This week ASEAN published the “AEC 2025
Consolidated Strategic Action Plan (CSAP).” The plan lays out both the
specific steps associated with implementing the Asean Economic Community (AEC)
2025 Blueprint, along with the anticipated timeframe.
ASEAN stated that the CSAP “allows for more structured tracking and reporting of the
implementation progress of the AEC Blueprint 2025. The AEC 2025 CSAP also
facilitates stakeholder feedback to ASEAN economic integration priorities in
the succeeding years, as it will be reviewed and updated periodically over the
10-year period.”
The CSAP is indeed a positive step forward, as the AEC
Blueprint 2025 was necessarily aspirational in nature. The CSAP is more practical and has more
specified tasks, although much of the CSAP is aspirational as well.
Yet the CSAP does not indicate how the “tracking and reporting of the implementation progress” will be done. ASEAN has only done two AEC Scorecards, and the most recent scoring, which was not in the form of a scorecard, was limited only to a review of “key deliverables” for 2015. Since that time, there has been no detailed reporting, on a country-specific and program-specific basis, provided by ASEAN. Hopefully the CSAP will allow for this in the future, as the lack of monitoring and compliance mechanisms is a deficiency in ASEAN’s institutional structure.
Yet the CSAP does not indicate how the “tracking and reporting of the implementation progress” will be done. ASEAN has only done two AEC Scorecards, and the most recent scoring, which was not in the form of a scorecard, was limited only to a review of “key deliverables” for 2015. Since that time, there has been no detailed reporting, on a country-specific and program-specific basis, provided by ASEAN. Hopefully the CSAP will allow for this in the future, as the lack of monitoring and compliance mechanisms is a deficiency in ASEAN’s institutional structure.
