The ASEAN Secretariat is currently preparing the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) Blueprint. The final draft is likely to be ready for consideration at the Forty-first ASEAN Ministerial Meeting (AMM) in July 2008.

The ASCC Blueprint builds on the Vientiane Action Programme and incorporates the purposes and principles of ASEAN as formulated in the ASEAN Charter. The ASCC Blueprint will focus on sustainable development, regional resilience, adherence to common norms and values, and narrowing the developmental gaps in the region. It will have six core elements:

• Human development (education, health, youth);

• Social welfare and protection;

• Social justice and rights;

• Environmental sustainability;

• Common ASEAN identity; and

• Narrowing the development gap

There are a number of challenges in designing the ASCC Blueprint:

• Unlike the ASEAN Economic Community, the ASCC lacks concrete drivers, as the stakeholders for the ASCC are far more diverse and complex.

• While the AEC Blueprint has specific targets and timelines, it will be difficult for the ASCC Blueprint to follow the same format. As many of ASCC goals are driven by national agendas, implementation of initiatives have to be done both at national and regional levels and hence may require two types of scorecards.

• ASEAN member countries may not have a common understanding of social issues, such as values, ethics and social justice. Furthermore, unlike the European Union, ASEAN does not have the institutional capacity to translate these social issues into legislation.

• Unlike the AEC, the ASCC does not enjoy the same level of support or enthusiasm from ASEAN's Dialogue Partners.

• The ASCC does not have a champion. Although the lead ASEAN body for the ASCC is the ASEAN Standing Committee (ASC), it is more preoccupied with political issues.

What seems clear here is that designing the ASCC Blueprint will require a very different approach from that of the AEC Blueprint. For the ASCC to move forward, it is important for the ASEAN processes to recognize a number of key factors:

1. (i) that national initiatives will fundamentally drive the basic ASCC concerns of poverty, equity and quality of life;

2. (ii) that the pace of national initiatives will vary, depending on the stage of development of the legal, regulatory, and institutional frameworks in each state; and

3. (iii) that the linkages between national and regional initiatives will have to be clearly established both to generate synergies and to make a clear case for pursuing certain initiatives at the regional level.