🎯 The Main Takeaway

Hollywood’s closed-door franchise system has new architects.

Universal Pictures tapped Indonesian director Timo Tjahjanto to helm Nobody 2 (2025), marking his major American studio debut. The sequel earned massive critical acclaim and grossed $40 million against a $25 million budget.

Tjahjanto’s success shatters a historic Hollywood ceiling, proving Southeast Asian filmmakers can command high-stakes, mainstream global franchises. 💥

As their stories and visions cross the ocean, our local cultures are permanently stamping their mark on the global stage.

📡 Why It’s On Our Radar

Hollywood no longer restricts Southeast Asian talent to niche, region-specific storytelling. Studios now trust these directors with major financial backing and established intellectual property.

If Tjahjanto can leverage American budgets to direct Hollywood blockbusters, the industry may be on the verge of funding high-budget Southeast Asian narratives marketed directly to global audiences. 🌍💸

🎬A History of Southeast Asian Auteurs in Hollywood

Tjahjanto stands on the shoulders of visionary filmmakers who spent decades proving Southeast Asian cinema rivals American output in both critical prestige and commercial viability. Here are the pioneers who paved the way.

🇮🇩 Timo Tjahjanto

Tjahjanto built his reputation on unhinged, visceral horror. He debuted in Hollywood by writing, editing, and directing the "L is for Libido" segment in The ABCs of Death (2012).

He subsequently co-directed the universally praised "Safe Haven" segment in V/H/S/2 (2013) alongside Gareth Evans, before returning for V/H/S/94 (2021).

His absolute mastery of practical gore, kinetic camerawork, and relentless pacing made him a highly sought-after action director.

🇮🇩 Mouly Surya

Surya shattered international expectations with Marlina the Murderer in Four Acts (2017), a feminist Western that premiered at the Cannes Film Festival.

She translated this auteur sensibility to Hollywood with the action-thriller Trigger Warning (2024), produced by the team behind John Wick.

Surya consistently subverts traditional gender tropes, grounding complex female protagonists in brutal, historically male-dominated genres.

🇵🇭 Ronnie del Carmen

Filipino writer, director, and storyboard artist Ronnie del Carmen defined modern animation. He co-directed and co-wrote Pixar’s Inside Out (2015), earning an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay.

Del Carmen synthesised complex neuroscience into heartfelt, accessible narrative arcs.

His foundational visual storytelling spans decades, encompassing story supervision on The Prince of Egypt (1998) and Up (2009), as well as early set work on Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now (1979).

🇲🇾 James Wan

Malaysian-born James Wan fundamentally re-engineered Hollywood's commercial horror machinery.

He created the Saw, Insidious, and The Conjuring franchises—the latter now the highest-grossing horror universe in cinematic history.

Wan perfected the high-ROI model: his debut, Saw, cost under $2 million and grossed $104 million. He later proved his blockbuster versatility by directing billion-dollar popcorn flicks like Furious 7 (2015) and both Aquaman movies.

🇻🇳 Tony Bui

Bui captured Ho Chi Minh City's shifting socio-economic landscape in Three Seasons (1999).

The poetic drama made Sundance history, sweeping the Cinematography Award, Audience Award, and Grand Jury Prize.

Bui dedicated his career to reframing the Vietnamese narrative. He recently curated the Criterion Channel programme Legacies of War: Vietnam Across the Divides, deliberately amplifying civilian-focused Vietnamese cinema over traditional American GI perspectives.

🇻🇳 Tran Anh Hung

Vietnamese-French filmmaker Tran Anh Hung commands profound sensory storytelling. His debut, The Scent of Green Papaya (1993), won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes and secured an Academy Award nomination for Best International Feature Film.

Critics consistently praise his placid, meticulous direction, which relies on ambient emotion, meticulous sound design, and visual poetry rather than aggressive exposition.

🇻🇳 Bao Nguyen

Vietnamese-American director Bao Nguyen dictates prestige non-fiction storytelling.

He weaves meticulous archival research with deep empathetic framing. Live From New York! (2015) dissected Saturday Night Live's 40-year cultural dominance, while Be Water (2020) examined Bruce Lee’s legacy and Asian representation.

His 2024 feature, The Greatest Night in Pop, swept the documentary awards circuit, paving the way for his May 2026 release, BTS: The Return.

🕸️The Connective Tissue: How the Network Operates

Crucially, these filmmakers do not operate as isolated success stories; they actively pull each other up the Hollywood ladder. Their collective rise relies on a highly interconnected ecosystem of festival circuits, streaming platforms, and strategic collaborations that bypass traditional studio gatekeepers.

• The Godfather Effect: Heavyweights like James Wan use their immense studio leverage to open doors for emerging regional talent. Wan’s production banner actively recruited Tjahjanto to direct the highly anticipated American remake of Train to Busan, effectively bridging the gap between Asian cinema and Hollywood blockbusters.

• The Indie Sandbox: Global anthology projects act as collaborative launchpads. The V/H/S horror franchise let Tjahjanto co-direct alongside The Raid architect Gareth Evans. These low-risk, high-reward indie spaces let Southeast Asian filmmakers share crews, cross-pollinate visual styles, and prove their concepts to Western executives.

• The Streaming Bridge: Platforms like Netflix and Shudder fundamentally altered the global pipeline. Rather than waiting for a legacy theatrical rollout, directors now utilise international co-productions to beam region-heavy narratives directly into American living rooms. This digital infrastructure creates a unified network where Southeast Asian storytellers consistently champion and elevate one another on the global stage.

🏁 The Bottom Line

Southeast Asian directors no longer solely cater to local crowds; they dictate the trajectory of global cinema.

From auteur-driven intimate dramas to billion-dollar horror franchises and high-octane action, these storytellers actively expand Hollywood's narrative palette.

The industry has shifted permanently, handing the steering wheel of mainstream global entertainment to a new generation of Southeast Asian visionaries. 🚀✨

(MHS/QOB/ARS)

🌊 Main Takeaway

When people plan a holiday in Southeast Asia, they usually think of short, cheap flights, overland journeys or island hopping. But the sea offers another way to see the region, with several destinations reachable in a single voyage.

With thousands of islands, long coastlines and close neighbours, Southeast Asia is well suited to cruise travel.

Cruising is not yet the first choice for most travellers here, but the routes and the industry keep growing. The question is no longer whether Southeast Asia can be explored by sea, but how far cruise travel can go.

🧭 Why It’s in Our Radar

🌏 Southeast Asia has the geography for it

Thousands of islands, long coastlines and close neighbours give the region ideal and natural conditions for cruise tourism.

On a single trip, travellers can visit several countries without changing hotels or arranging cross-border transport.

📈 The industry is already growing

Cruise tourism in Southeast Asia is no longer a niche market. In 2024, the region recorded about 3.9 million cruise passenger visits and roughly US$10 billion in economic output, around 5% of the global cruise industry's total.

The economic impact is significant, though it remains concentrated in a few areas.

🔗 Routes are becoming more connected

Cruise lines increasingly offer itineraries linking Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam, and some longer voyages add Indonesia and other Asian destinations.

That makes cruising a realistic option for multi-destination travel in the region.

🇸🇬 Singapore is becoming a regional gateway

Singapore and Malaysia accounted for about 70% of Southeast Asia’s cruise passenger visits in 2024, with Singapore alone at 48%.

In 2025, Singapore recorded 375 ship calls and more than 2 million passengers, reinforcing its position as a key hub.

Royal Caribbean will also keep Singapore as the homeport for Navigator of the Seas until October 2027, with three- to five-night itineraries to destinations such as Penang and Phuket.

👨‍👩‍👧 Cruise travel is seeking to move beyond luxury

Cruises are still often seen as expensive, high-end holidays. But shorter itineraries, family-oriented experiences and more varied products show the industry is widening its market.

Disney Adventure, for example, will offer four-night sailings from Singapore with a stop in Langkawi, Malaysia, starting in December 2026.

💰 The opportunity extends beyond the ship

The value of cruise tourism extends beyond ticket sales and onboard spending. Every port call brings business to restaurants, transport, retail, attractions and local enterprises.

A cruise can also be a first introduction to a destination, encouraging travellers to return for a land-based trip.

📈 Asian travellers are showing interest in cruise travel

This interest is also evident in the way Asian travellers are beginning to consider cruises for multi-destination trips.

According to a Royal Caribbean-commissioned YouGov survey, 74% of travellers from Asia find multi-destination European cruises highly appealing, with interest peaking at 82% among Indonesian respondents.

Furthermore, 26% of these Asian travellers rank a cruise as their preferred way to travel between European destinations, ahead of both flights and trains.

💭 What This Tells Us

🧩 Cruises Suit Southeast Asia’s Multi-Destination Nature

Southeast Asia’s geography includes numerous countries, islands, and destinations in close proximity, making multi-destination travel by sea particularly appealing.

This naturally aligns with how tourists view cruises as a way to visit several destinations in a single trip.

In the same Royal Caribbean survey, 42% said the main benefit of cruising is how easily it lets them visit different destinations. Travellers can cover several countries in one trip without booking flights, hotels and cross-border transport separately.

👥 Convenience Is Part of the Appeal

The appeal of cruises stems not only from the destinations visited, but also from the convenience offered during the journey.

The Royal Caribbean survey also found that 38% said cruising avoids airport procedures, and 35% said they don't have to pack and unpack repeatedly.

It also found that 26% preferred cruises for travel between European destinations, ahead of trains (24%) and short-haul flights (22%). Convenience is a big part of the appeal.

⚖️ Regional Growth Does Not Mean Equal Regional Benefit

The growth in cruise tourism does not mean every destination benefits equally. The concentration of visits in Singapore and Malaysia points to gaps in infrastructure, connectivity and readiness elsewhere.

The challenge is not how many ships arrive, but whether each port call creates real economic activity for the destination and local businesses.

🚢 Southeast Asia by Sea

The region’s cruise network is built around a few recurring corridors, though it remains concentrated around Singapore and Malaysia.

• Short regional sailing: Royal Caribbean
  Three- to five-night cruises from Singapore aboard Navigator of the Seas, covering Singapore, Penang, Phuket and back to Singapore.

• Multi-country and longer routes: Princess Cruises
  In 2026, Princess Cruises is offering an 11-night cruise aboard the Royal Princess, connecting Malaysia, Vietnam and Thailand before returning to Singapore. Its 2026–2027 programme also includes longer routes across several Southeast Asian countries, such as Singapore–Malaysia–Thailand–Vietnam–Cambodia–Malaysia–Singapore. Some cruises visit 28 destinations across eight countries.

• Family-oriented short cruise: Disney Adventure
  From 31 December 2026, Disney Adventure will offer a four-night cruise from Singapore to Langkawi, Malaysia, and back.

🌏 Bigger Picture

Cruise tourism's potential goes beyond bringing tourists to ports. The Singapore Tourism Board projected that the industry would contribute up to US$4.5 billion to the region’s GDP by 2024 and support around 530,000 jobs.

Most of those jobs are in the Philippines and Indonesia, which together account for about 85% of cruise-related employment in Southeast Asia. So the benefits can reach countries that are not major homeports, through port activity, tourism services, transport, hospitality and other businesses linked to visitors.

Cruises can also be a gateway to land-based tourism. Singapore Tourism Board data shows that 85% of cruise travellers rated their Southeast Asia experience positively, and 47% said they intended to return for a land-based trip. A short cruise visit does not have to be a one-off.

But that depends on how cruise growth is managed. The goal is not just to get ships to call at more ports, but to make sure more destinations and local economies benefit.

Zooming out, cruise tourism shows that Southeast Asia can increasingly be treated as one connected travel region rather than a collection of standalone destinations.

✨ Bottom Line

Cruises build on Southeast Asia’s connectivity by making the sea journey part of the experience, not just a way to get from one place to another.

They will not replace budget airlines, backpacking or island hopping, which are central to the region’s travel culture. But they add another option to try new experiences, whilst introducing travellers to destinations that may not previously have been on their itinerary.

The bigger opportunity may not be making Southeast Asia ‘the next cruise destination’, but making the sea a more visible part of how the world experiences Southeast Asia.

🔍 Need More Angle?

Celebrity Cruises Cruises to Southeast Asia

Cruise Trade News Destination Focus: Cultural wonders in Southeast Asia

Princess Cruises Princess Cruises Announces 2026-2027 Southeast Asia Program with Voyages to Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia, Japan and More

Royal Caribbean Best Cruises 2026 & 2027

Royal Caribean Multiple Destinations, One Seamless Vacation: 74% of Travellers From Asia Find European Cruising Appealing

Singapore Tourism Board Cruise Tourism in Southeast Asia Generates US$10 Billion in Total Economic Output

Singapore Tourism Board Record Singapore tourism receipts from January to September 2025

The Star These cruises are a great way to see more of South-East Asia

The Strait Times Disney Adventure launches four-night sailings with stop in Langkawi from Dec 31

(DHM/ZIL/QOB)

Your curated wrap-up from The Southeast Asia Desk.

Hello and welcome back,

This week, Southeast Asia is doing what it does best: turning local heritage into global influence while building the frameworks to sustain it. France and Indonesia are rewriting the culinary playbook through gastrodiplomacy.

ASEAN is betting on applied AI to close the skills gap before 2028. The region’s leaders took their messages to the UN General Assembly, calling for multilateral solutions to global crises.

Cambodia reflected on 33 years of its constitution. A Sarawak industrial town is showing how circular economy principles work on the ground.

Southeast Asian flavours are conquering global menus. And a $107 billion economic powerhouse is being built on ancestral dining.

Here is your news in focus.

🥐🇫🇷 Gastrodiplomacy: How France and Indonesia rewrite the culinary playbook

On 23 September 2026, France and Indonesia launched Rendez-Vous Rasa: France–Indonesia Gastronomy Week 2026, scheduled for 23 September to 4 October across Indonesia. The event brings together the Embassy of France in Indonesia, Institut français d’Indonésie, Alliance française, Business France, and Disciples Escoffier Indonesia.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/rendez-vous-rasa-2026-france-indonesia-gastronomy

🌏🎓 ASEAN Foundation bets on “Applied AI” to close the skills gap before 2028

On 11 September 2026, at the Open Session of the 21st ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Education in Jakarta, the ASEAN Foundation secured backing for AI Ready ASEAN Powered by AI Opportunity Fund: Asia-Pacific. The second phase of its flagship AI literacy programme is now folded into a larger regional financing vehicle co-run with AVPN and backed by Google.org and the Asian Development Bank, running through the end of 2028.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/asean-ai-ready-phase-2-launch

🌏 One region, many voices: What Southeast Asia told the world at UNGA 81

The 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly opened on 8 September 2026, with the General Debate running from 22 to 28 September under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations that Delivers for All.”

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/southeast-asia-unga-81-united-nations-2026

🇰🇭 33 years of Cambodia’s constitution: A post-conflict order in transition

Cambodian National Constitution Day, marked on 24 September, commemorates the 1993 promulgation of the Constitution after decades of war and regime changes. It marked Cambodia’s transition to constitutional monarchy and multiparty democracy through a peace process shaped by domestic political compromise and international intervention.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/cambodia-constitution-33-anniversary

♻️🌱 When the waste campaign ends: Building a local circular economy in Bintulu

At a Ramadan food bazaar in Bintulu in 2025, a simple idea took shape: separating food that might otherwise have been discarded into two streams. Edible surplus could be redistributed, while unavoidable food waste could be collected for composting or biogas. Thirty-four food-stall operators participated, and over the initiative, more than 500 kilograms of food were diverted from landfill — including over 300 kilograms of edible surplus redistributed to the community.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/sarawak-bintulu-circular-economy-food-waste

⛰️ Southeast Asia from heights: The region’s most unforgettable mountain adventures

As overtourism pushes travellers to seek physically engaging, off-grid experiences, regional mountain trekking has surged. We listed our recommendations, ranked from easiest to toughest.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/southeast-asia-trekking-mountains-guide

🥥🍠 Pandan, ube, and palm sugar: Southeast Asian ingredients becoming global food trends

Ube, pandan, and palm sugar are becoming familiar names far beyond Southeast Asia. These ingredients, long staples in home kitchens across the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, now show up more often on café menus, in bakeries, and across food products worldwide.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/southeast-asian-flavours-pandan-ube-palm-sugar-global

🎙️ The Dispatch Podcast: Ancestral dining — the $107 billion taste of Southeast Asia

Traditional food across Southeast Asia is undergoing a massive structural transformation, turning from a soft icon of local nostalgia into a $107 billion economic powerhouse.

This week’s podcast explores how young people, cutting-edge technology, and brand-new legal protections are reshaping the region’s culinary identity.

Listen here:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/s26e34-ancestral-dining-the-107-billion

✍️ Closing Note

This week’s stories reveal a region that isn't waiting for permission or seeking validation from elsewhere. France and Indonesia are rewriting the culinary playbook together. ASEAN is training 1.7 million learners in applied AI.

Southeast Asian leaders are taking their messages to the UN, calling for a multilateralism that actually delivers. A Sarawak town is proving that the circular economy is built one compost bin at a time.

And the region’s flavours, from ube to pandan to palm sugar, are conquering global menus, carrying culture and identity with them.

Thank you for reading.

✨ Stories to linger over, one week at a time.

(TSEAD)

🧭 The Main Takeaway

These days, cafés are increasingly designed to be Instagrammable. Cafés can be coquette, minimalist, modern, or any visual theme, with aesthetic interiors and trendy drinks. From matcha to creative tea and coffee variations, businesses keep introducing new products and concepts to attract customers.

In the middle of changing café culture, Southeast Asia’s old-school drinking ways remain part of everyday life.

📡 Why It’s On Our Radar

Indonesia is home to the world’s largest number of coffee shops, with 461,991 outlets recorded in Point of Interest (POI) data in 2025. Vietnam follows in fourth place, with around 132,294 outlets. Other reports even show that Vietnam has more than 500,000 coffee shops, including street vendors and small businesses.

Amongst the new cafés and changing coffee trends, traditional drinking spaces in Southeast Asia continue to hold their place.

From Vietnam’s sidewalk coffee to Indonesia’s warkops and Malaysia’s kopitiams, these unfussy spaces remain part of everyday life alongside the region’s growing café culture.

🇻🇳 Vietnam - Cà Phê Vỉa Hè

Vietnam is widely known for its street cafe culture. It’s nothing fancy or aesthetic; people just sit outside on the sidewalk with plastic chairs, low tables, a glass of coffee, and friends to talk to while watching the street.

Interestingly, these places have now become tourist attractions too, as people want to experience Vietnam like the locals.

Despite a lot of modern and aesthetic cafes in Vietnam, those plastic chairs are somehow still always filled with people, showing that their relevance still competes with the modern cafes.

Beyond its affordable price, it is because street coffee feels natural. There is no need for a reservation, a carefully planned outfit, or an expensive meal just to enjoy the experience or take a good picture.

They come because it feels personal and familiar. Café owners often recognize their regular customers, while customers become familiar with one another, almost like neighbours.

🇮🇩 Indonesia - Warkop

Warung kopi, or warkop as Indonesians usually call it, is one of the country’s most familiar places to hang out, especially among men.

Interestingly, a warkop usually does not prepare coffee using a special brewing technique or unique ingredients. They often just serve instant coffee. Very simple, right?

Another menu that you will usually find is Indomie, Indonesia’s beloved instant noodles. There is even a running joke among Indonesians that Indomie somehow tastes better when it comes from a warkop than when it is cooked at home.

It’s a place to hang out, catch up with friends, watch football, or simply spend time together. Many warkops stay open late into the night, with some operating until dawn or even 24 hours.

However, a warkop is not necessarily an old-fashioned place. Many have adapted to modern needs, offering Wi-Fi, charging points, and other facilities.

🇲🇾 Malaysia - Kopitiam

In Malaysia, the kopitiam is more than a traditional coffee shop. The word itself comes from Hokkien, combining kopi (coffee) with tiam (shop), reflecting the influence of Chinese communities on the region’s culture.

This tradition can also be found across the border in Singapore, where kopitiams have similarly become part of everyday food and social life.

A traditional kopitiam might serve kopi or teh alongside kaya toast, soft-boiled eggs, noodles, and other familiar local dishes. For generations, these simple coffee shops have been places to have breakfast, meet friends, read the newspaper, or simply sit and talk.

Today, the kopitiam is not only preserved as a traditional space.

Its influence can also be seen in newer café scenes, where modern cafés borrow kopitiam-style interiors, menus, flavours, and even retro signage. Some recreate the old coffee-shop atmosphere while giving it a more contemporary look.

✨Old Looks Good Again

Ironically, as cafés become more modern and Instagrammable, the look of the past is becoming trendy too.

In Malaysia and Singapore, newer cafés are bringing back kopitiam elements such as marble-top tables, wooden chairs, retro signs, and traditional kopi and kaya toast.

In Indonesia, cafés are borrowing from old warung aesthetics through vintage furniture, tiled walls, wooden tables, and familiar local snacks and drinks.

What makes the trend interesting is that these details are no longer just part of everyday life. They are being turned into something people actively seek out and photograph.

🎯 The Bottom Line

Modern aesthetic café culture may be changing how Southeast Asians drink coffee, but it has not erased the way they gather around it.

From Vietnam’s sidewalk coffee and Indonesia’s warkops to Malaysia’s kopitiams, simple and familiar spaces continue to fit into everyday life.

At the same time, cafés are increasingly borrowing from these local spaces, turning once-ordinary traditions into new aesthetics. Maybe the future of Southeast Asian café culture is not about choosing between old and new, but finding ways for both to exist at the same table.

{VNS/ELS)

The region is remarkably diverse, encompassing political systems ranging from open democracies and monarchies to socialist states.

It also has a long history of close relations and security alliances with Western powers, particularly the United States, the United Kingdom, and the European Union.

Against this complex backdrop, ASEAN’s open-door approach to trade, covering a market of more than 680 million people with an estimated aggregate gross domestic product (GDP) exceeding USD 3 trillion in 2026, presents a significant opportunity for BRICS economies to expand their investment presence.

Singapore offers a particularly illustrative example.

The country has skilfully navigated the inflow of economic integration and large-scale capital from major BRICS economies without abandoning its traditional strategic partnerships with the United States and the United Kingdom.

Markets as a bridge across geopolitical divides

The expansion of BRICS investment can be examined through Jagdish Bhagwati’s thinking on international trade.

Philosophically, Bhagwati argues that the “horse must come before the cart”: economic growth generated through private-sector productivity and free markets serves as the “horse” that pulls the “cart” of social welfare and poverty alleviation.

From this perspective, China, India, and Russia in Southeast Asia have focused on breaking down rigid protectionist barriers, enabling greater market creativity and facilitating the expansion of private corporations.

Through deeper integration among private corporations across emerging markets, potential friction arising from ideological differences or geopolitical proximity to the Western bloc can be pragmatically moderated through mutually beneficial economic interdependence.

BRICS investment and Southeast Asian growth

BRICS investment and market expansion have measurable implications for regional GDP.

According to the IMF’s 2026 World Economic Outlook, India is projected to grow by 7.0%, positioning it as a major driver of research expansion and technological innovation in the region.

China, growing at 4.4%, remains a major upstream supplier in regional supply chains.

Vietnam is recording an average growth rate of 5.6%, while Indonesia maintains a steady growth rate of 4.9%, reinforcing their positions as major destinations for manufacturing relocation.

Malaysia is growing steadily at 4.0% as an exporter of technological equipment, while Thailand, at 1.6%, continues to integrate its logistics sector.

Singapore, growing at 3.5%, is further consolidating its role as a global financial centre capable of efficiently balancing, absorbing, and mediating capital flows among China, the United States, and ASEAN.

What BRICS could mean for Indonesia?

For Indonesia specifically, its demographic base of approximately 288 million people and projected GDP of around USD 1.54 trillion in 2026 give its domestic market considerable bargaining power to explore private-sector partnerships with individual BRICS members.

With Brazil, Indonesia’s private sector could pursue technology transfers in bioethanol energy and tropical agriculture.

With Russia, domestic corporations have strategic opportunities for technology transfer in cybersecurity, aerospace, and future energy security.

Partnership with India could focus on strengthening the production base for pharmaceutical raw materials and software development, effectively expanding existing cooperation in the automotive, textile, and palm oil industries.

China, meanwhile, remains a central partner for Indonesia’s private sector in accelerating the downstream processing of critical minerals and developing the battery ecosystem.

South Africa offers another important opportunity, both as a partner in mining technology and as an export hub through which Indonesian manufactured products could reach markets across the African continent.

This diversification of cross-continental partnerships provides a strong foundation for the expansion of Indonesia’s private industries.

Share The Southeast Asia Desk

From raw materials to advanced manufacturing

The greatest expectation surrounding deeper BRICS economic engagement with ASEAN is that it could accelerate structural transformation, shifting the region away from dependence on raw-material exports towards a high-value manufacturing economy.

Vietnam has demonstrated this potential by leveraging substantial investment and its proximity to Chinese supply chains to emerge as an advanced manufacturing centre within the global electric vehicle (EV) ecosystem.

Malaysia has similarly attracted significant capital to develop its global semiconductor ecosystem.

This momentum requires countries such as Indonesia to play an active role as facilitators by providing investment-friendly regulations while positioning the private sector as the principal engine of innovation.

With strong technology-transfer requirements embedded in BRICS sectoral agreements, such investment could help create a more dynamic and resilient economy while contributing directly to improvements in welfare at the grassroots level.

***

Adri Arlan Sinaga is a doctoral student in International Relations at the University of International Business and Economics (UIBE), Beijing. His research focuses on foreign policy, global security, and the geopolitical dynamics of ASEAN and BRICS. Contact email: de202458004@uibe.edu.cn.

References

ASEAN Secretariat. (2025). ASEAN Statistical Highlights 2025.

Badan Pusat Statistik. (2026). Statistik Indonesia 2026.

Bhagwati, J. (2002). Free trade today. Princeton University Press.

Bhagwati, J. (2004). In defense of globalization. Oxford University Press.

Bhagwati, J., & Panagariya, A. (2013). Why growth matters: How economic growth in India reduced poverty and the lessons for other developing countries. PublicAffairs.

Gilpin, R. (2001). Global political economy: Understanding the international economic order. Princeton University Press.

International Monetary Fund. (2026). World economic outlook.

Indian Ministry Trade and Commerce. (2026). India-ASEAN bilateral trade report.

(QOB)

🎯 Main Takeaway

On 23rd October 2026, France and Indonesia held a meeting of flavours.

As the Embassy of France in Indonesia, Institut français d’Indonésie (IFI), in partnership with Alliance française in Indonesia, Business France, and Disciples Escoffier Indonesia, launched Rendez-Vous Rasa: France–Indonesia Gastronomy Week 2026, scheduled for 23rd September to 4th October across Indonesia.

Formerly known as Le Goût de France, the upcoming events within Rendez-Vous Rasa offer chefs, culinary professionals, educational institutions, and the public from both countries a chance to promote their respective gastronomic heritage and exchange culinary expertise.

One highlight of the opening ceremony is Chef I Kadek Sumiarta, the winner of Jeunes Talents Escoffier in May 2022, representing Indonesia. Mentored by France’s Chef Jean-Yves Leuranguer, this pair is a true testament to what France-Indonesia culinary collaboration can achieve.

📡 Why it’s on our radar

The events within Rendez-Vous Rasa 2026 include a tour of French culinary arts across Indonesia’s regions and a collaboration with one of Indonesia’s most highlighted gastronomy tourism attractions:

• 🍽️ The “menu à la française” initiative: around 150 restaurants in 40 cities from Medan to Merauke are offering French or French-inspired dishes, with IFI branches across the nation hosting cooking workshops, allowing Indonesian locals to experience French cuisine

• 👨‍🍳 Two-state Michelin chef tour & Collaboration with Wonderful Indonesia: chef Stéphane Carrade will tour Indonesia from 23rd to 30th September, where he will join hands with Indonesian chefs Degan Septoadji and Wayan Ari Wibowo to mark the opening of Wonderful Indonesia Gastronomy 2026.

  ---

⚠️ Why it’s important

🌍 This initiative is a prime example of “gastro-diplomacy,” using food as a formal bridge to strengthen bilateral ties between France and Indonesia. Signaling that France seeks long-lasting connections with Indonesia.

Beyond diplomatic symbolism, by linking French gastronomy with Indonesia’s gastronomy and hospitality programs, the initiative fosters vital exchanges of knowledge on sustainable sourcing practices, biodiversity preservation, and innovation. It projects both nations as equal cultural powerhouses.

Food is not merely a way to celebrate tradition and culture, but also a bridge between the countries for future generations.

Indonesian Minister of Tourism Widiyanti Putri Wardhana highlighted that the meeting of Indonesian flavours and French expertise is a tangible celebration of friendship, sustainability, and cultural richness.

🎓 How Rendez-vous Rasa connects to culinary education in Indonesia

Beyond the experience of cuisines, the festival also impacts culinary education within Indonesia on multiple fronts:

• 👨‍🏫 Cooking workshops: Fabrice Danniel, Deputy Director of Culinary Arts at Le Cordon Bleu Paris, is leading hands-on cooking workshops with university partners across the archipelago.

• ✈️ Indonesian-French Culinary Arts Apprenticeship program (ARIF): continues to send Indonesian culinary students to France for rigorous Certificat d’Aptitude Professionnelle (CAP) certification, preparing the next generation of culinary professionals.

• French Indonesian Training of Trainers on French Cooking for Vocational Education Training (FITT): In collaboration with Disciples Escoffier Indonesia, the program aims to promote long-term transmission of culinary knowledge by strengthening Indonesian culinary teachers and trainers in French culinary arts.

According to French Ambassador Fabien Penone, the cooperation goes beyond showcasing cuisine; it builds lasting connections and mutual inspiration between professionals and youth.

🏠 Why it Hits Home

• 🍴 The festival is highly accessible to the public. Diners from Medan to Merauke can participate simply by visiting local participating restaurants.

• 🏙️ Rather than centralising events in Jakarta, the partnership relies heavily on a decentralised network of IFI and Alliance Française branches in Bandung, Yogyakarta, Surabaya, Bali, Makassar, Medan, and Semarang.

• 🌐 Both nations are leveraging their culinary ecosystems—from Disciples Escoffier Indonesia to Politeknik Pariwisata campuses—to create a unified gastronomic network.

🤝 Culinary and Sustainability

Beyond cultural exchange, sustainability begins with how food is sourced, prepared, used, and eventually discarded.

Chef Stéphane Carrade’s culinary philosophy treats gastronomy and sustainability as inseparable.

To drive real change beyond the kitchen, he provides producers supplying his restaurant with reusable boxes to replace polystyrene and plastic packaging, earning him the Michelin Green Star.

Globally, 1 in 13 people goes hungry, yet over $1 trillion worth of food is thrown away every year, producing waste that could feed 1.26 billion people yearly.

Food waste happens most in household-made products (60%), followed by restaurants (28%) and grocery stores (12%), with rotting waste driving 8-10% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

Food products and takeaway services generate massive amounts of single-use trash, from plastic containers and foam boxes to disposable lids and wrappers.

According to the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), packaging accounts for 36% of all global plastic pollution, with food-related items ranking among the most common plastic litter polluting our environment.

Ultimately, sustainability in gastronomy is about preserving the ecological foundations that make culinary traditions possible in the first place.

If biodiversity loss and environmental degradation continue unchecked, ingredients that define regional cuisines risk disappearing entirely, taking with them centuries of culinary heritage, traditional knowledge, and cultural identity embedded in every dish.

🏝️ The Regional Stake

Gastronomy can function simultaneously as cultural diplomacy, economic diplomacy, tourism promotion, and human-capital development.

The diplomatic value increases when the food is connected to a wider national ecosystem, and Rendez-Vous illustrates this model at the bilateral level; it connects French diplomacy, education, professional exchanges, sustainability, tourism, and culinary heritage without erasing Indonesia’s gastronomic identity.

Southeast Asia already provides several examples of this approach:

• Thailand, Global Thai Initiative: Supporting Thai restaurants abroad, expanding markets for Thai products, and cuisine as a tool of tourism and cultural diplomacy

• Indonesia, Wonderful Indonesia Gastronomy: Uses Indonesia’s diverse culinary heritage to strengthen tourism, promote local culinary businesses and products, and integrate Indonesia’s food as a part of the country’s international identity

• Malaysia, Malaysia Kitchen for the World: A government-backed campaign designed to promote Malaysian cuisine through restaurants, food products, chefs, and culinary events as part of supporting trade, tourism, and national branding

• Cambodia, The Taste of Angkor cookbook and Angkor Kitchen: Initiative that equips Cambodian diplomatic missions with knowledge and resources to promote Khmer cuisine abroad to support Cambodia’s cultural and economic diplomacy

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🏁 Bottom Line

Rendez-vous Rasa 2026 proves that gastronomy is much more than what is served on a plate; it is a universal platform for cultural exchange.

Need More Angles?

UN Environment Programme UNEP Waste Pollution 101

(DEV/FRD/JUN/QOB)

🎯 The Main Takeaway

On 11 September 2026, at the Open Session of the 21st ASEAN Senior Officials Meeting on Education (SOM-ED) in Jakarta, the ASEAN Foundation formally secured backing for AI Ready ASEAN Powered by AI Opportunity Fund: Asia-Pacific.

The second phase of its flagship AI literacy programme is now folded into a larger regional financing vehicle.

• 🤝 Coalition, Not Solo Act

  The programme is co-run with AVPN and backed by Google.org and the Asian Development Bank (ADB), running through the end of 2028.

• 🎓 The Numbers

  More than 1.7 million K-12 students and teachers, plus university lecturers and staff, across ASEAN Member States.

• 💡 Strategic Pivot

  Phase 1 built awareness. Phase 2 focuses on applied AI skills—integrating AI responsibly into teaching, learning, research, and workforce preparation.

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📡 Why It’s on Our Radar?

The announcement lands at a moment when ASEAN’s education and digital-economy tracks are converging fast:

• 🚀 Proof of Concept, Already Delivered

  The original AI Ready ASEAN launched in October 2024 with a US$5 million grant from Google.org, aiming to equip 5.5 million people across all ten member states through a train-the-trainer model.

  It has since reached more than five million beneficiaries through AI literacy initiatives, enabled over 100,000 learners to complete in-depth AI training, and empowered more than 3,000 master trainers across the region.

• 💰 Bigger Money, Bigger Machine

  Phase 2 now sits inside AVPN’s AI Opportunity Fund: Asia-Pacific, which grew from an initial US$15 million commitment to include a further US$10 million from Google.org, and has already selected 18 Local Training Providers for its worker-facing track.

  That same fund is bankrolling a parallel effort, AIM ASEAN, aimed squarely at MSMEs through nine local partner organisations spread across Brunei Darussalam, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines and Singapore.

• 🗓️ Timing is the Story

  This SOM-ED announcement doesn’t sit in isolation; it lands weeks after the 3rd ASEAN Think Tanks Summit flagged inclusive digitalisation as a Track-Two priority for the region’s Vision 2045 roadmap, and months before the ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA), which explicitly folds in AI governance, is due for signing at the 49th ASEAN Summit this November.

  DEFA negotiations concluded in May 2026, and the agreement is now targeted for signature at the 49th ASEAN Summit in November 2026.

📖 What’s Actually New in Phase 2

Unlike Phase 1’s broad-based awareness campaigns, this iteration routes delivery through Local Implementing Partners (LIPs) selected per member state.

These partners will work directly with national education ministries to localise curricula, ensuring they align with domestic AI and education priorities rather than duplicating them. 🛠️

Beyond training, the programme will convene regional and national stakeholder meetings, bringing together government officials, AI practitioners, academics, civil society, and beneficiaries to feed concrete evidence into policy design.

The 4th Regional Meeting is set for December 2026 in Singapore. 🏛️

The programme is explicitly pegged to three region-wide instruments: the ASCC Strategic Plan 2026–2030, the AEC Strategic Plan 2026–2030, and the ASEAN Work Plan on Education 2026–2030.

The latter was only just adopted at the 14th ASEAN Education Ministers Meeting in Singapore in July 2026, marking Singapore’s assumption of the ASEAN Education Sector chairmanship for 2026–2027 under the theme ‘Strengthening ASEAN through Education’.

🌍 Key Voices: Moving from Awareness to Application

Phase 1 proved that ASEAN’s youth and communities are eager to adopt AI when given the right tools.

Moving forward, the mandate shifts from basic awareness to embedding practical skills directly into the region’s education systems to prepare the future workforce.

“Through Phase 2... we are not just focused on raising awareness about AI, but also equipping the region’s education systems with practical AI skills.” — Dr Piti Srisangnam, Executive Director, ASEAN Foundation

With AI literacy now categorised as a fundamental necessity, the programme’s funders are backing a pivot toward deeper, applied training intended to reach millions of students.

To achieve this, the initiative places teachers at the absolute centre of the technological transition. 👩‍🏫

“Educators play a central role in ensuring that learners across Southeast Asia can use this technology responsibly and effectively.” — Marija Ralic, Head of Google.org Asia Pacific

The ultimate test remains on-the-ground delivery. AVPN is tasked with channelling the fund to local implementing partners in the areas that need it most, ensuring the top-down regional mandate actually translates into scalable classroom practice. 🏗️

“This programme shows how coordinated regional action can turn AI readiness into real, measurable outcomes for teachers, students, and lecturers.” — Naina Subberwal Batra, CEO, AVPN

⚠️ Why This Matters

• 🔗 The Demographic Clock is Ticking:

  Southeast Asia sits on a massive youth dividend — nearly a third of its 660 million people are under 20. As the region’s digital economy races toward a projected US$1 trillion by 2030 (potentially doubling to US$2 trillion if DEFA succeeds), the pressure to upskill is acute. Against these macro figures, training 1.7 million students isn’t just an educational target; it is a baseline economic necessity. 📈

• 🤖 Classrooms and Commerce are Now Linked:

  By housing the education-focused AI Ready ASEAN and the MSME-driven AIM ASEAN under the exact same funding umbrella, the ASEAN Foundation is placing a calculated bet. The logic is clear: classroom literacy and small-business tech adoption must reinforce each other. This directly mirrors the dual-track strategy flagged at the recent ASEAN Think Tanks Summit.

• ⚖️ Public Mandates on Private Money:

  The programme exposes a familiar structural tension in the region’s digital ambitions. It runs on philanthropic capital (Google.org and the ADB) rather than domestic education budgets. As ATTS delegates rightly pointed out, ASEAN excels at designing ambitious frameworks but routinely struggles with long-term accountability and delivery once external funding cycles end. 💸

• 🧩 A Live Governance Dry Run:

  With DEFA negotiations closed and a November signature looming, AI governance is explicitly on the regional docket. Watching how AI Ready ASEAN navigates its rollout across ten distinct national education ministries will serve as a live stress test. It will reveal whether member states truly possess the institutional capacity to uphold the high-level commitments DEFA is about to formalise. 🏛️

🚀 Moving Forward

From Pilot to Institutionalisation:

The pathway now runs: LIP selection and ministry coordination ➡️ curriculum localisation per member state ➡️ training delivery through to 2028 ➡️ December’s 4th Regional Meeting in Singapore feeding into policy recommendations ➡️ convergence with DEFA’s November signature and the next cycle of ASEAN Summits.

📌 The Bottom Line

This is less a new initiative than a maturing one.

The ASEAN Foundation is converting a two-year awareness campaign into an institutionalised, ministry-coordinated skilling pipeline just as the region’s top economic instrument for AI governance heads toward signature.

🔍 Need More Angle?

• ALLEN & GLEDHILL ASEAN member states conclude negotiations on landmark Digital Economy Framework Agreement

• ANTARA Helping Small Businesses in Southeast Asia Tap into AI: ASEAN Foundation

• ASIANEWS Brunei to work with ASEAN on future-ready education agenda

• BERNAMA AI Usage Widespread In Ho Chi Minh City, But Literacy Gaps Persist: Study

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(ARS/QOB)

🎯 The Main Takeaway

The United Nations (UN) held the 81st session of the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) from 8 September 2026 to 7 September 2027, at the UN headquarters in New York.

All 193 UN member states were invited to join the year-long session, including the General Assembly High-level Week 2026, held from 18 to 28 September. The week included several high-level meetings and activities, including the General Debate.

🗣️ What Is the General Debate?

The General Debate ran from 22 to 28 September 2026, under the theme “Restoring Trust, Managing Transformation: A United Nations that Delivers for All”.

The theme highlights the UN’s commitment to strengthening multilateral cooperation to address global challenges through collaboration and transformative action.

During the one-week period, heads of state and delegates from UN member states share their views and priorities on global issues. They also discuss solutions, ways to restore international trust, and ways to promote collective action for peace, equal human rights, and sustainable development.

“We must defend the Charter without double standards, protect civilians without exception, ensure humanitarian access without obstruction, shield humanitarian personnel without fail, advance nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament without delay, and demand accountability without fear or favour.” - António Guterres, UN Secretary General.

📡 Why It’s on Our Radar?

There are several ongoing global issues that need to be addressed by the UN:

• Eroding trust: Public trust in the UN is declining because of concerns about the organisation’s ability to take concrete action on major conflicts and apply international law equally.

• Global rivalries: Competition for influence between major powers such as the US, China and Russia is reshaping global politics and the economy.

• Regional conflicts: Major conflicts continue in several parts of the world, including Israel-Palestine, US-Israel-Iran, Russia-Ukraine, and conflicts across Africa.

• Strong unilateralism: Some major powers tend to act independently to pursue their own interests rather than prioritise dialogue and diplomatic efforts.

• The rise of AI: Rapid technological growth, including artificial intelligence (AI), is helping human activities but also creating new risks and threats to humanity.

• Climate change: Rising global temperatures remain a major threat to the planet, driven largely by greenhouse gas emissions.

⚠️ Why Does It Really Matter?

There are several global impacts caused by these ongoing issues:

• Institutional reform: The UN needs institutional reform, especially regarding its veto power, which can conflict with the principle of multilateralism. It also needs to apply international law equally, without prioritising the national interests of specific countries.

• Global fragmentation: Countries worldwide are becoming more divided by their political choices, including support for specific major powers, blocs, or alliances, which can weaken multilateral cooperation.

• Global uncertainty: Global conflicts are increasing economic uncertainty, disrupting commodity supply chains and contributing to higher energy and food prices.

• Humanitarian crisis: Regional conflicts have triggered humanitarian crises, including thousands of deaths, millions of people being displaced and growing hunger.

• Strengthening multilateralism: Growing unilateralism has encouraged some countries to form or strengthen multilateral groups such as BRICS, giving emerging and developing countries in the Global South a greater voice in global decision-making based on transparency, mutual respect and dialogue.

• Extreme weather: Climate change is changing weather patterns, causing extreme droughts and heavy monsoons that can damage agricultural crops and the environment.

🏡 Why This Hits Home?

Southeast Asia is home to nearly 700 million people and represents one of the world’s major economic regions. The region consists of 11 ASEAN member states with different histories, political systems, levels of development and national interests.

Each member state has its own priorities and may not always agree on how to address regional and global crises. However, ASEAN continues to uphold multilateralism, unity and centrality by keeping dialogue open and managing the differences.

All ASEAN member states attended the UN General Assembly High-Level Week 2026, but only 10 countries delivered speeches during the General Debate. Myanmar was the only Southeast Asian country that did not take part in the General Debate.

🇲🇲 Why Didn't Myanmar Join?

This is linked to the ongoing dispute over Myanmar’s representation at the UN. Myanmar’s representative to the UN, Kyaw Moe Tun, was dismissed by the military government on 27 February 2021, following the military coup on 1 February 2021.

However, the UN continued to recognise Aung San Suu Kyi and Win Myint as Myanmar’s leaders, allowing Kyaw Moe Tun to continue representing Myanmar there.

The military government, led by Min Aung Hlaing, who was also elected as Myanmar’s new president, has sought to change the country’s representation at the UN.

It has written to UN Secretary-General António Guterres, asking for Kyaw Moe Tun to be removed and accusing him of using government funds without authorisation.

Meanwhile, Southeast Asian countries delivered similar views on how to address various global issues, mainly focusing on Palestine’s independence, institutional reform, multilateralism and AI. However, each country placed different emphasis on its own policy priorities.

🇧🇳 Brunei Darussalam: Equal International Law, Palestine Statehood

Brunei Darussalam stated that multilateralism is not just a concept, but an assurance that sovereignty and territorial integrity will be respected, every nation has a voice, and international law must protect the weak.

This principle should be applied to resolving conflicts, especially in Palestine, including Gaza and the West Bank, where people have suffered for generations due to mass destruction, loss of lives, discrimination, illegal settlements and forced displacement from their homes and land.

The kingdom urged the UN to apply international law and the UN Charter equally to all countries, address the root causes of the Israel-Palestine conflict, and work towards realising a two-state solution.

“International law and the principles of the charter must apply equally to everyone. There cannot be one standard for some and another for others. A lasting peace requires more than managing the consequences of conflict. It requires addressing its root cause and realizing the Palestinian people's legitimate right to self-determination and an independent state of Palestine, based on the 1967 borders with East Jerusalem as its capital.” - Prince Abdul Mateen, Brunei Darussalam Foreign Affairs Minister.

Brunei Darussalam also called on the UN to reform and adapt to current global conditions, restore trust, ensure rules are respected, keep dialogue open, manage differences peacefully, strengthen its ability to prevent crises, and deliver outcomes that meaningfully improve people’s lives.

🇰🇭 Cambodia: Rebuilding Trust

Cambodia agreed that trust and confidence among nations and multilateral institutions are eroding because of growing geopolitical rivalries, regional conflicts, and transnational threats.

Cambodia experienced a similar situation during its border conflict with Thailand in July and December last year, which temporarily halted bilateral cooperation.

However, both sides agreed to sign a ceasefire deal to end the conflict, creating more room for dialogue and rebuilding trust. They also agreed to move forward and live side by side in peace based on mutual respect, while seeking to deliver mutual benefits.

“Trust is not restored by declaration alone. It is earned through consistency, when commitments are honoured, international law is respected, disputes are settled by peaceful means, and sovereignty must remain a principle, fundamental principle of international relations. Rebuilding trust is therefore not merely desirable. It is essential to the future of our bilateral relations and to a shared interest in lasting peace and good neighbourly relations” - Sokhonn Prak, Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.

In addition, Cambodia urged all UN member states to pay attention to the rapid development of technology, especially AI. While AI can accelerate national development and create new opportunities, it can also pose security risks if misused for online scams and transnational crime.

🇮🇩 Indonesia: Multilateralism, Palestine Statehood

Indonesia, home to 280 million people with diverse cultures and religions, has applied multilateralism to safeguard its identity, unity, and sovereignty.

According to Indonesia, diversity and multilateralism are not challenges to overcome, but differences to manage, respect and turn into strengths when facing various challenges and maintaining national resilience.

As a result, the same principle of multilateralism can also be applied at the UN to address and resolve global conflicts, while promoting peace, stability and sustainable development based on international law.

Palestine is one of the biggest tests of multilateralism, especially in addressing the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the situation in the West Bank. Indonesia said Israel’s actions violate international law and UN principles.

Indonesia will continue to support Palestinian independence and a two-state solution, while working to strengthen unity, rebuild trust, keep dialogue open and promote peace based on international law.

“Indonesia will continue to stand with the Palestinian people, until their right to self-determination is fulfilled, and until an independent and sovereign State of Palestine is realized based on the Two-State Solution, in accordance with international law and internationally agreed parameters. Palestine is not only a question for one region, but also a test of whether the multilateral system can uphold the very principles it was created to defend, and whether it can deliver when it matters most” - Sugiono, Indonesian Foreign Affairs Minister.

🇱🇦 Laos: Palestine Statehood, Institutional Reform

Laos reaffirmed its concern over the situation in Palestine, especially the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and illegal settlements in the West Bank carried out by Israel.

Laos believes that the Palestinian people have the right to self-determination and supports a two-state solution to resolve the conflict.

“We remain deeply concerned by humanitarian catastrophe and amine reconstruction requirements in Gaza, as well as the mounting challenges in the West Bank to prevent the two state solution. Beyond the reach of the internet, the international community must secure a just, comprehensive and lasting peace on the last beat, and one that fulfills the legitimate rights to the Palestinian people to self-determination through an independent state of Palestine. With full membership in the United Nations.” - Thongsavanh Phomvihane, Laos Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs.

Laos welcomed the UN initiative to improve the coherence, transparency and effectiveness of the UN system, followed by systemic reform to ensure a balanced approach to its main pillars: peace and security, sustainable development and human rights.

In addition, Laos remains committed to ASEAN centrality in the changing regional landscape. It reaffirmed that a united and integrated ASEAN is important for maintaining regional peace and multilateral stability.

🇲🇾 Malaysia: Palestine Statehood, Institutional Reform

Malaysia stated that the current situation in Gaza, Palestine, is devastating, with many children, families, medics, aid workers and journalists killed by Israeli forces.

Malaysia, along with many other UN member states, said it was exhausted by the ongoing situation and urged the UN to take concrete action to pursue justice for Palestinians, while calling for an immediate ceasefire and more humanitarian aid for Gaza.

Malaysia also urged the UN to reform the Security Council, including its veto system, which it said does not fully reflect multilateralism. Malaysia argued that the veto can give a few countries more influence than most UN members and slow efforts to resolve conflicts.

“We have consistently called for immediate ceasefire and unrestricted supply of aid. We have supported humanitarian work in Palestine. We have pushed for punitive actions towards Israel, and we have advocated for full Palestinian membership in this hall. And yet again and again, Mr. President, the collective will of this Assembly has encountered the silencing effect of the veto. It is the veto that must be challenged, and it is the veto that must be abolished” - Mohamad Haji Hasan, Malaysian Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Malaysia called on the UN to restore trust among nations and ensure that international law is applied equally to all countries.

In addition, Malaysia highlighted the importance of regulating AI to prevent its misuse, as the technology is changing how economies operate, how societies function and how governments make decisions.

Furthermore, Malaysia called on AI investors to see the Global South as a partner in innovation, development and decision-making, not just as a market, customer or location for data centres.

🇸🇬 Singapore: Multilateralism, Skill Development

Singapore agreed that global rivalries between major powers can trigger fragmentation and disrupt global supply chains, affecting small countries such as Singapore.

However, major powers cannot act alone. They rely on other countries to support their long-term national interests through cooperation and partnerships, which can strengthen multilateralism.

Following this approach, Singapore said the same principle can also be used to address global crises, as countries rely on each other and need to resolve differences through diplomacy, peace and mutual respect.

Moreover, Singapore highlighted the need for the UN to formulate new rules to safeguard AI and control its use, including testing and evaluation before deployment, clear limits and mechanisms to intervene in autonomous systems to ensure they operate as intended.

In addition, Singapore urged greater investment not only in AI and infrastructure, but also in human skills across sectors to help people adapt and remain competitive amid rapid technological growth.

“Every one of us has to continue to invest in science, the talent, and the infrastructure that will drive AI forward. For small states, his entails especially developing our people, equipping them with the skills necessary to master and deploy AI quickly, widely, at scale and safely. The real productivity gains from AI comes not from the IT department, but from our businesses and from workers who have the skills and the tools.” - Vivian Balakrishnan, Singapore Foreign Affairs Minister.

Furthermore, Singapore urged the UN to pursue institutional reform to give member states a more equal voice, turn better ideas into concrete actions, and rebuild trust. This would enable countries to contribute more to regional and global prosperity and mutual benefits.

🇹🇭 Thailand: Rebuilding Trust

Thailand said global society is becoming more fragmented because of rapid technological growth and competition between major powers.

As a result, many countries are losing their ability to work together because trust among nations, institutions, and international rules is eroding. This can reduce shared responsibility and slow down cooperation and investment.

To address this problem, countries need to rebuild trust by addressing each other’s concerns, listening to different voices, and gaining more perspectives through dialogue, institutional reform and turning commitments into action.

Thailand has also experienced a similar loss of trust with Cambodia following the border conflict in July and December last year, which ended with a ceasefire after both sides pursued diplomatic efforts.

The two countries agreed to move forward by rebuilding trust, working together, sharing responsibility and strengthening cooperation to counter transnational crime and online scams along their shared border, while promoting mutual benefits and shared prosperity.

“Let me be clear Thailand has never sought conflict, but peace can only be built when we work together in earnest, and surely this will require genuine effort from our neighbour Cambodia. That same commitment guides our approach to Myanmar. Thailand supports peace, national reconciliation and a durable solution for Myanmar, We believe in constructive and calibrated re-engagement within ASEAN and in coordination with relevant partners, while encouraging concrete, concrete progress on the ground.” - Anutin Charnvirakul, Thai Prime Minister.

Thailand also urged the UN to strengthen multilateralism to maintain trust among its members, uphold equal human rights, and address global conflicts, especially the humanitarian crisis in Palestine.

🇵🇭 The Philippines: Decolonisation, SDG Targets

The Philippines stated its support for ending all forms of apartheid, colonialism and racial discrimination. It also urged countries to resolve disputes and conflicts through diplomatic efforts based on international law, without using violence.

Following this statement, the Philippines called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza and urged both sides to de-escalate tensions, exercise restraint, prioritise civilian protection and release all hostages.

As a result, the two-state solution remains a pathway to achieving peace between Israel and Palestine, allowing the two entities to live side by side in peace.

“The Philippines reaffirms its consistent and principled support for the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. We firmly believe that the two state solution remains the only viable path to lasting and durable peace with Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security and all others respecting their peaceful coexistence.” - Ma. Theresa Lazaro, Secretary for Foreign Affairs of the Philippines.

In addition, the Philippines urged the UN to pay more attention to progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), as only around 36% of targets are currently on track. It called for renewed political will, stronger partnerships and institutional reform within both the UN and the global financial architecture.

🇹🇱 Timor-Leste: Nuclear Weapons, Palestine Statehood

Timor-Leste stated that over the past decades, many countries have invested trillions of dollars in developing weapons, including nuclear weapons, to protect themselves during regional conflicts.

The existence of nuclear weapons can affect the balance of power, while countries without weapons of mass destruction could face greater risks during conflicts.

Timor-Leste called on US President Donald Trump to invite major military powers, especially nuclear-armed states, to sit together and make commitments not to use nuclear weapons, while also agreeing to reduce their nuclear arsenals.

“My invitation to President Trump, be audacious, be unpredictable, be visionary. Invite all nuclear powers and all major conventional military powers and industries, without exception, to a summit somewhere, maybe a town in Portugal, to talk on no first strike. Enhance regular communication between leaders of the nuclear powers, and draw their commitment on reduction of nuclear weapons, toward total deactivation and destruction of nuclear arsenals over a decade.” - Jose Ramos Horta, Timor-Leste President.

Timor-Leste also highlighted ongoing humanitarian crises around the world, including in Gaza, the West Bank, South Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar, which have killed thousands, displaced millions and caused hunger.

However, it said there has been no immediate response to address these crises, partly because of a lack of urgency in responding.

Specifically on Palestine, especially Gaza, Timor-Leste agreed with many UN member states on the need to pursue a two-state solution to resolve the conflict and allow Israelis and Palestinians to live together in peace and harmony.

In addition, Timor-Leste called for institutional reform at the UN, especially regarding the use of veto power, which it said is inconsistent with the principles of multilateralism, equality and sovereignty.

🇻🇳 Vietnam: Institutional Reform, Palestine Statehood

Vietnam said the current global situation faces growing uncertainty due to the risk of confrontation, miscalculation, conflict, and large-scale war.

As a result, countries are becoming more fragmented, disrupting cooperation in trade, investment and development, while also eroding trust among nations and institutions.

