Thailand is to open a new centre to help coordinate sustainable development efforts between Asean and the UN, according to Suriya Chingawongse, director-general of the Department of Asean Affairs.
It is hoped the Asean Centre for Sustainable Development Studies and Dialogue will be established in 2019 -- the year Thailand assumes the Asean chair.
It is also hoped that the centre will come to serve as a platform to develop feasible initiatives that contribute to sustainable development cooperation such as capacity building, workshops and conferences, as well as helping Asean members to optimise opportunities under Asean and UN agendas, he said yesterday.
The initiative was the Thai government's, working as Asean Coordinator on Sustainable Development Cooperation, in response to findings from a UN report "Complementarities between the Asean Community Vision 2025 and the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development".
Such a centre is one among seven flagship initiatives proposed by the report that resulted from an Asean initiative to identify complementary items on the two organisations' agendas to support members. It is a joint endeavour between Thailand, Asean and the UN.
For Asean member states to maintain economic prosperity and a healthy environment, the report suggests flagship initiatives to address priority areas and most critical issues that the region must address.
These include poverty eradication, infrastructure and connectivity, sustainable management of natural resources, sustainable consumption and production, and resilience building.
Among other priorities, the report notes reducing undernourishment in children as one, by ensuring equal access to opportunities and resources.
In doing so, the report says, it will enable children to fully participate in education and employment.
