Page 132 - The Ethics of ASEAN

The Ethics of ASEAN

In this ECAAR dialogue we see different perspectives of
human development in ASEAN with a particular focus on human
development at work.
Rodora Babaran is Director of Human Development,
ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Department of the
ASEAN Secretariat. She is responsible for managing the
Human Development Directorate with four divisions: Health;
Education, Youth and Sport; Labour and Civil Service; and
Poverty Eradication and Gender.
Ms Babaran explains how human development for ASEAN
is part of the socio-cultural pillar and founded on the ethics
of a people-centered and people-oriented community. The
Directorate of Human Development is born out of the 1967
Bangkok Declaration with the goals of accelerating economic
growth, social progress and cultural development. In 2021 a
new vision and roadmap for the year 2025 with people at the
centre, actively engaging in the community-building process
and partaking in its benefits, was put forward. In other words,
human development in all aspects is central to the ASEAN
Figure 1: Ms Rodora Turalde agenda since the beginning and this continues with the ASEAN
Babaran, Director of Human
Development of the ASEAN 2025 roadmap.
Secretariat
What is specifically included in the ASEAN vision of human
development is promoting and protecting human rights and
fundamental freedoms, improving quality of life and living
standards of its people, ensuring decent work for all, achieving
gender equality and social inclusion, and enabling participation
and meaningful engagement of its peoples.
ASEAN 2025 also considers human development
challenges, including the disruptive effects of digitalisation
and preparation of the people for the future of work. The digital
economy is expected to add 1 trillion US dollars to the total
region’s GDP of member states by 2030 but a digital economy
also means greater automation of work and new ways of
working such as human-machine work and gig work. These
changes can increase precarity of employment for today’s
workers and become an added factor of the already worrisome
inequality in the ASEAN workplace.
Many human development inequalities were revealed
during the COVID-19 pandemic. In ASEAN the pandemic resulted
in the loss of more than ten million jobs and pushed ten million
people into extreme poverty. Women disproportionately
suffered much of the job losses and the hardship was increased
by caring for children during school closures. On the other
hand, Ms Babaran assesses ASEAN management of the

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