NEAT MEMORANDUM No.19
NETWORK OF EAST ASIA THINK-TANKS (NEAT)
I. INTRODUCTION
As a track two process of the ASEAN Plus Three (APT), the Network of East Asia Think Thanks (NEAT)
provides intellectual support for East Asia cooperation. NEAT reaffirms that the goal of community building in
East Asia is to promote the well-being of the people and realize the East Asian Vision of Peace, Prosperityand Progress. Community building should be based on universal values, including good governance, the ruleof law, democracy, human rights, and international law and norms.
II. NEAT ACTIVITIES IN 2022
Amidst pandemic, NEAT has virtually organized its core activities as follows:
1. NEAT Country Coordinators’ Meeting (CCM)
The 35th and 36th NEAT CCMs were held on 27 April 2022 and 6 September 2022 respectively via Zoom
platform under the host of NEAT-Laos. These meetings were participated by NEAT Country Coordinatorswith their delegation.
2. NEAT Working Group (WG) Meetings
In addition, 6 WGs were organized under the following themes:
1) Digital Transformation as a New Driver for Socio-Economic Development (7 June by NEAT-Vietnam).
2) Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Socio-Economic Recovery and Growth in the Midst of Pandemic(9 June by NEAT-Laos).
3) Deepening APT Third-Party Market Cooperation (23 June by NEAT-China).
4) Strategic Communication Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic: ASEAN Plus Three Countries(APT) Experiences, Best Practices and Ways Forward (12 July by NEAT-Philippines).
5) The Sustainable Development Goals and East Asian Cooperation (21 July by NEAT-Korea).
6) Toward Carbon Neutrality in East Asia (26 July by NEAT-Japan).
III.

RECOMMENDATIONS

Based on the outcomes of NEAT activities in 2022, NEAT respectfully submits key recommendations in six
following areas to the APT leaders for consideration.
1. Digital Transformation as a New Driver for Socio-Economic Development
The digital transformation plays a critical role in economic recovery and development. Nevertheless, tomaximize the benefits of digital technologies, APT should overcome the challenges, such as: inadequate
ICT-related legal frameworks, the lack of digital infrastructure, limited digital literacy, the digital gap
between urban and rural areas, inadequate transport infrastructure and poor delivery system among
others. Thus, the following recommendations are provided:
1) Strengthen the solidarity among APT countries and demonstrate political will and commitment
to a more robust regional cooperation in the digital economy.
2) Strengthen cooperation and sharing of information, providing technical expertise in training andpromoting dialogue on how to set up relevant policies on digital transformation and signing digital
economic agreements so as to address the technology divide and fragmentation.
13) Improve both the business environment and policy framework for digitalization and digitaltransformation, which would require holistic changes in corporate culture and business
operations.
4) Develop policies for the digital transformation of the APT member countries, and develop policy
measures to ensure this transformation will not damage our achievement of poverty reduction.
5) Strengthen science and technology cooperation and transfers on technologies proven to be
essential in dealing with pandemics, such as AI, robotics and drones, and digital and mobiletechnologies.
2. Sustainable, Inclusive and Resilient Socio-Economic Recovery and Growth in the Midst of
the Pandemic
The COVID-19 has disastrous socio-economic impacts in all regions of the world including in the APT.
In order to accelerate the process of recovery from the COVID-19 in a sustainable, inclusive andresilient manner, recommendations are made as follows:
1) Accelerate digital transformation by investing in digital infrastructure and strengthening digital
literacy.
2) Reconnect and enhance the disrupted supply chain by further developing the planned
infrastructure while upgrading the existing infrastructure for connectivity as well as lowering tradebarriers while re-boosting tourism among APT countries and beyond.
3) Finance MSMEs by providing better access to funding through credit facilities and financing
scheme for the most impacted MSMEs while lowing tax rate to counter the increasing inflation
rate and the soaring global commodity prices, especially oil, gas and food prices. This will help
to speed up recovery process.
4) Design pro-poor policies and apply local or community-based approach to development toensure that the vulnerable groups of citizens can benefit from the process of recovery.
5) Further strengthen public health system aiming at creating a more robust, resilient andtransparent health system in order to prepare for the future pandemics.
6) And invest in clean energy infrastructure development. This will create new employment
opportunities, which will enable people to generate income to restore their livelihoods that havebeen impacted by the pandemic.
3. Deepening APT Third-Party Market Cooperation
The APT countries have recognized the importance and potentials of Third-Party Market Cooperation(TPMC). In order to maximize its benefits for all APT countries in both economic and social aspects,
the following recommendations are put forward:
1) Long-term cooperation mechanism as well as rule-based and market-based businessenvironment: Create APT-TPMC Mechanism or Working Group to share trust and resources. It isalso essential to enhance transparency to ensure equal and fair treatment for every TPMCparticipant.
2) Intra-regional policy coordination and development convergence: Uphold ASEAN centrality andRCEP can be an ideal platform to promote TPMC. In addition, synergy among intra-regional
cooperation frameworks and national development programs is also crucial.
3) Cooperation with financial support: priority areas for TPMC should be selected as pilot programs,
including not merely infrastructure and green economy. Besides, sustainable financial support
with diversified sources is urgent, and feasibility of APT-TPMC Fund could be considered.
