ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Council Expresses Strong Support for Brunei Darussalam’s 2021 Priorities

31 March 2021 -

The ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) Council gathered today to discuss strategic issues and directions for the Socio-Cultural pillar. The Council extended support to priorities under Brunei Darussalam’s ASEAN Chairmanship 2021 theme, “We Care, We Prepare, We Prosper”,  which aims to strengthen ASEAN’s efforts toward recovery, resilience and shared prosperity. They also shared views on strategic issues under the pillar, highlighting the importance of transformative social protection, preparing the youth for the future, human resource development, women development and gender mainstreaming, building future resilience towards green recovery, equal access to digitalisation, poverty reduction, sports and education among others.

In addition, several priorities were introduced, including the Regional Policy Framework on Fostering Greater Understanding, Tolerance and a Sense of Regional Agendas among Peoples of ASEAN among others. The development of this regional policy framework is currently underway with support from the Government of Japan through Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF).