nequality and poverty levels remain high in ASEAN, with Gini coefficients ranging from 35.6 to 46.2.[1] In some countries in the region, inequality and poverty levels are escalating despite economic growth. And while in some ASEAN countries a smaller proportion of the workforce is now living in poor households (i.e. living on less than $2 per day), their absolute numbers have risen[2].

Inequality is eroding the economic gains from market integration and economic progress.“Inequality may lead to the misallocation of capital and hamper poverty reduction and growth, possibly eroding social cohesion, and institutional stability. It also runs counter to the AEC’s [ASEAN Economic Community] overarching goal of equitable growth with reduced development gaps between and within Member States.”[3] 

Yet, the commitments of governments of the ASEAN Member States to the social dimension of regional and global integration remain lukewarm. But the people of ASEAN aspire for and demand a Social ASEAN. Therefore, the people of ASEAN and their organizations collectively took the initiative to frame an Agenda for a Social ASEAN. 

The Agenda for a Social ASEAN is the condensation of the aspirations and demands of the people of ASEAN for a strong social dimension in the current process of integration in the region.[4]It is an instrument that embodies the necessary components of an alternative regional development paradigm that seeks to construct a truly caring and sharing ASEAN community. The Agenda for a Social ASEAN –

 

Puts people first. A strong recognition of the primacy of people’s rights and demands over markets and profits and carrying out democratic, participatory and people-centred processes at the national and regional level. 

 

Steers toward a socially just and sustainable development. The integration and complementarity of economic and social policies so that economic policies not only aim at attaining growth but also in narrowing, and eventually eliminating, all forms of inequality. Here, both counterchecks to profits and social redistribution measures are necessary.

 

Creates decent work conditions.The recognition and implementation of core labor standards and fundamental principles and rights at work (including the right to freedom of association and collective bargaining, and the elimination of work discrimination and all forms of forced labor); the creation of (full and secure) employment; the promotion of social protection of workers from unemployment, sickness and old age; and the strengthening of social dialogue among government, employer’s and labor’s representatives for the facilitation of conflict resolution and attainment of social justice.  

 

Enables a life of dignity. The overall goal of the Agenda for a Social ASEAN is to put in place conditions to enable the people of ASEAN to attain a life of dignity. Foremost is the provision of accessible, free or affordable social services and social protection for all. A life of dignity also means providing political, economic and social opportunities for people to fully develop their potentials.

 

Principles underlying a Social ASEAN

 

The underlying principles of a Social ASEAN encompass the following: solidarity, rights-based approach including gender justice and migrant labour rights, universality, comprehensiveness, state-driven based on the needs of people, participatory, and transparency and accountability.

 

Solidarity means “the dynamic and collective process of taking active responsibility for our inter-relationships on both a local and global level… in ways that foster diversity, autonomy, cooperation, communication, and shared-power (direct democracy)”.[5]

A rights-based approach means subordinating market rights to the fundamental rights of human beings and nature, not the other way around. These fundamental rights are enshrined in the UN Declaration of Human Rights (1948), the core ILO Conventions, and the various ASEAN Declarations.

 

Universality means that all people as human beings are entitled to all these rights. Comprehensiveness, not piecemeal, means that the exercise of the rights above requires complementary and coordinated policies and actions by state and non-state actors.

 

State-driven means that state policies and actions must be driven by the needs of the people and guided by roadmaps for the immediate realization of these rights for key functions such as financing, administration and regulation. This includes a constitutional framework that underpins the realization of these rights, with institutionalized mechanisms that insulate state policies and programmes promoting and protecting these rights from patronage and protect them from future administrations that may scheme to dismantle them.

 

Participatory means the active participation of the people of ASEAN in the design and implementation of laws, policies and programmes aimed at enabling people to fully exercise and enjoy their rights and in defining the role of labour and other social partners at the national and regional level. Without the people’s effective participation, ASEAN’s goals of equitable economic development and reduction of poverty and socioeconomic disparities are unlikely to be met.

 

Transparency and accountability means having public participation and control mechanisms that allow peoples’ voice and participation in the design, implementation and monitoring of state policies and programmes that create the conditions for the full exercise and enjoyment of every individual of all the rights listed below.

 

The current integration and development model will not build a Social ASEAN

 

The current ASEAN integration process has been marked by a system of open (neoliberal) regionalism predicated by free trade agreements (FTAs) within and to a greater extent outside ASEAN. This open regionalism has further deepenedthe liberalization of trade, investment, macroeconomic policies, services and skilled labour, with the transnational corporations (TNCs) and big businesses as its main drivers and beneficiaries. As a result, market forces have been reigning people’s lives and communities leading to the loss of traditional means of livelihood, continuing exploitation and informalization of labour, degeneration of all forms of labour protection, the domination of oligopolistic and monopolistic firms forcing out micro, small and medium sellers, the private appropriation and pillaging of commons and natural resources for the exclusive benefit of an extreme minority, and increasing democratic deficit. Thus, despite booming economies for the most part of Southeast Asia, the ASEAN people continue to experience rising joblessness and insecurity, increasing poverty and vulnerability, rampant inequalities, and environmental degradation.

 

Although the ASEAN governments have adopted various significant declarations – ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers (2007), the ASEAN Guidelines on Good Industrial Relations Practices (2010), the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (2012), the ASEAN Declaration on Strengthening Social Protection (2013), and the ASEAN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence Against Women and Elimination of Violence Against Children (2013) – as part of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community pillar[6], the non-binding and non-enforcement nature of these instrument reflect the lack of political will of ASEAN governments to put in place the social dimension of integration. Further, the missing social dimensions in ASEAN developments and processes are evidenced by the lack of: a) bottom-up consultations, b) participation and inclusion of civil society and trade unions in political policy-making processes, and c) binding and accountability mechanisms.

 

Clearly, the current integration and development model in ASEAN will not build a Social ASEAN.

 

Building a Social ASEAN

 

Building a Social ASEAN requires governments of the ASEAN Member States to pursue by all appropriate means, both at the national and regional level, the attainment of conditions for the realization of the four core areas or principles of the Agenda for a Social ASEAN. It should be noted that these core areas or principles are co-dependent and co-evolving, that is, they mutually reinforce each other.The attainment of one core area reinforces the attainment of the other areas; the measures required to achieve one area may necessitate equivalent or corresponding measures in other areas. In this regard, the rights and demands and their corresponding implementation mechanisms relate to the attainment, in varying degrees, of a combination or all of the four core areas.

 

All people of ASEAN irrespective of their gender and sexual orientation, age, religion, ethnicity, race, age and physical and mental abilities are entitled to all the measures embodied in this Agenda.

 

 

Essential services and social protection for all

 

Universal and quality health care, education, humane and low-cost housing, living requirements for water and energy are public goods and part of the social commons. They are connected to the survival, dignity and development of individuals, society and nature. The provision of these essential social services has to be guaranteed and financed by the state. This calls for a reversal of privatization of these public goods. Public-public partnerships, that is, state partnerships with non-profit groups like peoples’ cooperatives on housing, water, energy, health and other essential services, instead of private-public partnerships, are people-centred, transparent and accountable modalities of social services administration and delivery.

 

Social protection includes social security such as living pensions for the elderly and disabled, child allowances, maternity protection, and income guarantees during unemployment, ill health and natural disasters. Universal, not targeted or means-tested, social security coverage means all people (citizens, women in paid and unpaid work, young workers, elderly persons, persons with disabilities, migrants, refugees, undocumented people, people in formal and informal sectors) are entitled. Social security is a public good and thus it should remain in state hands it must be driven by the needs of the people. Governments should endeavour as well to raise progressively the system of social security to a higher level without putting financial burden to the people.

 

Funding for the provision of essential quality services and social protection for all may come from the revenues derived from progressive taxation (taxing the rich more than the poor), taxes on all monetary and financial transactions (Tobin tax), taxes on sales of transnational corporations, and taxes on idle lands based on a given threshold of land size. These policies at the same time redistribute income from the rich to the poor. The promotion of public banking is also a way to generate funds for social priorities. As a matter of public policy, public spending on social protection for all, especially on health and education, should be raised to a minimum of 10 percent of gross domestic product (GDP). At the ASEAN level, setting up a Regional Social Protection Fund, funded through the financial transaction tax, and a Global Fund for Social Protection, can help poorer countries in the region to meet the basic costs of putting social protection systems in place in all the ASEAN Member States.

 

Social protection also includes people’s access to safe and affordable food, produced from ecological and sustainable agriculture of small farmers and farm workers. Small scale farmers and food workers and their organizations should have an effective voice about how food is produced, how fisheries are maintained and how land and natural resources are controlled and managed. As half of the world’s population are engaged in agriculture, social protection systems, industrial policies and development measures should aim at improving the incomes of the rural population, protecting the legal rights of peasants, and recognizing women’s role in food production.

 

Land as well as other productive resources like forests and water is a common resource that should be made accessible to all. This calls for an end to multiple forms of dispossession.

 

Decent work for all

 

ASEAN governments should create the conditions for the achievement and maintenance of the highest possible level of stable employment, with a view to the attainment of full decent employment for all. In this regard, ASEAN governments need to pursue macroeconomic and sectoral policies that promote formal employment, focusing especially on the development of sustainable micro, small and medium enterprises, while protecting workers’ rights.

