Development cooperation between the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and the United States through the US Agency for International Development (USAID) has successfully implemented three programs worth US$26 million in the past five years.
“As partners, we look forward to continuing to strengthen ASEAN’s central role in the region to create an open, connected, and resilient Southeast Asia,” US Ambassador to ASEAN Yohannes Abraham said during an ASEAN-USAID event at the ASEAN Secretariat Building in Jakarta on Wednesday.
Since 2018, USAID has collaborated with ASEAN in three programs: IGNITE, PROSPECT and API.
IGNITE is a cooperation for ASEAN-USAID inclusive growth through trade and e-commerce innovation, and PROSPECT is a partnership for regional optimization in politics, security, and socio-culture.
API is an ASEAN policy implementation project funded by USAID and the US State Department.
“The U.S. is proud to be a source of foreign direct investment in two-way trade in goods and services that has grown 114 percent over the past 10 years,” Abraham said.
Through PROSPECT, ASEAN and USAID managed to carry out a number of collaborations, one of which was to increase the capacity of more than 220 practitioners in three ASEAN countries to help victims of human trafficking.
With IGNITE, which is realized through the ASEAN Single Window electronic trade facilitation platform, trade transactions in ASEAN can save around 6.5 billion US dollars (around Rp102 trillion) in five years.
Meanwhile, through API, USAID helped the Indonesian Ministry of Trade conduct a regulatory analysis to improve Indonesia’s readiness for the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA) negotiations.
“The success of PROSPECT, IGNITE, and API demonstrates our commitment to ASEAN empowerment and strengthens our long-term partnership based on shared values that make us all better off, safer, and deliver results for our one billion people combined,” Abraham said.
At the same occasion, ASEAN Secretary-General Kao Kim Hourn praised the achievements of the three programs and looked forward to the implementation of the successor programs.
“It is important to advance collaboration in key emerging areas, such as transportation, transnational crime, women’s empowerment, health, climate, environment, and energy, including through ministerial-level cooperation,” he said.
She also emphasized the importance of efforts to advance human capital development in the region and strengthen people-to-people ties, including through the expansion of the Southeast Asia Young Leaders Initiative (VSEALI), the US-STAN Fulbright Scholarship Initiative, and the US-ASEAN Institute for Rising Leaders Fellowship.
