Case study of Southeast Asia

Regional aid for trade in the Southeast Asia region has not hitherto figured prominently in the agendas of donors and national leaders, and yet there are strong incentives to champion regional public goods in ASEAN, for example, to achieve the open regionalism vision of the ASEAN Economic Community. Indeed, there is a need to translate the physical infrastructure projects in the Greater Mekong Subregion and other sub-regional programmes and projects into trade and economic corridors. Likewise, support for behind-the-border, customs-immigration-quarantine-security, and market access reforms are needed to foster a greater sense of ownership of projects whose net benefits accrue generally to the region. The Coral Triangle case study and regional case stories suggest that capacity building, including training for leaders who understand strategies of competition, co-operation and “co-opetition”, should target specific value chain participation, and anchor programmes in the quality of growth framework that embraces profits, people and planetary concerns.