The 26th ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) Council meeting held in Jakarta, Indonesia on 29 September 2021. ASEAN.ORG
The Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, which represents the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) this year, will organise three key virtual meetings on March 28-30.
The ministry said two of the meetings will be led by Dy Khamboly, who chairs the Senior Officials Committee for the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (SOCA) this year.
The first to be conducted is the 5th Meeting of the ASEAN Working Group on the Declaration of Culture of Prevention (CoP) for a peaceful, inclusive, resilient, healthy and harmonious society – to be held on March 28.
The second is the 32nd SOCA meeting, which will take place on March 29.
The third meeting will be led by education minister Hang Chuon Naron on March 30. Chuon Naron, who chairs the ASCC Council this year, will lead the 27th ASCC Council Meeting.
“These three meetings will review the progress made since the 31st SOCA meeting, the 26th ASCC Council meeting, and other relevant meetings,” the ministry said.
Chuon Naron will brief the ASCC Council meeting on the achievements and results and will also present a sideline event to be held under the theme “ASEAN acting together to solve common challenges.”
The ministry said the meetings will also exchange ideas on strategies to implement resolutions that ASEAN leaders and ASEAN partners had made and detail SOCA and inter-pillar plans. The meeting will strengthen relationships among ASEAN members states and partners and protect and promote centrality, unity and solidarity toward building the ASEAN community.
Education ministry’s Dy Khamboly speaks at a press conference in 2020. AKP
Khamboly said SOCA has set four core priorities. The first was promoting the value and understanding of ASEAN identity through education, the exchange of youth and cultures, and through sports.
The second priority is promoting human resource development and empowering women to improve long-term economic development.
The third priority is promoting public health, healthcare and social support for people across ASEAN to build the regional community.
“We all know that health and healthcare, as well as social support, should be a priority in our response to Covid-19,” he said.
The forth priority is to strengthen the administrative capacity and effectiveness of SOCA by interconnecting all of its programmes.
“SOCA plays an important role in solving ASEAN issues that relate to social, cultural, and economic differences, as well as political issues; all of these problems have grown in number in recent times,” he said.
