However, academia and civil society groups claiming to represent these very same people say that the man on the street shares little affinity with the association, partly because many of its programs have no immediate impact on or directly involve the region’s populace.

Most ASEAN activities and outcome documents, for instance, focus primarily on planning or capacity building instead of looking to solve problems by involving people, said Dinna Prapto Raharja, founder of the Synergy Policies think tank and a former representative of Indonesia to ASEAN’s human rights body the AICHR.

“If active participation is included in ASEAN by design, then the people should be involved from the start, not just at the end of processes, only to be asked for additional input,” she said on the margins of a discussion in Jakarta on how ASEAN can matter to its people, on Wednesday.

Many of the issues that are important to the ordinary person also tend to get left out, despite their potential contribution to the economy of ASEAN member states.

The protection of migrant workers, for instance, fits this mold, according to Migrant Care executive director Wahyu Susilo. But in spite of its significance, countries from the region still hold vastly differing views on the issue, he said.

Wahyu points to a gap between sending states such as Indonesia and the Philippines and receiving states like Singapore, Brunei, Malaysia and Thailand.

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