The ASEAN Developmental Divide and the Initiative for ASEAN Integration

When Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam became members of ASEAN in the late 1990s, concerns were raised about the emergence of a development divide on the basis of a gap in average per capita GDP between the older and the newer members. Such concerns are largely misplaced. There are, however, areas where the divide is real and concerns over it are valid. The Initiative for ASEAN Integration (IAI) has been the principal response of ASEAN and its partners to the development divide. While the four newer ASEAN members have found the IAI projects generally useful, more could be done to make them more coherent, subject their selection and design to greater rigour, strengthen them with provisions for follow-through and assessment, and give the newer members a greater sense of ownership. Aside from the IAI, there are also other programmes for the development of the Mekong Basin, where all the four newer ASEAN members are located. In sum, the development divide in ASEAN is more complex than the difference in economic advancement between the older and the newer members. Programmes to close it should, therefore, be sharply targeted at where the gap precisely lies