 

Decent work means just conditions of work (i.e., work hours, rest periods, holidays, formal employment contract, etc.), safe and healthy working conditions and fair remuneration for all workers, irrespective of firm size, gender, ethnicity or race, political views, and sexual orientation. Also, the full exercise of the right to organize and bargain collectively by all workers regardless of employment status, sex, religion, nationality, and political views should be guaranteed. Trade unions have the role and responsibility to organize and unionize all workers, including migrant workers and workers in the informal economy, including those engaged in micro and small enterprises, so that these workers do not remain abused and exploited.

 

Several measures can create the conditions for the achievement of decent work. These are the following: ratification and implementation (i.e., national legislation, institutional support and enforcement mechanisms) at the national level of all the ILO core labour standards; policies that disallow job contractualization; work guarantee programs; and living wages that cover the decent living expenses of a whole family. Funding for the two latter measures may come from the same sources of funding for essential services and social protection. These revenues can be used to subsidize the grant of a national living wage for workers engaged in micro and small enterprises and in the informal economy.

 

Economic, legal and social protection of vulnerable and disadvantaged groups of people

 

The advancement and protection of women remains uneven in ASEAN. Considerable progress in promoting gender equality can be substantially achieved through a combination of various national laws and social policies in compliance with the international standards in employment, and the ratification of ILO Conventions and UN agreements on gender equality.

 

The attainment of gender equality is closely connected to the achievement of decent work. Concrete measures necessary to reach this goal include reinforcing the policy to reconcile work and family life, narrowing gender pay gaps, respecting the principle of equal pay for equal work, offering opportunities for skills development and vocational training, supporting women entrepreneurship, and enabling women to take on leadership roles, which lead to the social and economic empowerment of women.

 

Children and young persons should be ensured of the care, assistance, education and training that they need and protected against negligence, violence and exploitation. States should endeavour to provide free public education to children and young people.

 

The ASEAN governments came up in 2013 with the ASEAN Declaration on the Elimination of Violence against Women and Elimination of Violence against Children.The full implementation of this Declaration will require ASEAN-wide legally-binding domestic laws and appropriate policies, institutions and enforcement mechanisms.

 

Governments should take necessary measures to provide persons with disabilities with education, vocational training and guidance to enable them to access employment and livelihood opportunities.

This can be done by adopting measures that encourage employers to hire and keep them in employment under working conditions that meet the needs of the disabled.To promote their full integration and participation in the life of the community, measures that aim at overcoming barriers to communication and mobility and enabling access to transport, housing, cultural activities and leisure should be put in place.

 

Migrant workers and their families have the right to protection and assistance. This calls for thefull implementation, in terms of appropriate policies, institutions and enforcement mechanisms, of the commitments of ASEAN Member States in the Declaration for the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers, particularly on the provision of safe, transparent and accountable migration processes.

 

Democratic, participatory and people-centred processes

 

ASEAN governments should create the conditions for people’s voice and participation in matters that affect their political, economic and social well-being. One way is the creation of venues and structures at the national and regional level that effectively allow trade unions, peoples’ organizations, civil society organizations, and the academe to engage in ASEAN processes, particularly in the ASEAN Labour Ministers Meeting (ALMM), the ASEAN Commission for Human Rights (AICHR), the ASEAN Commission on Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC), and other ASEAN-level Committees created to implement the various social Declarations. Another measure is creation of an ASEAN ‘social dimension scorecard’, jointly designed by ASEAN governments and organizations of ASEAN peoples, can be used to monitor and track progress on the operationalization of the various ASEAN Declarations in terms of the adoption by all ASEAN Member States of legally-binding and inclusive ASEAN instruments, and the measures to fully realize the various rights of ASEAN people identified above. The scorecard mechanism will require an ASEAN reportorial system by which ASEAN Member States are required to report annually their progress in the attainment of the mechanisms and strategies listed above. The ASEAN Secretariat shall be empowered to call on governments to make the necessary adjustments and/or corrections. National contact points can be set up to implement this reportorial system.

 

Corollary, the establishment of a supervisory mechanism in the AICHR, with equal representation from ASEAN governments, social partners and civil society organizations, including trade unions, can effectively ensure that ASEAN Member States improve their practices to fulfil the global standards of human rights, including a stronger assertion of workers’ rights. Setting up a complaint mechanism in AICHR enables aggrieved workers and their organizations the opportunity to seek legal redress.

 

***

 

The full and effective realization of the measures embodied in this Agenda leads to the attainment of a life of dignity for all ASEAN people. The adoption and implementation of the policies and strategies articulated in this Agenda places primacy of the rights and interests of people and their communities over markets and profits. In short, this Agenda is a seedbed of an alternative national and regional development paradigm that emphasizes the pursuit of the full development of human potential based on equality, solidarity and sustainability, and through democratic and participatory processes.