To address this problem, Vietnam called for UN reform, especially within the Secretariat, General Assembly and Security Council, to make the organisation more democratic and inclusive and help restore trust.

The UN also needs to hear the voices of emerging and developing countries in the Global South and ensure their views are included in the organisation’s rule-making and decision-making processes.

In addition, Vietnam urged the UN to strengthen multilateralism to prevent wars, safeguard peace, promote cooperation, advance decolonisation, resolve conflicts and uphold the right to self-determination, with the aim of promoting peace, security, dignity and prosperity.

As a result, Vietnam supports a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine, while highlighting the need to protect civilians, provide more humanitarian aid to Palestinians and ensure humanitarian access.

“Vietnam supports the rights of the Palestinian people to self-determination and the two-state solution with an independent state of Palestine living peacefully alongside the state of Israel in line with international law and relevant UN resolutions in the Asia Pacific.”- To Lam, Vietnamese President.

🚀 Moving Forward…

Southeast Asian countries hope that, in the future, the strength of the UN will lie not in replacing states' responsibilities, but in its legitimacy and ability to build consensus, establish norms, develop rules, and mobilise global efforts to address common challenges and adapt to a changing world.

Trust in the international system is strengthened when promises are kept, international law is applied equally, dialogue is chosen over force, sovereignty is respected, and every nation, large or small, knows that its voice matters.

Global progress must uphold the spirit of humanity in relations among nations, safeguard their legitimate interests, and respect differences in history, culture and development conditions.

With a stronger UN and stronger multilateral cooperation, countries can work together to build a more peaceful, equitable, inclusive and better world for all.

📋 Beyond the Headline

A tense moment occurred before Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivered his speech, when delegates from over 70 countries walked out during the General Debate on Thursday (24/9).

Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Myanmar were among the Southeast Asian countries that joined the walkout as a form of protest against Israel’s alleged war crimes, genocide and humanitarian crisis in Gaza, as well as the occupation of the West Bank.

In addition, the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, alleging that he was responsible for the war crimes of starvation as a method of warfare and intentionally directing attacks against civilians, as well as the crimes against humanity of murder, persecution and other inhumane acts.

📌 The Bottom Line

The UN General Debate is not just a platform for countries to deliver speeches, but also a place to build trust, strengthen dialogue and find common solutions to global challenges.

The UN must not only respond to crises, but also prevent them, keep competition under control, maintain dialogue, manage differences peacefully, and ensure that science and technology create opportunities rather than new global divides.

Restoring trust is not just about making promises, but also about treating all countries equally. Managing global change is not only about progress, but also about ensuring everyone benefits and the UN delivers results for all.

Sustainable peace is not built through force, but through diplomacy, respect for sovereignty and international law. Through multilateral cooperation, countries can work together to build a more peaceful, inclusive and sustainable future.

🔍 Need More Angles?

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Republic of The Union of Myanmar, Statement regarding the Illegal Activities of Kyaw Moe Tun, Former Permanent Representative of Myanmar to the United Nations

United Nations, General Assembly High-level Week 2026

United Nations, Read what was said at the UN

United Nations Web TV, General Assembly

(NGO/QOB)

🎯 Main Takeaway

Southeast Asia is quickly becoming a hub for data centres.

As of 2026, the region hosts more than 2000 data centres across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, according to Ember, a research organisation.

By 2030, investment is estimated at 30 billion USD, according to Turner & Townsend, a multinational professional services company.

This rapid expansion stems from the scramble for AI infrastructure across the region.

In addition, Southeast Asia's rapid digital adoption among its citizens means tech giants can quickly capitalise on this growing market.

However, building data centres in Southeast Asia is not simple. Many factors must be considered, including Southeast Asia’s tropical climate, data centres' energy demand, and the pressing issue of water supply.

📡 Why it’s on our radar

The rapid expansion of data centre construction is unlikely to stop in the coming years; therefore, it’s important to highlight the challenges it entails.

Beyond the challenges, it is important to highlight the environmental impact of data centres and how the region has responded to their rapid expansion.

⚠️ Why it’s Important

Firstly, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA), in 2024, the average data centre requires 5-10 megawatts (MW) to be operational.

However, large-scale or hyperscale data centres, which are increasingly common, demand 100 MW, which is equivalent to the electricity demand of 350.000 to 400.000 electric cars.

With Southeast Asia scrambling to solve its current energy crisis, this figure presents a massive challenge.

Secondly, the challenge of cooling. In tropical climates such as Southeast Asia, keeping high-density chips within their operating temperature range requires more energy and large volumes of water.

According to the IEA, global data centre water consumption is currently around 560 billion litres per year, and is estimated to rise to 1200 billion litres by 2030.

Lastly, the timing. While hyperscale data centres can be constructed within a year, energy transmission lines take far longer to plan, approve and construct. This creates a mismatch: demand can outpace supply.

According to Bain & Company a management consulting firm, grid infrastructure remains a binding constraint for region requiring 5 to 15 years to build.

These are only a few challenges data centre construction creates, which further spill over into environmental challenges.

🌱 How AI data centres impact the environment

Rising energy demand is the main environmental concern in Southeast Asia.

As figures from multiple sources suggest, data centres are among the most resource-intensive assets in the modern economy.

With the rapid expansion of data centres in Southeast Asia, electricity demand is expected to rise sharply, pushing another underlying issue in the region: its main energy source.

According to the IEA, fossil fuels continue to dominate the region's energy mix, with coal as the largest share. 

These sources increase the region's emissions, which drive other issues such as global warming, rising sea levels, and ecosystem disruption.

Data centres water consumption demands is another emerging challenge on the environment, closed loop water reuse systems remain limited as according to ASEAN guide for sustainable data centre development making it so a large portion of the water used for cooling data centres be lost while the sum that comes back can be contaminated.

Additionally, the amount of water taken can critically harm direct drinking water supplies and water used for farming, raising concerns about water shortages in data-centre-heavy areas such as Selangor, Negeri Sembilan, and Johor in Malaysia, according to Greenpeace, an environmental activist group.

Concerns over noise pollution will also emerge once data centres are operational. As Greenpeace highlights, the constant humming of cooling systems, whirring of fans, and rumbling of electricity generators can make data centres emit noise ranging from 55 to 85 dB, possibly exceeding levels considered safe for hearing. This largely affects communities around data centres.

Overall, data centres can impact the environment through their energy demand.

Energy industries are pressured to generate more, which can increase emissions; the water supply needed can cause land subsidence and contamination, and noise pollution affects the lives of citizens in the areas where data centres are located.

🏠 Why it Hits Home

In Southeast Asia, locals can already feel the impact of data centres.

According to a news report by The Straits Times, a Singaporean news outlet, it describes the conditions of residents in Johor, Malaysia. They worry about their health and water supply as a data centre is being built next door.

As dust clouds from the construction became a daily occurrence for the residents, impacting day-to-day activities, the situation has spilt over into open protests against the construction.

🌐 How ASEAN has Responded

In December 2025, a new regional framework to handle the construction of data centres was released by ASEAN.

Designed for policymakers and regulators, the document aims to explain the trilemma that must be balanced for data centre construction, which is:

• Digital expansion: scaling capacity for AI and cloud services.

• Environmental sustainability: reducing carbon emissions, water, and waste footprints.

• Resilience and resource security: safeguarding essential resources like electricity grids and urban water supply chains.

The framework proposes 4 elements for sustainable data centre development, which are:

• Element & Renewable Integration: promotes measuring efficiency using Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) and establishing predictable pathways for clear power procurement.

• GHG Emission & Operational Efficiency: promoting transparency regarding emissions and measuring performance using metrics

• Water Management & Cooling Innovation: targeting the challenge of water concerns directly, mandating measuring Water Usage Effectiveness (WUE) and taking into account local water stress

• Waste & Circular Economy: targeting waste that is generated by data centres’ frequent hardware refresh cycles, promoting Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

🏁 Bottom line

While data centre construction supports the rapid expansion of digital adoption across Southeast Asia. it is important to remember the cost of this technology and why its environmental impact should not be taken lightly.

🔎 Need More Angles?

• AIINASIA: Why ASEAN’s Data Centre Boom Is Colliding With Its Power Grids

• DIGITAL IN ASIA: Who is Building AI Data Centres in Southeast Asia in 2026? A Comprehensive Infrastructure Map

• Analytic Insight: Why is Southeast Asia Becoming a Data Centre Hub?

• International Energy Agency (IEA): What the data centre and AI boom could mean for the energy sector

• Bain & Company: Southeast Asia’s Green Economy Report 2026

• ASEAN: ASEAN GUIDE FOR SUSTAINABLE DATA CENTRE DEVELOPMENT

• Greenpeace: Civil society calls for ban on data centres near residential areas

• The Strait Times: Locals left asking what comes next after Johor’s data centre rush swallows their villages

• International Energy Agency (IEA): Key Questions on Energy and AI

(FRD/QOB)

This October, The Southeast Asia Desk launches the Dispatcher–Reader Quarterly Meeting.

A regular space for readers to meet our Dispatchers, hear how the Desk has been doing, ask questions, share criticism, and discuss the stories Southeast Asia needs us to pay attention to.

🍀 Our inaugural meeting will feature:

📊 Performance Update — what we have done, learned, and where we are heading

💬 General Q&A — ask the Desk directly

👋 Meet the Dispatchers — get to know the people behind our journalism

🗣️ Breakout Rooms — deeper conversations around specific TSEAD products and Southeast Asian topics

🍁 Save the date!

📅 Saturday, 3 October 2026

🕖 7:00–9:00 PM Jakarta Time (WIB / UTC+7)

💻 Online

🎟️ Free, but registration is required

Participation is limited to keep the conversation meaningful.

Bring your questions. Bring your criticism. Bring the stories you think we should be paying attention to.

🔰 Register here

Scan the QR code to register: https://forms.gle/eP8zvJSvShW8HtBq6

(QOB)

🎯 The Main Takeaway

Southeast Asia is globally celebrated for its tropical beaches and vibrant cities, but its peaks offer an equally compelling narrative.

From relaxed scenic strolls to multi-day endurance tests, the region’s mountains reveal extraordinary geographical diversity, unique ecosystems, and deep cultural histories, catering to every skill level and adventure appetite.

📡 Why It’s on Our Radar

As overtourism pushes travellers to seek physically engaging, off-grid experiences, regional mountain trekking has surged. Sunrise over a crater lake simply lands differently than sunrise over a resort pool.

Here are our trekking recommendations, ranked from easiest to the toughest in Southeast Asia:

🟢 Easy - Mount Faber - 🇸🇬 Singapore

Rising just 105 metres above sea level, Mount Faber proves memorable adventures do not require extreme elevation. It delivers paved trails, panoramic views of the Singapore skyline, and lush secondary forest right in the heart of the city-state.

Accessible and requiring zero technical skill, the summit park offers lookout points and cafes for a relaxed finish, providing a refreshing urban escape.

🟡Moderate - Mount Ijen - 🇮🇩 Indonesia

Mount Ijen in East Java is world-renowned for its pre-dawn blue fire phenomenon and the world’s largest highly acidic turquoise crater lake.

Trekkers typically start their three-kilometre volcanic ascent in the dead of night to catch the eerie glow before dawn. The trek is a moderate climb with a massive payoff, manageable for anyone with basic fitness, though descending into the crater demands caution and a gas mask against thick sulphur fumes.

