The Reality of Aid (RoA) joined 1300 other delegates at the recently concluded Asean Civil Society Conference/ASEAN People’s Conference that discussed the people’s main concerns across the ASEAN states and developed key proposals for the 18th ASEAN Summit.

In a workshop on 4 May 2011 at Hotel Ciputra in Jakarta, Indonesia, RoA, along with other CSOs across Southeast Asia, organized the workshop “Civil Society Engagement in the ASEAN”. The main objective of the workshop was to bring voices and perspectives on civil society engagement at the national level, in light of the increasingly restrictive environment that exists for civil society’s meaningful engagement with governments in developing and implementing policies and development programs. Despite this restrictive environment, spaces for civil society engagement exist such as on the aid and development effectiveness agenda. RoA shared during the workshop the experiences of CSO engagement with governments on this agenda in the Philippines and Indonesia.

Recommendations from the said workshop were included in the Statement of the 2011 ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples Forum which called on ASEAN member states to recognize the civil society’s crucial contribution to society and respect their diversity, expertise and autonomy; institutionalizing civil society engagement with ASEAN; and committing to minimum standards for an enabling environment for CSOs to reach their potential as equal partners in development.

For the full statement, please follow this link: http://aseanpeoplesforum.net/media/press-releases/168-statement-of-the-2011-asean-civil-society-conferenceasean-peoples-forum.html

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