Officials and diplomats from the 10 ASEAN member countries gathered at a
conference in Jakarta, Indonesia to debate the bloc’s sustainable
development goals (SDGs) on September 2.
The conference was
co-organised by the ASEAN Secretariat, the French Embassy in Indonesia
and the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) in Singapore, with financial
support from the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency
(SIDA), Germany’s Hanns Seidel Foundation and the Institute for
Global Environmental Strategies (IGES).
Opening the event,
ASEAN’s Deputy Secretary General for Community and Corporate Affairs,
AKP Mochtan, called upon delegates to frankly discuss their concerns on
sustainable development obstacles in order to achieve regional
integration and build the projected ASEAN community by 2015.
At
the conference, Prof. Emil Salim, the Indonesian President’s adviser
for environment and sustainable development, highlighted the bloc’s key
issues on food and energy security and educational quality in the
process of dealing with SDGs.
ASEAN is made up of
Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar,
Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines and Vietnam.-VNA