ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples' Forum 2018
Empowering Peoples’ Solidarity Against All Forms of Discrimination
Articles and Stories
ASEC team at the ASEAN Peoples' Forum 2018: Advocating Transformative Economies through SSE & SDGs
​
Seven member Asian Solidarity Economy Council (ASEC) team participated at the ASEAN Peoples' Forum (APF). They were Dr Ben Quinones (Philippines), Dr Eri Trinurini and Chandra Firmantoko (Indonesia), Boonsom Namsomboon and Daodol Rummanpol (Thailand), and Kon Onn Sein & Dr Denison Jayasooria (Malaysia).
APF or the ASEAN Civil Society Conference is an annual gathering of CSOs in ASEAN interfacing with the ASEAN Summit. The 2018 gathering was hosted by Singapore and over 200 people gathered at the Singapore Polytechnic Graduates Guild in Singapore from 2 to 4 November 2018.
​
Plenary Sharing at APF
Both Dr Ben Quinones and Dr Denison Jayasooria were speakers at Day One's plenary session. Denison highlighted the theme of Sustainable Development Goals - the 2030 agenda with that the ASEAN community vision of 2025 drawing complementarities and lessons. Ben on the other hand presented the five-fold agenda of the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE), namely, the triple bottom line (people, profits and environment) and two others namely governance and edifying values. We both noted that SSE could be a useful tool to realise the holistic goals of SDGs at the grassroots.
​
Workshop Sharing at APF
The ASEC Team hosted a workshop on Day Two on the theme "Transformative Economic Movements at the ASEAN Grassroots: Hope and Inclusion". About 30 people participated at this workshop held on 3 November from 11am to 1pm at ACSC/APF 2018. Here we made five presentations.
​
Denison presented an overview of SDGs, SSE and ASEAN community vision followed by the presentation of four case studies which are country specific. Onn Sein presented a micro case study from Malaysia of how a group of nomadic forest based indigenous community who were hunters and gathers are now organic vegetable farmers. Boobsoom highlighted the story of the informal sector namely street vendors in Bangkok who were in solidarity for their business development but at the same time exercised their citizenship human rights in hosting a street demonstration to fight and advocate their rights to undertake business activities without corruption and harassment of local city enforcement officials. Eri of Indonesia drew on the work of Bina Swadaya’s village revitalisation program to address rural-urban migration well as migration to other countries as low-skilled workers. Ben highlighted the exploitation of poor peasants in Isabela province in Philippines and their application to SDGs and SSE in their grassroots action.
​
We concluded the workshop noting the challenges and solutions needed. ASEC has recommendation that ASEAN CSO/NGOs undertake a mapping exercise of our activities with SDGs – goals, targets and indicators. We also have called for the write-up of grassroots realties, not just the description of human rights violations but the local solutions undertaken by grassroots committees in addressing their economic, social and cultural rights as well as their civil and political rights.
​
Written by Denison Jayasooria, Chair of ASEC. (Nov 4, 2018)
Above: Hand-over to 2019 host, Thailand
​
Left: Workshop presentation by Asian Solidarity Economy Council (ASEC)'s Dr Ben Quinones (Philippines) at "Safe Movement of Migrants" convergence space.
“Destructive development in ASEAN and international rivers"
ASEAN Rivers are struggling with hydopower development projects beside other destructive projects such as industrial zones, mining, blasting rapids or thermal power plants. With 7 completed dams in China and two almost finished dams in Lao PDR , Mekong downstream communities in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam have been suffering the severe impacts to their livelihood, ecosystem and environment. Meanwhile, mega-dam projects have been proposed for construction in Salweel River in an environmentally and socially sensitive area, posing threats to Karen State communities of Myanmar.
​
Impacts from dams notably exacerbates the impacts of climate change, potentialy leading to non-traditional security problems in the region. The collapse of the Xe Pian-Xe Nam Noy dam in Lao PDR recently is an alarm showing that it is time for ASEAN to review all destructive hydropower projects and seeking common voices and solutions to deal with this problem. These issues will be raised as one of most important topics of ACSC/APF 2018 in two convergence spaces: “Just and Sustainable Development” and “Peace and Security”.
Land Core Group Myanmar believes that the ASEAN People Forum would encourage the ASEAN Governments to establish ASEAN Regional Anti-Corruption policy and mechanism soonest in order to monitor informal, unfair and illegal market and the investments that have negative impacts on environmental and social sectors so that it would be able to protect and sustain land and natural resource right of indigenous people, smallholders and women. This will strengthen the theme of the Forum “Empowering Peoples’ Solidarity Against All Forms of Discrimination”.
"The ACSC/APF is an effective platform to nurture the culture of solidarity across diverse organizations in the region. We need to continue utilize the event for the exchange of views, strengthen south to south knowledge-building and strategize for advocacy in ASEAN and beyond" ~FORUM-ASIA
