THE responses of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) to the Covid-19 pandemic have been described by various observers as divisive, unclear, nonconsultative and impromptu, leading “member-states to combat the virus inde-pendently” and adopting “disparate policies.” The absence of a regional “high-level concerted effort … belies the regional grouping’s highly publicized and projected image of a unified and people-caring Asean.” It was every country for itself.
Asean convened several meetings and summits but produced no tangible results until Covid-19 cases were surging out of control. The “intangible nature” of Asean regional cooperation clearly manifested itself in the vaccination drive. Once again, cooperation was absent as national interests overcame regional concerns thus failing to “bridge the gap between Asean states in terms of the acquisition and production of vaccines.” Further, bilateral support came mostly from non-Asean do-nors.
Asean waited until June 2021, or a full six months since the pandemic’s outbreak, to reach an agreement to establish a Covid-19 Asean Response Fund. It described the fund as “a pool of financial resources to provide support to … member-states in the detection, control and prevention of Covid-19 transmission and in protecting the safety of medical profession-als, health-care workers, frontline workers, and the wider population from Asean member-states.” The fund was also meant to procure “necessary medical supplies and equipment” and “to support cooperation in research and development relevant to Covid-19.”
Aside from the agreement being a belated effort, contributions from Asean member-states have been half-hearted. As of this January, only four Asean governments had pledged amounts totaling a mere US$400,000, with Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines contributing US$100,000 each. Vietnam also donated US$5 million of health equipment.
Non-Asean states have given much more. In August 2021, the Vietnam News Agency reported that US$1.2 billion worth of Covid-19 aid has been granted to Asean by its 11 dialogue partners. The biggest donor was the European Union with US$941 million, followed by the United States with US$158.5 million. Other donations were US$50 million for the estab-lishment of the Asean Center for Public Health Emergencies and Emerging Diseases and US$5 million from China “to strengthen the capacity of Asean member-nations in response to the pandemic.”
It is not clear, though, how much of the US$1.2 billion was coursed through the Asean Response Fund and how much was granted on a bilateral basis. This month, several assistance modes were sent directly to individual Asean member-countries instead of through the fund. These were in terms of vaccine doses, heavy equipment, personal protection equip-ment and institutional support donated to Indonesia, Laos, the Philippines, Cambodia and Myanmar from the Covax fa-cility, the United Kingdom, United States, Japan and South Korea.
Also unclear is the nature of the assistance from non-Asean countries – how much in the form of loans, or in outright grants, or in kind. Earlier, the media reported “that the response fund would have to be accessed through loans from exter-nal donors like China, Japan and South Korea.” For instance, 90% of China’s assistance of 460 million vaccine doses to Southeast Asia in 2021 was in the form of loans.
Donor reluctance to course assistance to a regional facility like the Asean Response Fund may be explained by the fund’s absence of comprehensive guidelines, preventing states from quick access to its resources. Another constraint is the Asean Secretariat, which presumably is the regional body managing the fund.The secretariat has long been considered a weak institution with inadequate human and financial resources and poor monitoring capacity.
In any case, Asean has not been transparent on the status of the Covid Response Fund, failing to issue any official public report and how amounts allocated to it have been utilized and disbursed. In the September 2021 Asean Senior Officials’ Meeting, the Philippines’ representative, Ma. Theresa Lazaro, issued an urgent appeal for Asean to “implement its key initiatives to Covid-19 response for regional recovery (and) stressed the urgency of purchasing vaccines through the Covid-19 Asean Response Fund.” The appeal seemed to have fallen on deaf ears. In Asean’s latest COVID-19 Situational Report of January 17, 2022, there is not a single mention of the fund or its current status.
The absence of well-coordinated regional initiatives on the part of Asean has set back plans for a quick recovery of member-states from the pandemic. Its failure as a regional body to respond quickly and properly to the challenge has ex-acted a heavy toll on the lives and well-being of marginalized and vulnerable peoples in the region.
(This piece is excerpted with revisions from the author’s introduction in “Southeast Asian Peoples in Pandemic Times: Challenges and Responses,” Covid-19 Grassroots Report Vol. 2. UP Center for Integrative and Development Studies, Pro-gram on Alternative Development (UP CIDS AltDev), in partnership with 11-11-11 (Coalition of the Flemish North-South Movement). Unpublished monograph. 22 January 2022.)