🟡 Moderate - Mount Pulag - 🇵🇭 Philippine

Luzon's highest peak is famous for its rolling grasslands and breathtaking "sea of clouds," creating a landscape far removed from typical tropical imagery.

The Ambangeg trail features gentle inclines accessible to first-time trekkers, while other routes accommodate seasoned hikers. While the physical demand is moderate, freezing nighttime temperatures require strict thermal preparation.

🟠 Moderate to Hard - Fansipan - 🇻🇳 Vietnam

Rising 3,147 metres above Sa Pa, Fansipan is the highest peak on the Indochinese Peninsula. Traditional trekking routes wind through dense bamboo forests and steep, muddy terrain, demanding solid stamina.

Weather shifts rapidly, making proper gear essential. At the summit, grand Buddhist temples emerge dramatically through the alpine mist—though a cable car provides a rapid alternative for tourists.

🔴 Hard - Mount Matebian- 🇹🇱 Timor-Lest

Mount Matebian is as much a spiritual pilgrimage as a physical test. The ascent carries the heavy historical weight of Timor-Leste's struggle for independence and deep respect for sacred cultural sites.

The demanding trek involves steep, unpaved tracks, unpredictable weather, and limited infrastructure. Hikers must arrange supplies well in advance and rely on local guides to navigate the unforgiving terrain before arriving at panoramic views of the mountainous interior.

⚫ Very Hard & Technical - Mulu Pinnacles - 🇲🇾 Malaysia

Located within Sarawak’s Gunung Mulu National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Mulu Pinnacles are a jagged formation of towering limestone spires shaped by millions of years of geological erosion.

Universally considered one of the toughest hikes in Southeast Asia, it operates more as a vertical scramble than a standard trek, packing brutal elevation gain into a short distance. Access is strictly regulated; independent climbs are forbidden, and a licensed guide is mandatory.

Share The Southeast Asia Desk

📌 The Bottom Line

The true beauty of Southeast Asia's mountains lies in their diversity. From Singapore’s gentle urban hills to Malaysia’s brutal limestone scrambles, the summit offers a distinctly different vantage point for understanding the region.

(DEV/ELS/ARS)

🤔 Ever wonder why a humble local snack is suddenly competing with luxury global brands on world menus?

🍜 Sure, when most people think of Southeast Asian cuisine, quick street fare served on a bustling corner comes to mind.

📸 Or maybe hyper-photogenic, viral dishes that regularly take over social media feeds.

🌏 But right now, traditional food across Southeast Asia is undergoing a massive, structural transformation.

🇮🇩 From Indonesia’s ancestral heritage bites and rich fermentation traditions...

🇻🇳 To Vietnam’s internationally certified, legally protected regional dishes.

📈 Traditional cuisine is no longer just a soft icon of local nostalgia—it’s actively turning into a $107 billion economic powerhouse.

🤔 So, how exactly are young people, cutting-edge technology, and brand-new legal protections reshaping the region’s culinary identity?

🎧 Let’s take a quick tour across the region.

👋 Hello and welcome to The Southeast Asia Desk Weekly Dispatch Podcast. I’m Dilla Sunarya.

🧭 This is where we slow down the headlines and make sense of the stories shaping Southeast Asia.

🍰 Heritage 2.0: The Generational Shift

🍲 Across the region, we are witnessing a deep cultural and economic pivot toward what is called “Ancestral Dining.”

📱 Gen Z consumers across Southeast Asian markets are actively reclaiming heritage cooking, choosing complex, traditional dishes over imported fast food for their immense cultural cachet.

💻 But this movement isn’t just about what is happening on the plate or in traditional home kitchens.

🤖 Advanced technology is now being directly integrated into modern food production, driving “Digital Fermentation” for regional staples like tempeh and bagoong.

🔬 By leveraging artificial intelligence to monitor micro-environments, producers can now ensure strict export-grade food safety standards while keeping delicate, traditional flavor profiles entirely intact.

👀 Yet, despite this high-tech resurgence, there is a distinct and delicate dual narrative playing out across the region.

📸 While social media platforms like TikTok rescue photogenic, visually striking traditions, unglamorous and deeply complex heritage recipes risk disappearing entirely as retiring elder artisans pass on without apprentices.

🎧 To see how this shift is actually playing out on the ground, let’s take a look at how this heritage renaissance is taking shape across countries in Southeast Asia.

🗺️ The Heritage Renaissance Across Southeast Asia

🧵 Let’s start with Indonesia, where young people are deliberately swapping Western bakery imports like croissants for complex, traditional local staples like kue basah, kue talam, and lemper. And Indonesia isn’t alone.

🇲🇾 Over in Malaysia, we see a similar elevation of local pride as the iconic durian is transformed from a humble roadside fruit into the crowned center of high-end international culinary diplomacy.

🇵🇭 Now, let’s look at the Philippines, where young chefs and food enthusiasts are taking a grassroots approach—rallying behind the global Slow Food movement to actively safeguard rare, endemic “Ark of Taste” ingredients like the sour Batuan fruit.

🇹🇭 Now, let’s go to Thailand. Street food vendors there are bringing tradition right into the modern era by re-engineering classic, centuries-old recipes for urban palates using a vibrant, sweet-and-spicy “swicy” chili-mango and tamarind twist.

🇻🇳 And then there’s Vietnam, where the focus turns toward global recognition as beloved traditional street items like Pho and Gỏi Cuốn undergo standardized global quality certifications to retain their authentic heritage pedigree on world menus.

🇸🇬 Finally, let’s look at Singapore, where the effort is combining preservation with technology as historic UNESCO hawker centers evolve into “Next-Gen Hawkerism,” integrating smart automation to save intricate, highly labor-intensive recipes from extinction.

⚖️ Legally Protecting the Flavors

⚖️ Because of these massive economic and cultural stakes, regional governments are taking unprecedented legal steps to safeguard Southeast Asia’s culinary identity.

📜 The ASEAN Geographical Indication Network, backed by the comprehensive ASEAN Food Policy Framework, is establishing protected “gastronomic intellectual property.”

🥂 Functioning very similarly to Europe’s famous, strict Champagne legal protections, this landmark framework legally protects authentic heritage names like Gudeg Jogja and Gỏi Cuốn.

🏷️ By legally binding these iconic culinary items to their specific geographic origins and traditional preparation methods, ASEAN countries are granting regional producers collective bargaining power.

💼 This structural protection allows traditional Southeast Asian delicacies to sit right alongside European luxury goods on the global market as high-value, authenticated assets.

🧑‍🌾 Crucially, this regulatory shift monetizes generational knowledge, proving directly to local farmers, smallholders, and rural communities that their traditional heritage is a powerful economic engine rather than a forgotten relic of the past.

🌏 From Local Markets to the Global Stage

🤔 When you put all these moving pieces together, a much larger narrative about regional sovereignty begins to emerge.

🏛️ The “Western is premium” era is definitively over.

Ordering a traditional klepon, a fresh Bánh mì, or a rich bowl of Bulalo is no longer just a quick lunch choice—it is a deliberate, proud statement of cultural identity.

✊ When young consumers choose a local traditional market over a globalized fast-food chain, it represents much more than an everyday financial transaction.

🌾 It stands as a scalable act of cultural preservation that pumps money directly back into local agricultural supply chains and empowers small-scale artisans.

💼 What used to be dismissed by international observers as mere street food is rapidly transforming into ASEAN’s most valuable, scalable cultural export.

🎙️ Closing

🤔 So maybe the biggest takeaway from this shift isn’t simply that heritage food is trending on social media feeds.

🌏 It’s that Southeast Asia is turning its authentic culinary roots into a sustainable, legally protected economic driver.

🌾 Because these recipes aren’t just bringing incredible flavors and textures to the global dining table.

🇮🇩 They’re bringing generations of deep, irreplaceable agricultural knowledge.

🇻🇳 They’re bringing protected regional heritage and national pride.

🎬 And above all, they’re showing that cultural identity can confidently lead the region into a high-tech, global future.

💥 If the past generation was primarily focused on preserving these traditional recipes at home...

🌏 The next generation is taking them onto the international stage, claiming their value, and setting the global agenda.

🎙️ I’m Dilla Sunarya, and this has been The Southeast Asia Desk Weekly Dispatch Podcast, where we slow down the noise and follow the region’s compass.

📬 If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter at thesoutheastasiadesk.com, and join us again next weekend for stories to linger over, one weekend at a time.

This episode is also available on Spotify:

🥥 Main Takeaway

Ube, pandan, and palm sugar are becoming familiar names far beyond Southeast Asia.

These ingredients, long staples in home kitchens across the Philippines, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand, now show up more often on café menus, in bakeries, and across food products worldwide.

This is more than a passing food trend.

It’s a sign that global appetite for Southeast Asian flavours has become a real force in the culinary world, from pandan-flavoured lattes to ube cheesecakes to palm sugar syrup in speciality coffee.

👀 Why It’s on Our Radar

🌿 Southeast Asian flavours are entering the global mainstream

Matcha, yuzu, and gochujang got there first, but ingredients native to Southeast Asia are catching up fast.

They're no longer confined to Asian restaurants, independent cafés, artisan bakeries, and international food brands are now reaching for them to give customers something new.

☕ Café is driving experimentation

Competition in the food and drink industry is pushing businesses to keep innovating.

Pandan, with its distinctive aroma, has become a popular alternative to vanilla. Palm sugar is showing up as a premium sweetener in coffee. And Ube offers a colour and flavour that ordinary sweet potatoes simply can't match.

📱 Social media accelerates food trends

Social media has become the primary platform for menus featuring these distinctive ingredients to go viral, thanks to their eye-catching visuals.

The bright purple colour of ube, the natural green of pandan and its distinctive aroma, and drinks featuring palm sugar and calamansi all appear on social media, accelerating the spread of these trends to new locations.

These ingredients are made for social media. Ube's vivid purple, pandan's natural green and unmistakable scent, and drinks built around palm sugar and calamansi- all of it travels fast online, pulling the trend into new cities and markets almost as quickly as it appears.

🌟 The Rising Stars

🟣 Ube

Ube, or purple yam (Dioscorea alata), grows across Southeast Asia, including Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, where it's known by names like khoai mỡ, but the Philippines turned it into a culinary icon.

There, ube isn't just an ingredient; it's a food identity, at the centre of desserts like ube halaya, halo-halo, and ube cheesecake.

Its naturally vivid purple colour and sweet, delicate flavour (somewhere between vanilla and nuts) set it apart from purple sweet potato and taro, which it's often mistaken for.

Filipino diaspora communities have played a major role in bringing it to cafés in the US, Canada, and beyond, which is largely why "ube" as a global dessert trend is so closely tied to Filipino cuisine, even though the plant has roots throughout the region.

🌿 Pandan

Known as "Asian vanilla," pandan brings a sweet aroma with floral and vanilla notes. Pandan leaves run through the cooking of Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines alike, in traditional cakes, rice dishes, and drinks, making it the most genuinely pan-regional ingredient on this list.

Its aroma works as an exotic substitute for vanilla in lattes, croissants, gelato, and chocolate, while the leaf extract doubles as a natural green food colouring.

🥥 Palm Sugar

Palm sugar comes from the sap of the sugar palm or coconut palm, boiled down until it thickens, not, as sometimes assumed, from sago palm, which produces starch rather than sugar.

