{"id":35409,"date":"2017-11-10T12:57:56","date_gmt":"2017-11-10T01:57:56","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/?p=35409"},"modified":"2017-11-10T12:57:56","modified_gmt":"2017-11-10T01:57:56","slug":"time-to-consider-refinancing-options-for-the-asean-secretariat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/time-to-consider-refinancing-options-for-the-asean-secretariat\/","title":{"rendered":"Time to consider refinancing options for the ASEAN secretariat"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/figure>\n

The 31st ASEAN Summit and its related meetings, including the East Asia Summit, start today and will run through 14 November. Lost in the hoopla over Trump\u2019s attendance and the ongoing tension in the Korean peninsula is the critical agenda of ASEAN secretariat (ASEC) reform.<\/p>\n

In August this year, the group\u2019s foreign ministers simply noted<\/a> that they were \u2018pleased with the ongoing progress in the implementation of the recommendations by the High-Level Task Force (HLTF) on Strengthening the ASEAN Secretariat and Reviewing the ASEAN Organs\u2019. With the annual tradition of parsing out ASEAN statements over China and the South China Sea, crucial intra-ASEAN plans have taken a backseat.<\/p>\n

Yet, prompted<\/a> by the infamous 2012 Cambodian chairmanship, the group formed the HLTF to boost ASEC\u2019s role and capacity as an \u2018institutional solution\u2019. By the 2014 ASEAN Summit, regional leaders declared<\/a> that they were committed to \u2018strengthening\u00a0ASEAN\u2019s institutional capacity to support the ASEAN Community building, through streamlining and improving its work processes and coordination among ASEAN Organs and Bodies, enhancing the conduct of ASEAN\u2019s external relations and strengthening the ASEAN Secretariat\u2019.<\/p>\n

The ASEC reform, in other words, was part of a wider range of institutional reform policies, from streamlining meetings to empowering the secretary general (see here<\/a> and here<\/a>). Most if not all of those recommendations, however, hinge on ASEC\u2019s budgetary capacity.<\/p>\n

The ASEC employs around 300<\/a> staff with a budget of about $20 million<\/a> by 2016. The amount is miniscule considering the over 1,000 meetings<\/a> it must organise annually. Some of the meetings should be aligned with the local host (ASEAN chair) each year, which raises the complexity and cost. As ASEAN chair for the 2017 summit season, the Philippines has organised 283 meetings<\/a> at a cost of about $300 million (and possibly more<\/a> given the security needs).<\/p>\n

The current ASEC budget is unsustainable. According to the Asian Development Bank Institute<\/a>, by 2030, the number of ASEC staff must increase to 1,620 with a budget of about $220 million (more than 12 times the current budget). Those projections are based on the need to handle numerous ASEC activities that have grown (and will continue to grow) to fulfil the mandates of the ASEAN charter.<\/p>\n

The projected budget includes staff salary increases to attract the best and brightest. As it stands, on average, ASEAN salaries were only two-thirds<\/a> of those of a comparable Jakarta-based UN agency. Any ASEAN-wide institutional reform policies therefore would be harder to pursue without significantly boosting the budget\u2019s size and structure.<\/p>\n

The current budget structure is based on the members\u2019 equal contribution, per the ASEAN charter. This basically boils down to a negotiation over the lowest common denominator\u2014 finding the balance between what Singapore and Indonesia could afford with what Laos and Myanmar could contribute.<\/p>\n

But if we read the charter carefully, there\u2019s room for a reinterpretation. As Article 30 of the charter<\/a> notes, \u2018The operational budget of the ASEAN secretariat shall be met by ASEAN Member States through equal annual contributions<\/em> which shall be remitted in a timely manner\u2019 (emphasis mine). There\u2019s nothing specific about the monetary<\/em> equal value of those contributions. Much like UNCLOS prescribes an \u2018equitable solution\u2019 to maritime disputes, member states in this sense have (relative) space to interpret \u2018equal contribution\u2019.<\/p>\n

I suggest a reinterpretation based on two options: either (A) equal share (percentage) of each country\u2019s annual expenditure, or (B) equal share based on each country\u2019s economic development conditions.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s assume under the current format that each member contributes $2 million. That figure represents a small fraction of each member\u2019s annual expenditure\u2014from roughly 0.004% (Singapore) to 0.052% (Laos). In Option A, equality in proportion of expenditure means that each member must contribute an equal share of its annual expenditure. I propose an equal share of 0.02% of members\u2019 national expenditure (see the table below). That option could get us roughly $93 million (or around half of what ASEC needs by 2030).<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n

In Option B, equality in levels of economic development means that each member contributes \u2018equally\u2019 based on how developed its economy is. I propose that we use three different economic indicators: GDP, GDP per capita, and intra-ASEAN trade balance (each weighted differently: 30%, 40% and 30%, respectively). That option could get us to roughly $88 million (less than half of what ASEC needs by 2030).<\/p>\n

Both options could be implemented gradually, perhaps within a three- to five-year scheme with a biannual review mechanism. If we can get to roughly the $100 million mark by 2025, then it would be a success. In any case, however, the problem with this reinterpretation idea will likely be political, especially if consensus decision-making remains.<\/p>\n

Some members don\u2019t want a strong secretariat, while others might simply be unwilling to pay more. After all, there remains a huge wealth gap within ASEAN, and changing the current equal monetary value format raises the \u2018hierarchy of influence\u2019 concerns. But if the challenges surrounding the South China Sea in recent years have taught us anything, isn\u2019t it the case that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?<\/p>\n

The ideas in this post were presented at a workshop <\/em>organised as part of the Australia\u2013Singapore\u2013United States Policy Trialogue on Southeast Asia (APTOS) hosted by the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, Hawaii, on 25\u201327 October 2017. <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The 31st ASEAN Summit and its related meetings, including the East Asia Summit, start today and will run through 14 November. Lost in the hoopla over Trump\u2019s attendance and the ongoing tension in the Korean …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":225,"featured_media":35424,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[189,120,473],"class_list":["post-35409","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-general","tag-asean","tag-budget","tag-east-asia-summit"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nTime to consider refinancing options for the ASEAN secretariat | The Strategist<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspistrategist.ru\/time-to-consider-refinancing-options-for-the-asean-secretariat\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Time to consider refinancing options for the ASEAN secretariat | The Strategist\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The 31st ASEAN Summit and its related meetings, including the East Asia Summit, start today and will run through 14 November. 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