The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Secretariat and the World Bank (WB) recently signed an important cooperative agreement.
Accordingly, the WB pledges to provide advisory services to ASEAN to strengthen its capacity to monitor progress towards achieving the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) by 2015 the Monitoring and Evaluation Capacity Building Program (AECMEP).
AECMEP is co-financed by the Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) through the support of the ASEAN Australia Development Cooperation Program Phase II (AADCP II).
The ASEAN Secretariat and the WB will further strengthen collaboration in the aspects of disaster management, disaster risk insurance, infrastructure financing, social protection, food security and global development and learning network.
The ten ASEAN economies together constitute a substantial market with the GDP of US $ 1.8 trillion, said Mr. Bert Hofman, the World Bank Chief Economist for the East Asia Pacific Region.
The Chief Economist added that deepening regional integration through the ASEAN Economic Community would become a stronger driver of economic growth for the East Asia region and the whole world.
Under the agreement, the WB will support ASEAN Secretariat and member states to prepare joint ASEAN-WB Integration Monitoring Reports, ASEAN Services Integration report, collect and store policy data, and organize technical workshops on activities where officials from all ASEAN countries will participate./.