ASEAN has gradually built, on the basis of both shared interests and common principles and norms, various practices and mechanisms that helped prevent conflict among its members and allowed it to play an autonomous role in shaping the regional security architecture. Overcoming the member states' preoccupation with their own national concerns to give way to advocacy of collective interests has remained difficult, but progress is being made. Part A of this volume looks at the processes and dynamics, challenges, and opportunities of ASEAN ...

A statistical publication released on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration establishing the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN). Since its foundation in 1967, ASEAN has made extraordinary progress in preserving peace and security, promoting economic co-operation and integration as well as social development. This publication presents a collection of statistical indicators from ASEANstats’ databases, and highlights the main findings observed to showcase the evolution and progress of ASEAN over the past decades

Poverty reduction is a central feature of the international development agenda and contemporary poverty reduction strategies increasingly focus on “targeting the poor”, yet poverty and inequality remain intractable foes. Combating Poverty and Inequality argues that this is because many current approaches to reducing poverty and inequality fail to consider key institutional, policy and political dimensions that may be both causes of poverty and inequality, and obstacles to their reduction. Moreover, when a substantial proportion of a country’s ...

Income inequality is one of the most profound social, economic, and political challenges of our time. The gap between the rich and the poor has been regarded as a major concern for policy makers. This gap is at its highest level in decades for developed economies, while the inequality trend has been rising in many developing countries. In Asia, despite recent economic growth, income distribution has been worsening as well. This book contributes to the existing literature on inequality in Asia by overviewing the new trend of inequality in Asia and ...

The Vietnam War remains one of the most heroic and heartbreaking events in history. This definitive guide charts the unforgettable story of the world's first televised war. Hundreds of insightful images and a compelling narrative combine to chronicle this catastrophic conflict.?? From 1955, the communist government of North Vietnam waged war against South Vietnam and its main ally, the USA. Over the course of two decades of hostility and warfare, the number of casualties reached an incomprehensible three million people. Detailed descriptions of ...

This publication reviews the region's inequality trends, challenges and achievements and identifies policy gaps across the three dimensions of inequality--inequality of outcome, inequality of opportunity and inequality of impact. It also discusses the potential impact of rapid and disruptive technological advances, such as machine learning, and puts forward a broad set of policy recommendations for reducing all forms of inequality for the effective implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its core tenant of "leaving no ...