4) Society-centered approach with multi-objective optimization: prioritize the well-being andlivelihoods of people as well as strive to balance between economic and environmental issues forsustainability. Small and beautiful livelihood projects need to be programmed further for social2sustainability
4. Strategic Communication Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic: ASEAN Plus ThreeCountries (APT) Experiences, Best Practices and Ways Forward
The APT countries highlighted the crucial role of strategic communication lessons from the COVID19 pandemic in response and the way strategies are communicated affects the responses of eachstakeholder to policies. Thus, the APT governments need to ensure that the communication channels
are transparent and timely; actively address falsehoods and fake news, and empower thestakeholders. It is equally important that leaders are able to set a good example to their constituentsto ensure that the reaction to policy is positive. The recommendations are as follows:
1) Strengthening Collaboration between the Government itself and its Stakeholder inCommunication Crisis Response. This can be done through improving close collaboration at
the national and subnational level for information sharing and response decision-making,
Organizing government’s risk communications to support public understanding and satisfaction ;and Strengthen the capacity of officer through conducting trainings on risk communication andcrisis communication across government agencies and local governments; and partnering withmedia organizations, academic institutions, civil society organizations, and youth groups.
Moreover, establish channels to collect and consolidate public issues solicited from individuals
and the private sector; Empower local communities and vulnerable sectors through learnings
gleaned from the COVID-19 response.
2) Promotion of Utilization of Regional Networks and Deeper Cooperation among APT
countries. This can be done through strengthening multi-sectoral and global responses,
establishing a standard framework for communication flows outlining protocols and guidelines
by using both traditional and digital tools to ensure that communication is inclusive.
3) Creating Transparent and Effective Communication Systems by Ensuring that information
disseminated by central and local governments to the public is clear and transparent; Providing
candid and detailed explanations of facts and data as well as, the decision-making process
leading to a better understanding of the public of policies adopted by the government; andAccelerating inclusive digital transformation of communication channels but also adopt different
communication channels such as websites, social media, e-letters, Maintain legacy media toensure information is disseminated in rural and traditional areas.
5. The Sustainable Development Goals and East Asian Cooperation
Considering the urgency of the SDGs, regional cooperation is an essential part of realising the SDGs,
the SDGs needs to be incorporated into the East Asian community-building process. Therefore,
recommendations are put forwarded as follows:
1) It is important that the APT leaders pay more attention to APT cooperation to meet the SDGs
and acknowledge the growing challenges amidst pandemic and significant disparity in progress
made by the member states.
2) To incorporate SDGs implementation into APT cooperation to share good practices of SDGs. i.e.
climate change, capacity building, and human capital/resources development shall beconsidered to ensure no one is left behind.
3) Form APT SDGs multi-stakeholders committee, including national and local governments,
businesses and CSOs to share development model and related technology, and to provide
finance and investment based on the bottom-up approach.
4) For further collaboration among the APT countries conduct joint voluntary national reviews andorganize a special session at the UN High-Level Political Forum.
36. Toward Carbon Neutrality in East Asia
The globe is vulnerable to the climate crisis. To avoid the worst impacts of the crisis, the Paris
Agreement has set the goal of limiting the average global temperature well below 2°C or even striving
achieve 1.5°C above pre-industrial level. To achieve such a global, massive action for emissions
reduction is a must. However, striving to achieve this goal remains a huge challenge for most countries
including those in East Asia due to their different national capacities and conditions. Therefore,
recommendations were made as follows:
1) In spite of a large variety in the economic development levels, social condition and resource
endowment, the APT governments, which have not yet done, LT-LEDS should be formulated at
the earliest to define their pathways toward carbon neutrality by or around this mid-century, as
well as to set policy agenda for achieving the aligned mitigation targets in medium term, thereby
sending strong signals to the market and society.
2) In order to strengthen capacity for LT-LEDS formulation, the APT countries should enhance
experience sharing and mutual learning, and strengthen the capability for integrated modelling
analysis to create scientific basis for scenario setting and emissions pathway development.
3) In order to promote the awareness and ownership of various stakeholders, the APT governments
should enhance the involvement of related ministries, local governments, businesses, NGOsand general public in the process of LT-LEDS formulation. A national consultative process
among various sectors and stakeholders should be applied to strengthen the existing institutionalarrangements and transparency of climate policy framework.
4) The APT governments should take advantage of diversity in the region in order to promote
regional cooperation in the pursuit of raising climate ambition and practices. In particular, thethree large economies in Northeast Asia, including Japan, China and the Republic of Korea, may
provide experiences and technical assistance for the formulation and implementation of climatetransparency system and LT-LEDS in the developing countries of Southeast Asia.
The detailed recommendations refer to the WG reports in the Annexes.
IV. CONCLUSIONNEAT greatly appreciates serious consideration by the APT SOM, Ministers and Leaders of therecommendations in this Memorandum, and welcomes opportunities to interface further with decisionmakers. We reiterate our continued support to build a sounder, healthier and flourishing East Asian
Community. We look forward to make further contribution towards the socio-economic development of thecommunity in the region.
V. Annexes4