Article and photo from ASEAN
A workshop on the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Economic Community (AEC) 2025 Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E) was recently held in Davao City, the Philippines to support the operationalization of the AEC 2025 M&E Framework. The workshop was held back to back with the 7th Meeting of the Committee of the Whole for the ASEAN Economic Community (CoW), and was attended by members of the CoW and ASEAN Senior Economic Officials.
The participants discussed key concepts on monitoring and evaluation, specifically in the context of regional economic community monitoring, as well as components of the Framework including compliance monitoring, outcomes monitoring and impact evaluation. They took note of the lessons learned from the previous AEC monitoring system and discussed the follow up steps to operationalize the Framework. They also recognized the key role of the ASEAN Community Statistical System in supporting integration monitoring in ASEAN.
Having an enhanced and robust monitoring and evaluation framework is vital to effectively implement the AEC Blueprint 2025 and its corresponding sectoral work plans. The AEC 2025 M&E Framework was endorsed at the 48th ASEAN Economic Ministers’ (AEM) Meeting in August 2016, and intersessionally by the AEC Council in September 2016. Providing further impetus was the timely endorsement of the AEC 2025 Consolidated Strategic Action Plan (CSAP) by the AEM and AEC Council Ministers on 6 February 2017. The AEC 2025 CSAP complements the AEC 2025 Blueprint by serving as a single reference document to inform stakeholders of the key action lines that will be implemented in pursuit of the ASEAN economic integration agenda from 2016 to 2025.
The workshop was organized by the ASEAN Integration Monitoring Directorate of the ASEAN Secretariat, supported by the EU-ASEAN Capacity Building Project for Monitoring Integration Progress and Statistics (COMPASS), with participation of the EU-ASEAN Regional Integration Support Programme (ARISE).
