RECENTLY, I reconnected with an old friend over coffee after almost 16 years.
We first met when I was a research fellow at Singapore’s Institute of Policy Studies. Since then, our careers have taken us in different directions. Mine led me to the Asean Secretariat in Jakarta. Hers led her into education, youth development, and social innovation.
As we talked about South-East Asia, against the backdrop of Asean Day on Aug 8, I asked how she viewed Asean today, particularly through the eyes of young people. She paused and said, almost matter-of-factly: “Asean is not cool.”
I laughed, and yet the more I reflected on those four words, the more I realised she might have diagnosed one of Asean’s biggest public-diplomacy challenges, which is not that Asean is uncool, but that Asean often sounds ... like Asean!
For nearly six decades, Asean has spoken the language of declarations, road maps, blueprints, master plans and visions. These documents matter. They have helped preserve peace, deepen economic integration and transform South-East Asia into one of the world’s most dynamic regions. Yet they are not the language spoken by a 19-year-old deciding where to study, a young entrepreneur building a start-up, or a climate activist wondering what kind of future she will inherit.
Perhaps Asean does not have a policy problem. Perhaps it has a storytelling problem. During my cumulative 15 years at the Asean Secretariat, one lesson became increasingly clear. People do not connect with institutions through organisational charts, official communiques, policy papers, or formal meetings. They connect through human interest stories, experiences, and shared aspirations.
The good news is that Asean does not need to reinvent itself. It simply needs to communicate differently. The region already possesses much of what younger generations embrace: diversity, creativity, entrepreneurship, mobility, innovation, and vibrant cultures. What is missing is a narrative that connects these strengths in ways people can see, feel, and experience.
Consider Singapore, one of Asean’s founding members. Today, one of Asean’s deputy secretaries-general is Singaporean. Yet if I stopped 100 people along Orchard Road and asked them who occupies that important regional office, I suspect very few would know.
That is not a criticism of Singaporeans. It is a reflection of Asean’s visibility in our daily lives. Despite everything Asean does behind the scenes – from maintaining regional peace and facilitating trade to disaster management and aviation connectivity – it rarely enters everyday conversations.
Asean is often present in government. It is far less present in people’s imagination. For many South-East Asians born after 2000, Asean is something they occasionally hear about when an Asean summit appears on the news.
Yet theirs is the first generation that has never known South-East Asia without Asean.
They cross borders, stream Thai dramas, listen to Malaysian and Indonesian musicians, watch Filipino content creators, drink Vietnamese coffee, follow Singaporean entrepreneurs, visit Angkor Wat and Shwedagon, and explore Brunei Darussalam and Timor-Leste.
They consume one another’s food, films, fashion, sports, and digital culture almost instinctively. In many ways, society has become regional faster than our institutions have learnt to communicate it.
Young South-East Asians are already living an Asean lifestyle. They just do not call it that. This is why Asean’s next challenge is not merely better communication. It is building a stronger Asean identity. Asean has spent nearly six decades building a community. The next two decades must be spent helping South-East Asians feel they belong there. Identity does not come from logos and slogans. It grows through repeated experiences, shared memories, and common aspirations. Europe offers a useful lesson – not because Asean should emulate the European Union, but because Europeans encounter the EU in everyday public discourse. Whether they support or criticise Brussels, they know why it matters. Asean has deliberately chosen a different model of regional integration, and rightly so.
This does not mean it should remain largely invisible outside official circles. Imagine Asean featuring more prominently in school curricula, not merely as a chapter in geography or history but as part of civic education.
Imagine students encountering Asean through exchanges, volunteer programmes, innovation challenges, sporting events, and cultural festivals. Imagine if every major Asean initiative had to answer one simple question: “Why should a 19-year-old care?” This is not because young people need to be specially entertained, but because they deserve to understand how regional cooperation shapes their opportunities.
What if the Digital Economy Framework Agreement were explained not simply as another regional initiative, but as something that could help a young programmer in Bandung build an application serving customers across South-East Asia? What if Asean climate cooperation were told through young volunteers restoring mangroves, innovators developing clean technologies, and communities making their cities more resilient? What if Asean Community Vision (ACV) 2045 were discussed less through strategic pillars and implementation matrices and more through what life could look like for today’s university students in 20 years? Better jobs? Cleaner cities? Easier crossborder entrepreneurship? Greater resilience to climate change?
An artificial-intelligence revolution that includes rather than excludes?
These are not marketing exercises. They are acts of public diplomacy. Making Asean visible, however, cannot be the responsibility of the Asean Secretariat alone.
The secretariat was never intended to be a regional public- relations agency.
National governments can bring Asean into civic education and domestic conversations.
Local governments can translate regional priorities into changes citizens experience in their communities.
Schools and universities can nurture regional curiosity.
Businesses, artists, filmmakers, athletes, social entrepreneurs, digital creators, and the media can tell Asean stories in ways official communiques never could.
Asean identity cannot be built from Jakarta alone. It must be nurtured across all 11 member states, from Nay Pyi Taw to Dili, from Hanoi to Jakarta.
Asean has largely been built from the top down. The challenge for the next 20 years is to build it from the bottom up as well. The ACV 2045 provides that opportunity.
It should become a shared story about the South-East Asia young people will inherit – and the role they can play in shaping it. No young person wakes up wondering how the latest Asean declaration will affect them, though many will wake up thinking about their next job, whether they can study abroad, how to build a business, where they can travel, how to make a difference, and what kind of future awaits them.
Those are Asean stories too. We simply have not told them well enough. On reflection, I would respectfully disagree with my old friend. Asean is already cool. It simply needs to stop sounding like Asean and start sounding like the people it hopes to inspire. The true measure of Asean’s success in 2045 will not simply be whether governments implement another regional vision.
It will be whether a young South-East Asian can proudly identify with their own country and, without hesitation, add: “I am also proud to be Asean.” — The Jakarta Post/Asia News Network
Lee Yoong Yoong is a strategic advisor at Asean Governors and Mayors Forum United Cities and Local Government Asia Pacific.
