BASELINE ASSESSMENT ON PROGRESS INDICATORS FOR ASEAN

How to measure Social and Cultural progress in the ASEAN region

During the year 2020, the year of the pandemic, QOEN has been assigned by MDF Asia to lead the formulation of a Baseline Assessment of the 32 progress indicators of the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Blueprint 2025. This "ASCC Blueprint 2025" is the strategy and planning mechanism for achieving joint progress by the ASEAN Member States on social and cultural development by 2025. To clearly measure progress, and to understand the social and cultural developments in the ASEAN countries, the ASCC Blueprint 2025 has outlined a results framework that monitors and assesses development results in the ASEAN member countries. 

Koen W. Toonen has been leading a team of MDF Consultants to study the 32+ indicators of the ASCC Blueprint and find ways that would enable the easy collection of data by the ASEAN Secretariat and by their counterparts in the ASEAN Member States. The exercise has established a clear set of indicators, definitions, data collection tools and methods, and targets and resulted in having set a clear reference point against which progress on social and cultural developments in ASEAN can be measured. The final report that has been produced has been presented to the ASEAN Secretariat in October 2020.