Jakarta – Coordinating Minister of Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK), Muhadjir Effendy, said that public understanding of ASEAN’s socio-cultural pillar programs is still very limited.

“Most people probably know what ASEAN is, but very few know about the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Pillar programs,” he said, giving Scheduled speech at the National Consultation Forum for Socio-Cultural Pillars of ASEAN Indonesia, Harris Vertu Hotel Jakarta, (11/11).

The Coordinating Minister emphasized that this challenge must be considered in order to make the socio-cultural pillars of ASEAN more real and to feel their existence and benefits for the community. This is an important program that needs to be considered by Indonesia as ASEAN Chair in 2023.

“We must continue to innovate strategies to increase awareness of ASEAN’s socio-cultural pillars. One of the key strategies is to broaden the reach and public participation, so that people can better understand and feel the benefits of ASEAN’s socio-cultural pillars,” Muhadjir said.

Regarding the socio-cultural pillar, the Coordinating Minister of Human Development and Culture said that currently the government has identified at least six priority issues, namely health, protection of migrant workers, climate change, education, disaster management and rural development. The discussion of these priority issues will continue to take into account other important agendas, in particular those that are cross-sectoral, such as the question of the long-term impact of the pandemic on education and the protection of educational rights. children of migrant workers in the Southeast. Asia.

To animate the ASEAN 2023 Chair, various socio-cultural activities are also planned throughout the year.

Muhadjir hopes that this Forum can collect various proposals and recommendations to promote the socio-cultural pillars of ASEAN, as well as prepare the Indonesian ASEAN Chairmanship 2023 in the socio-cultural field.

“I hope there are concrete ideas, programmed and programmed in real life and easy to execute for next year. Hopefully, through today’s forum, we will produce a set of recommendations for Indonesia’s ASEAN Chairmanship in 2023,” he concluded.

The National ASEAN Social Pillar Communication Forum is a forum that involves ASEAN study centers from various Indonesian universities to discuss ASEAN issues in the socio-cultural field, as well as to prepare for the chairmanship of the socio-cultural pillar of ASEAN 2023. At least representatives from 21 Indonesian universities and 11 ministries/agencies. The sectoral institutions of the socio-cultural pillar of ASEAN participate in this activity.

After being opened by the Coordinating Minister of Human Development and Culture, the activity started with a main panel discussion on the theme “Bringing the CCSA closer to the people”. This panel was made up of speakers from various sectors, namely the Director of the Human Development Directorate (HDD), the ASEAN Secretariat; Indonesian Representative to the ASEAN Commission on the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Women and Children (ACWC); Resident Director Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung Indonesia, Director of UGM ASEAN Study Center and Founder of Indonesian Cultural Heritage.

The forum continued with a panel discussion on the deliverables of ASEAN’s Socio-Cultural Pillars for Indonesia’s ASEAN Chairmanship in 2023. Present as speakers in this panel were the MP for the Gender Equality, KemenPPPA, Head of Cooperation Office, Ministry of Manpower, Head of Foreign Cooperation Office, KLHK, Deputy Secretary for Youth Empowerment, Kemenpora, as well as officials from Ministry of Health, Kemendes PDTT and BNPB.