Integration

Transport has been recognised by the ASEAN Leaders as the very basis of the ASEAN economic development and integration as it plays a crucial role in the movement of goods, services, capital and people. It also provides great support in binding ASEAN’s economies closer together and in building the ASEAN Economic Community that is so vital for the future of ASEAN nations.
The ASEAN Strategic Transport Plan / Brunei Action Plan (BAP), which was adopted by the Sixteenth ASEAN Transport Ministers (ATM) Meeting in November 2010, serves as the main reference guiding ASEAN transport cooperation and integration as well as identifies strategic actions to be implemented in the period 2011-2015. The BAP also supports the new priority of enhancing regional connectivity identified in the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity (MPAC).

ASEAN was proclaimed a Community through a Declaration signed by ASEAN Leaders at their 27th Summit in Kuala Lumpur on 22 November 2015. This is a historic development and important milestone in the evolvement of ASEAN since its founding in 1967. An ASEAN Community is the realisation of the vision articulated eight years ago by ASEAN Leaders for the regional organisation to achieve community status by 2015.

ASEAN 2025: Forging Ahead Together, which was simultaneously endorsed by the Leaders at their 27th Summit, charts the path for ASEAN Community building over the next ten years. It is a forward looking roadmap that articulates ASEAN goals and aspirations to realise further consolidation, integration and stronger cohesiveness as a Community. ASEAN is working towards a Community that is 'politically cohesive, economically integrated, and socially responsible'. The ASEAN 2025 Document is the outcome of a year of planning and intense discussions, and reflects the determination of Member States to forge ahead with the next phase of ASEAN's evolvement.

This report highlights selected inputs the researchers made to the government team to summarize the essential mechanics and roles for bringing a strategic perspective to the consideration of policy. In doing so, it provides the example of problems associated with an aging population as an illustration of how one can use a strategic perspective in an analysis of policy choices.

Israel will benefit from bringing a systemic strategic perspective into its policy process. The concept is integral to formal strategic planning but distinct; although the latter places emphasis on an output (a strategic plan), a strategic perspective is a process for bringing an analytical element into policy decisionmaking. A strategic perspective helps to bridge not only the gap between a short-term focus and longer-term outcomes but also that across ministerial portfolios and responsibilities.

A strategic perspective typically begins with a vision of what a desirable future state of the world might be. Translating a vision into policy requires an understanding of the challenges to achieving the vision and employing processes for setting specific goals to meet those challenges, identifying indicators to measure both status and progress toward goals, and designing and implementing policy measures that will contribute to achievement of goals.

The present Report offers ideas on how to shape the forthcoming period of Community support beyond the year 2020. The analysis builds on the report “The future of Cohesion policy – Report I” which reflected on the challenges and developments at the local and regional level, focusing mainly on the efficiency and effectiveness of implementing Cohesion Policy (CP). The present Report looks at concepts and models of CP (mainly its territorial dimension) and points out the main current challenges that are most likely to shape the future economic, social and territorial structures.

This second Report in the study series offers ideas on the future of CP. It is structured around two main parts, the first on models of growth, cohesion and well-being, and the second on new ideas and choices for EU CP. Thus projections and assumptions – in particular in the third section of the Report – are of a long-term nature. The present Report largely builds on an extensive desk research including a comparative literature review as well as relevant analyses and reports carried out by the authors of this paper. In addition, the analysis is fed by the results of an online survey carried out with stakeholders who took part in the seminars on the future of CP. Finally, independent interviews were carried out with relevant stakeholders with deep insight and considerable experience in the field of CP.

This report constitutes an attempt to audit Kenya’s Vision 2030 from both an income inequalities and a gender inequalities perspective, and to assess the ability of the Vision to respond to both of these persistent development challenges. Historically, Kenya has been one of the most unequal societies in the world. The launch of Vision 2030 thus provided a key opportunity to suggest ways of better conceptualizing and addressing these inequalities for the good of development in the country. The rationale for this audit was grounded in what is now a well-acknowledged fact, that both income and gender inequalities hinder development. They have been found to negatively affect development efforts and present a challenge to the sustainability of development gains at individual, household and country level. The objectives of the audit are to contribute to enhancing development planning and resource allocation towards greater equity and equality. The audit is intended to help build understandings of government actors engaged in development planning and resource allocation, as well as their partners in civil society and the private sector, on the impacts of inequalities on development performance generally and specifically.

The challenge of resilience in a globalised world discusses the concept of resilience from different perspectives and the role of science in the continuous process of building a resilient, stable, competitive and prosperous Europe.

Resilience is a fundamental prerequisite for Europe as the largest integrated economic area in the world and has an important social dimension which requires the active cooperation of all stakeholders; citizens, the private sector, governments and NGOs included.

This second report is designed to feed into the on-going discussions about the Union’s future as the new EU leadership team takes charge. It aspires to contribute to the debate on how to introduce ambitious while at the same time workable and realistic reforms to make the EU more effective in responding to the challenges Europeans are facing.
The report will be discussed again in a majority of Member States with policy-makers, EU experts, stakeholders and citizens (Phase IV), and the outcome of this process will impact the future progress of the New Pact for Europe initiative.

The world is becoming increasingly multipolar. States that were long thought of as developing or newly industrialized countries are now an influential force in shaping international policy in an interdependent world. They are economic motors and key regional players, active beyond their own regional boundaries. They also play an increasingly important role in international decision-making processes. They are confidently taking their place on the world stage, in international relations, and are assuming ever more responsibility for global issues. In our view they are more than just emerging economies. They are new players with a voice in the conduct of world affairs.

Fifty years after passage of the landmark law that rewrote U.S. immigration policy, nearly 59 million immigrants have arrived in the United States, pushing the country’s foreign-born share to a near record 14%. For the past half-century, these modern-era immigrants and their descendants have accounted for just over half the nation’s population growth and have reshaped its racial and ethnic composition.

Looking ahead, new Pew Research Center U.S. population projections show that if current demographic trends continue, future immigrants and their descendants will be an even bigger source of population growth. Between 2015 and 2065, they are projected to account for 88% of the U.S. population increase, or 103 million people, as the nation grows to 441 million.

These guidelines correspond to a significant degree to policy priorities established by the Members of the European Parliament during the seventh parliamentary term through a large number of reports and resolutions which received broad support in the plenary. President Juncker's ten points are also broadly in line with several of the objectives set out in the 'Strategic Agenda for the Union in Times of Change', adopted in the European Council in June 2014 when it proposed Mr Juncker to the Parliament as its candidate for President of the Commission.
The potential economic benefits of new European-level action may be measured in terms of additional gross domestic product (GDP) generated or in savings in (current or potential) public expenditure or other expenditure, through a more efficient allocation of resources in the economy as a whole.
The analysis set out in this document suggests that there could be very significant economic gains of these kinds, amounting in time to a maximum achievable potential gain of approximately €1.7 trillion per year, on the basis that Mr Juncker's ten priorities were to be fully implemented in a form consistent with various policy requests made to date by the Parliament.