After more than 35 year of ASEAN’s existence, it is now apparent that ASEAN has transformed itself to become a key regional organization in development. ASEAN has a strong political clout while at the same time enjoys the recognition from its communities, two necessary pre-requisites for becoming an effective agent for regional development.  Naturally, ASEAN cooperation activities have become the main vehicle for implementing major ASEAN initiatives and development agenda.  There are four major areas of cooperation under ASEAN framework, namely:

1.      Political and Security Cooperation;

2.      Economic Cooperation;

3.      Functional Cooperation; and

4.      Development Cooperation

Since the articulation of the ASEAN Vision 2020 in 1997 and the adoption of the Hanoi Plan of Action (HPA) in 1998, ASEAN had entered into more systematic process of development through cooperation planning and programme implementation.  The HPA, the first of a series of plans of action building up to the realisation of the goals of the Vision, contains further articulation of ASEAN development objectives and listed more specific goals to be attained within the HPA’s effective period of 1998-2004. With such a structure in ASEAN development direction, more systematic achievement of these development goals can now be pursued through coordinated implementation of ASEAN cooperation activities.

Among the four areas of cooperation as indicated above, the development cooperation can be considered as a systematic mechanism for achieving key ASEAN development goals through a programmatic implementation of development activities and projects involving all Member Countries. The development cooperation is typically focused on issues and problems that can best be addressed at the regional level, not to repeat what can be achieved at the national level, but rather to complement and harmonize national efforts.  The steps in ASEAN regional development cooperation programme typically include:

1. Harmonization of policies to create a consistent regional legislative framework;
2. Harmonization of institutional mechanism to implement a consistent regional management regime especially in the public sectors; and
3. Capacity building in the relevant key and supporting sectors to initiate the necessary institutional changes toward achieving the above harmonization efforts.

Although theoretically the above steps can be implemented in the areas of political and security, economic, and functional cooperation, in practice ASEAN development cooperation largely supports activities primarily in the economic and functional sectors. In the economic sectors, for example, the cooperation may cover fields such as trade, customs, standard, or investment, whereas in the functional sectors, the cooperation may cover fields such as agriculture and forestry, environment, science and technology, or social development.

Programme Coordination has been one key aspect in the ASEAN development cooperation, particularly to synergize various cooperation activities to form coherent efforts to achieve the well-defined common development objectives as articulated in the HPA or in the future plans of action. Initiated by closer sectoral cooperation and coupled with the need to address development problems which are cross-sectoral in nature, the programme coordination in ASEAN has become much better structured in the recent years. 

As mandated by the Protocol Amending the Agreement on the Establishment of the ASEAN Secretariat, the ASEAN Secretary-General shall plan, programme, coordinate, harmonize and manage all approved technical cooperation activities.  In this regard, the ASEAN Secretariat serves as a focal point where the planning, design, prioritization of implementation, and monitoring of ASEAN development cooperation programmes are being coordinated with ASEAN sectoral bodies and with the Member Countries.  Projects to implement ASEAN programmes through cooperation activities would typically be thoroughly appraised to determine their implementation priorities.  Projects which meet ASEAN priorities in a given period would subsequently be recommended by the Secretary-General to Member Countries to be considered for implementation.