Azlan Othman

ASEAN launched its first Youth Dialogue in conjunction with this year’s designation as the Year of ASEAN Youth.

The two-day event commences today in Siem Reap, Cambodia, with Brunei youth joining peers from across the ASEAN region and the South Korea participating.

The ASEAN Secretariat (ASEC) and the Cambodian Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport, jointly organised the dialogue with support from the ASEAN-Korea Cooperation Fund under the 9th ASEAN-Korea Frontiers’ Forum.

The areas to be addressed in the dialogue align with priorities under Cambodia’s ASEAN Chairmanship this year with the theme ‘ASEAN ACT: Addressing Challenges Together’.

The theme focusses on Youth in the era of Fourth Industrial Revolution: Opportunities and challenges in post-pandemic recover.

The inaugural batch of participants are expected to deliver a set of policy recommendations on how to prepare the region for the fourth industrial revolution, in this case, through ASEAN’s cooperation with South Korea.

Youth delegates in Siem Reap will engage in a face-to-face dialogue with ASEAN youth ministers and high-level officials on youth empowerment, participation in pandemic recovery and regional integration.

There are eight thematic areas shaping the recommendations and dialogue which include governance; science, technology and innovation; the future of work; infrastructure and connectivity; inclusive and sustainable growth; climate change; narrowing the development gap in ASEAN; and people-to-people exchanges.

The dialogue will also feature three main sessions: Panel discussion on youth in the post COVID-19 Fourth Industrial Revolution: Opportunities and challenges; High-level panel discussion on how youth can innovate for human resources development; and Dialogue with ASEAN ministers and high-level officials on policy recommendations from the youth delegates.

Speakers from the ASEAN Foundation, Maybank Foundation, Seoul National University, United Nations Population Fund, as well as young leaders and entrepreneurs, will be joining the event.

Meanwhile, ASEC organised a virtual pre-departure programme on July 18-20, with 68 youth participants from across the region and South Korea, through the collaboration of ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Youth, the Ministry of Gender Equality and Family of the South Korea, and the ASEAN-Korea Centre.