Bandar Seri Begawan: The report on the Mid-Term Review of the Implementation of the Asean Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint has been completed and will be presented to leaders in the upcoming 23rd Asean Summit on October 9.
This was announced by Dato Paduka Haji Mohd Hamid Haji Mohd Jaafar, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Culture, Youth and Sports, during the 15th Senior Officials' Committee for ASCC (SOCA) meeting at the grand hall of The Empire Hotel & Country Club yesterday.
During the meeting, senior Asean officials prepared for the final gathering this year of the ministerial body that coordinates sociocultural cooperation across Southeast Asia.
Dato Hamid said the completion of the report was an accomplishment that would not have been possible without the support and cooperation of all ten Asean member states.
"The value of this hard work will be evident when all the findings and recommendations help us to move faster and act more effectively in implementing the blueprint in the coming years," he said.
Among the issues highlighted at the 10th Meeting of the Asean Socio-Cultural Community Council were those involving youth, women, children and other vulnerable groups.
"For the millions of our youths, the challenge is to find gainful employment.
"Given the limitation, the emphasis on creating awareness of the opportunities in what entrepreneurship has to offer is most timely.
"I hope the follow-up to this will help address key issues that our future assets, the youth, are facing.
"Likewise, we will be looking at ways to protect women and children against violence.
"We will also be looking at social protection as a whole. We should be seeing this as an investment in people to empower them to meet their basic needs."
Other items on the agenda included disaster management and non-communicable diseases.
"These will pave the way for greater cooperation amongst all of us in the areas of strategic importance that will bring us closer together as one Asean Community," the Permanent Secretary said.