Southeast Asia Will Struggle in the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ Without Regional Collaboration

Posted by AsiaViews | Nov 27, 2017 | 0 |

By Chino S. Leyco

Manila Bulletin, 15 Nov 2017

(https://business.mb.com.ph/2017/11/15/southeast-asia-will-struggle-in-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/)

Member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) need to improve their collaboration to deal with the challenges of the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) said yesterday.

Based on a new joint report launched by the Manila-based multilateral institution and the World Economic Forum, the 11 members of ASEAN must think at the regional level, not the national level.

The report acknowledged the many existing national strategies for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, such as Thailand 4.0 or Singapore’s Smart Nation initiative.

The report ASEAN 4.0: What Does the Fourth Industrial Revolution Mean for Regional Economic Integration? ADB noted that emerging technologies will reshape Southeast Asia in the future, thus ASEAN leaders need to prepare for the deep transformations that lie ahead.

The treatment of cross-border data flows, for example, is one of the pressing issues highlighted by the report. As data currently are prevented from flowing seamlessly across borders, new technologies such as telemedicine or the Internet of things will be limited in their potential.

The report has offered recommendations to ASEAN leaders to prepare their institutions for the forthcoming challenges associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

The among the recommendations is for the ASEAN Secretariat to become a ‘platform organization’ that allows for the integration of input from multi-stakeholder groups of experts and should delegate more activities to affiliated functional bodies.

Likewise, the ADB said long-term blueprints should be replaced with three-year rolling plans, noting the speed of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, most forecasts, will quickly be outdated. ASEAN must be agile and allow for course correction.

The ADB also recommended the democratization and decentralization of policy formulation to make ASEAN’s policy-making process more inclusive, and a truly owned as well as managed by the people for their benefit.

The report added that ASEAN may also need to establish test beds for new approaches to regulation as a way to nurture multi-country experiments in shaping new technologies.

“Hire staff capable of running a platform model effectively. The staff must be well versed in managing the new Fourth Industrial Revolution tools and have a strong record in this regard,” ADB said.

Finally, the ADB said that ASEAN should adopt a new funding model to provide more financing for the regional secretariat’s operation.

Chino Leyco is a finance reporter for the Manila Bulletin.

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EXTRICATING NDONESIAN CHILDREN FROM ISIS INFLUENCE ABROAD

Indonesia urgently needs to revisit the possibility of repatriating the neediest of its young citizens stranded abroad, whose families had earlier joined ISIS. Most of these children are in camps in northern Syria but there are also small numbers in the Philippines, Afghanistan and Iraq. “Extricating Indonesian Children from ISIS Influence Abroad”, the latest report from the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict (IPAC) argues that the government could begin by bringing back small groups of unaccompanied children under ten years of age, who pose minimal security risk and are most vulnerable to deteriorating conditions in the camps.“The problem is that health and security conditions are worsening by the day in the Syrian camps, and the children are growing older,” says Dyah Kartika, IPAC analyst. “They need access to schools, a nurturing environment, and medical attention. If the government waits too long, the children will be further exposed to ISIS ideology.” The new report examines a 2019 list of Indonesians in camps and prisons run by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The Indonesian government has been trying to verify their citizenship, but with pseudonyms, misspellings and bad transliterations, it is a daunting task. At the time the data was collected, between March and June 2019, there were 555 Indonesians in SDF camps and prisons, including 367 children. Among the children, approximately 277 were under the age of ten and 34 were unaccompanied. In June 2021, there are fewer than ten children who are both unaccompanied and under the age of ten that could be prioritized for return. Bringing back children of ISIS families is no easy task. The report analyses the main challenges faced by the Indonesian government. These include definitional issues, bureaucratic competition, the difficulty of verifying nationality, evaluating the toll of exposure to conflict, assessing security risk, and finding relatives or others willing to provide care once the children are returned. In addition, COVID has meant stringent restrictions on travel, placing further obstacles in the way of repatriation. There are several models for rehabilitation of children exposed to violent extremism in Indonesia that could be modified to accommodate the needs of children repatriated from abroad. The report examines these models and argues that the government does not need to have every detail of rehabilitation programs in place before it starts extricating children from ISIS influence. It can start by bringing back the most vulnerable children and then modify programs as needed.

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Southeast Asia Will Struggle in the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ Without Regional Collaboration