Mandated by the ASEAN Charter in article 1, ASEAN aims to strengthen democracy, enhance good governance and the rule of law, as well as promote and protect human rights and fundamental freedom. Furthermore, the organization also promotes a people-oriented ASEAN in which all sections of society are encouraged to participate in and benefit from the process of ASEAN integration and community building.
Drawing with these mandates, DELGOSEA organized a conference to discuss the association in the perspective of a value-based community. The conference was held on 15-16 January 2014 in Bangkok and brought a Keynote Speaker, Mr. Gerhard Stahl, Secretary General of the Committee of the Regions of the European Union.
Although the meeting was conducted a day after the ‘Bangkok Shutdown’ began, it succeeded to gather nearly 80 participants from different backgrounds including Local Governments, Local Governments Associations, National Governments, Academes, and International Organizations in the ASEAN’s countries. The participants enjoyed the discussion and reported that the meeting was meaningful and comprehensive. It discussed several challenges in ASEAN such as administrative and financial decentralization, people participation, local decision-making and transparency and accountability in local development in the region in preparing for the ASEAN Community 2015.
Several recommendations were drawn highlighting the needs of ASEAN to empower local governments and to create platform for them to be fully involved in the organization. Additionally, the conference also has succeeded to adopt several challenges of good governance faced by the ASEAN member states such as minimum standards of people participation, institutional governance, and decentralized administration structure.
Prior to the conference, the core stakeholder meeting of DELGOSEA was conducted to discuss the democratic internal structure of DELGOSEA Network, the draft text for a Manifesto on ‘ASEAN Guidelines on Good Local Governance’ and Standing Committee (SC) of DELGOSEA work plan. The meeting has adopted several outputs including the establishment of the network council at the regional level and national level, the procedure of network council, and also division of functions as well as links between SC and the network council.
Furthermore, there was also an informal meeting of national governments representatives following the conference. The national governments representatives stood as the advisors of DELGOSEA network comprising Ministry of Home/Interior Affairs and Ministry of Foreign Affairs in all ASEAN’s states. It was the first meeting of the representatives to endorse the establishment of the advisory board of DELGOSEA. The discussion of the procedures and functions of the board was also carried out and adopted by the board’s members.
