender, climate change, labor, corruption, good governance, MSMEs and entrepreneurship, access to education, access to affordable healthcare, the digital economy, migrant workers, and many more. The issues mentioned are not present in just one member state in the ASEAN, but across the region. Cross-pillar and cross-cutting challenges need regional solutions and cooperation, and this can only work when CSOs, those at the grassroots level and have personal experience, are able to provide inputs and contribute to policies and strategies that the ASEAN creates.

Geocivic diplomacy engages the very people the ASEAN is said to be centering. FPCI believes that greater involvement of CSOs, who are extensions of its people in the ASEAN, will make the ASEAN more known and respected in the region.

INCREASED ENGAGEMENT
Recently, the Philippine Women’s Economic Network (PhilWEN) was invited to participate in the first-ever ASEAN for the Peoples Conference, a flagship conference organized by FPCI that envisions itself as the premier forum for people-to-people dialogue in Southeast Asia. It gathered over 100 CSOs to align advocacies and initiatives and let the ASEAN know that CSO presence in the region is a force to be reckoned with; Southeast Asia’s Greatest Resource, as the theme of the conference states.

As the Founding Chair and President of PhilWEN, I had the privilege of representing the organization by speaking in a panel entitled “Closing the Gender Gap in Southeast Asia.” In the panel, I echoed the Philippines’ progress in gender equality and how PhilWEN and Philippine Business Coalition for Women Empowerment (PBCWE) push for women’s economic empowerment and workplace gender equality in the private sector.

I stressed that our work also extends in the region as our membership in the ASEAN Women Entrepreneurs Network (AWEN), an entity under the ASEAN Committee on Women, is valuable and opens many opportunities that we can utilize. During the Philippine chairing of the ASEAN in 2017, AWEN, which the Philippines also chaired then, participated in crafting the Action Agenda on Mainstreaming Women’s Economic Empowerment in ASEAN, which the leaders of the ASEAN adopted and signed. This action agenda aims to mainstream women’s economic empowerment through innovation, trade and inclusive business, and human capital development.

Our inclusion and participation in ASEAN entities was borne out of the will to contribute meaningfully to ASEAN community building which began in 2014 when AWEN was organized.

MAKING ASEAN PEOPLE-CENTERED
As the ASEAN continues to build its community and envisions the creation of a community that is inclusive and resilient, it is important to reach out to the people of the ASEAN and listen to what they have to say. After having participated in the ASEAN for some years now and with my experience leading CSOs, here are some recommendations:

1. Civil society organizations need to be included in decision-making. Currently, CSOs are under the purview of the ASEAN Foundation, which has limited resources to become the hub of all CSO activity in the region. There must be an evaluation of ASEAN mechanisms and where best to put CSOs.

2. CSOs should be given easier access to the ASEAN. The process of applying as an ASEAN entity is tedious, which prevents the CSOs from having meaningful participation and contribution. ASEAN entities are allowed to use the ASEAN name and are given access to the ASEAN Project Cooperation system, which has funding mechanisms as well as access to ASEAN member states and external partners.

3. ASEAN bodies should consider CSOs as implementing agencies for their plans and programs. As they have a presence and familiarity with their home countries, they can be the focal points for action lines related to their advocacies, whether environment, energy, or women and children.

4. The ASEAN must enhance people-to-people connectivity and foster a sense of community for the future that they are building. While the top-down approach can work to a certain extent, it is important to also consider the bottom-up approach. CSOs are a vital tool and resource for the ASEAN to reach out to its citizens.

CSOs want to be included. They are representations of the aspirations of the people of the ASEAN: to live in a region where their needs are met and their voices valued. We all need to do more and work to put our people at the heart of the ASEAN.

Ma. Aurora “Boots” D. Geotina-Garcia is a member of the MAP Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Committee and the MAP Education Committee. She is founding chair and president of PhilWEN and chair of the Governing Council of the Philippine Business Coalition for Women Empowerment. She was the first female chair of the Bases Conversion & Development Authority. She is president of Mageo Consulting, Inc., a corporate finance advisory and consulting firm.

map@map.org.ph

magg@mageo.net