It has a rich, caramel-like flavour with smoky, earthy undertones that set it apart from white sugar.

Across the region, it goes by different names: gula aren and gula jawa in Indonesia, and gula melaka in Malaysia and comes in several forms: solid blocks, liquid syrup, or crystallised sugar.

It's increasingly used to sweeten coffee, cocktails, sauces, and desserts, and its complexity has helped it earn a premium reputation in the food and drink industry.

🍋 Calamansi

Calamansi is a small citrus fruit that splits the difference between lemon and lime, with a touch of sweetness underneath its tartness.

In Indonesia, it's known as jeruk kunci or jeruk sonkit depending on the region; it's also widely used in the Philippines and Vietnam.

Its bright citrus profile makes it a natural fit for drinks, sauces, marinades, and cocktails, and it's gaining recognition abroad as a more layered alternative to ordinary lemon or lime.

🌏 Bigger Picture

What’s happening with pandan, ube, palm sugar, and calamansi shows that Southeast Asia isn’t just exporting dishes; it’s exporting the building blocks of its flavours.

That’s a different, and arguably more durable, kind of culinary influence.

Social media has fueled global curiosity about authentic flavours and cross-cultural cooking, and that curiosity is pulling these ingredients onto café menus, into bakeries, and across international food products.

For the countries behind them- the Philippines with ube, Indonesia and Malaysia with palm sugar, and pandan across nearly the whole region- that visibility has real economic weight: it can drive exports of value-added products, strengthen local food industries, and boost culinary tourism.

It’s also a form of soft power. Food is one of the most accessible ways for a country to share its culture, and each ingredient carries a story about where it comes from.

💡 Bottom Line

From the scent of pandan leaves to the sweetness of palm sugar, ingredients that have shaped Southeast Asian kitchens for generations are now finding recognition on the world stage.

(DHM/ZIL/ALV)

Your curated wrap-up from The Southeast Asia Desk.

Hello and welcome back,

This week, Southeast Asia finds itself at the centre of a global realignment. The BRICS Summit in New Delhi cemented Indonesia’s place as the region’s only full member of the bloc, while Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam deepened their partnerships.

In Jakarta, the Global Town Hall brought together over 8,300 participants demanding a “global U-turn”, a fundamental reordering of international rules.

Meanwhile, Indonesia is betting on sports to drive economic growth, ASEAN’s think tanks are charting the path to Vision 2045, and the archipelago is confronting converging disasters from earthquakes to toxic haze.

And through it all, Southeast Asians are finding reasons to laugh.

Here is your news in focus.

🇮🇳 Southeast Asia’s BRICS pivot: Inside the New Delhi Summit and the Global South’s New Economic Guard

India hosted the 18th BRICS Summit on 12-13 September in New Delhi, under the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”. Five Southeast Asian countries were involved: Indonesia as a full member (joined January 2025), Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam as partner countries, and the Philippines as a guest following its role as ASEAN Chair.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/southeast-asia-brics-summit-2026-new-delhi

🌐 Global U-Turn: Why Middle Powers must rewrite the rules of global governance

The seventh edition of Global Town Hall, held on 19 September, carried the theme “Calling for a Global U-Turn: Recentering Development, Reclaiming Humanity, Restoring Justice in a Crazi(er) World”. The event brought together think tanks, universities, civil society organisations, and international institutions for a virtual forum on the state of the world.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/global-town-hall-2026-fpci-middle-powers

🏃🎪 Indonesia Sports Summit 2026: Simplifying regulations, launching sport portal, and welcoming FIFA ASEAN Cup

The Indonesia Sports Summit 2026, held from 11-13 September at the Jakarta International Convention Centre, brought together more than 20 speakers and 80 global and national partners under the theme “Beyond the Game 2.0: From Nation Building to Global Industry”.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/indonesia-sports-summit-2026-fifa-asean-cup

🌏🤝 How ASEAN’s Track-Two Summit Shapes the Road to Vision 2045

The 3rd ASEAN Think Tanks Summit (ATTS) convened on 14 September 2026 at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta under the theme “Navigating Our Future, Together”. Co-organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs on behalf of ASEAN-ISIS, the two-day summit brought together over 150 experts, research institutions, and international partners.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/3rd-asean-think-tanks-summit-vision-2045

🌋 Indonesia’s Converging Crises: Tectonic Shock, Toxic Haze, and the Limits of Resilience

Indonesia is facing a series of disasters, from earthquakes and volcanic activity to forest and land fires and drought expected to persist into 2027. The resulting haze has affected neighbouring countries, with Malaysia and Brunei raising the issue at the ASEAN level.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/indonesia-converging-natural-disasters

🍽️ Implementation Not Intention That Matters: Evaluating President Prabowo’s Most Popular Policies

President Prabowo Subianto’s Makan Bergizi Gratis (Free Nutritious Meals, MBG) program and Koperasi Desa/Kelurahan Merah Putih (Red and White Rural Cooperatives) represent an ambitious vision of a more socially responsive Indonesian state. The government needs to shift from a coverage-driven model to an outcome-driven approach where nutritional improvement, food safety, targeting accuracy, and local economic impact become central performance indicators.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/indonesia-prabowo-mbg-digital-food-subsidy-cooperatives

🌊 Beyond the beach: 5 Southeast Asian waterfalls to climb, swim, and explore

Southeast Asia’s waterfalls are not interchangeable. Limestone, monsoon timing, and local custom have shaped each one into something you do, not just look at. Five waterfalls, five completely different days out. One you climb, one you swim, one you earn, one you raft, one you wait for.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/5-southeast-asian-waterfalls

✂️ Cutting hair, carrying stories: Southeast Asia’s sacred hair traditions, explained

From Dieng’s gimbal-haired children to coming-of-age rituals in Thailand and Cambodia, hair carries spiritual meaning and marks life transitions.

Read more:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/dieng-culture-festival-southeast-asia-hair-rituals

🎙️ The Dispatch Podcast: Why Is Southeast Asia So Funny?

From political satire to food reviews, Southeast Asian comedians are turning local experiences into global audiences. This week’s podcast explores how comedians across the region make jokes about what it’s actually like to live in Southeast Asia—not explaining the region to outsiders, but finding the absurdity in everyday life.

Listen here:
https://www.thesoutheastasiadesk.com/p/s26e33-why-is-southeast-asia-so-funny

✍️ Closing Note

This week’s stories reveal a region asserting its place in a shifting global order, not as a passive recipient of rules written elsewhere, but as an active shaper of its own future.

From the BRICS Summit in New Delhi to the Global Town Hall in Jakarta, from the sports industry ambitions to the think tank corridors of ASEAN, Southeast Asia is building the institutions and alliances that will define the next decade.

Yet the week also brought sobering reminders of the region’s vulnerabilities: converging natural disasters, the recurring haze crisis, and the gap between policy intention and implementation.

Through it all, Southeast Asians continue to find humour in the absurdities of daily life, perhaps the most enduring form of resilience.

Thank you for reading.

✨ Stories to linger over, one week at a time.

(ELS/QOB)

🎯 The Main Takeaway

Cambodian National Constitution Day, marked on 24 September, commemorates the 1993 promulgation of the Constitution after decades of war and regime changes.

It marked Cambodia’s transition to constitutional monarchy and multiparty democracy through a peace process shaped by domestic political compromise and international intervention.

📡 Why It’s on Our Radar

🌏 It reshaped Southeast Asia: Cambodia’s conflict had drawn in Vietnam, neighbouring states and Cold War powers. The 1991 peace settlement helped move the country from a regional conflict zone into Southeast Asia’s emerging post-Cold War order.

🇺🇳 It tested international peace-building: United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) oversaw elections, administration and refugee repatriation, making Cambodia a major case of UN-led post-conflict transition.

🇦🇸 It connects to ASEAN’s evolution: ASEAN’s six members at the time participated in the Paris peace process, while Cambodia later joined ASEAN in 1999. Its constitutional transition therefore sits within the region’s longer shift from Cold War conflict towards regional integration.

🎊 A Day of Lotus Tributes and Constitutional Reflection

Cambodia marked the 33rd anniversary of its Constitution on 24 September with ceremonies in Phnom Penh, including the main commemoration at the Constitution Monument near the Independence Monument.

• 🪷 Lotus tributes: Delegations from ministries, the Senate and National Assembly took turns laying lotus floral tributes at the monument, turning the anniversary into a collective state commemoration.

• 🏛️ A national political occasion: Acting Head of State Hun Sen, Prime Minister Hun Manet and National Assembly President Khuon Sudary marked the anniversary, with official messages highlighting the Constitution’s role in peace, stability, rule of law and national development.

• 📜 33 years on: Officials also revisited the Constitution’s origins in the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements and the 1993 UN-supervised elections, linking this year’s commemoration directly to Cambodia’s post-conflict transition.

• 📅 Why 24 September? The Constituent Assembly adopted the Constitution on 21 September 1993. Three days later, King Norodom Sihanouk signed the Royal Decree promulgating it at the Royal Palace, formally establishing the constitutional monarchy.

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🇰🇭 33 Years Later: Why It Still Matters

• ⚖️ A living Constitution: Cambodia’s Constitution has been amended 11 times since 1993, including an amendment in 2025, showing that the framework created after the peace process continues to evolve.

• 🏛️ A political framework: The Constitution established the institutions through which Cambodia’s political system operates today, including the monarchy, Parliament and executive government.

• 🌏 A regional transition: Cambodia’s path from conflict to constitutional rule eventually brought it into ASEAN in 1999, connecting a once-divided conflict zone to Southeast Asia’s regional institutions.

• 🛡️ A different security landscape: The challenges facing Cambodia today are no longer the armed factional conflicts of the 1970s and 1980s. Cross-border issues such as online scams now require cooperation through the same regional architecture Cambodia joined after the peace process.

🌍 Beyond the Headlines

While Constitution Day anchors the national conversation, September in Cambodia is also buzzing with cultural and contemporary developments:

• 🌅 Angkor Wat Equinox: Between 19-21 September, crowds flocked to Siem Reap to witness a rare solar alignment where the sun rises perfectly over the central tower of Angkor Wat.

• 🌾 Pchum Ben preparations: The country is gearing up for Pchum Ben (Ancestors’ Day) in late September, one of the most sacred religious festivals driving mass travel to local pagodas.

• 🛡️ Cracking down on cybercrime: Cambodian authorities have recently intensified national and cross-border efforts to dismantle online scam syndicates, a major focal point in current regional diplomacy.

🌱 Bottom Line

A Constitution cannot erase the past, but it can help a country choose what comes next. Thirty-three years after Cambodia emerged from one of Southeast Asia’s darkest chapters, Constitution Day offers a moment to reflect on the distance travelled and the future still being built.

Need More Angle?

• Cambodianess Cambodia Celebrates 32nd Anniversary of Constitution

• Khmer Times Cambodia marks Constitution Day with civic responsibility

• United States Holocaust Memorial Musem Cambodia 1975–1979

(BRZ/ELS)

At a Ramadan food bazaar in Bintulu in 2025, the idea was relatively simple.

At the end of each trading day, food that might otherwise have been discarded was separated into two streams.

Edible surplus could be redistributed, while unavoidable food waste could be collected for composting or biogas rather than sent for conventional disposal.

Thirty-four food-stall operators participated. Over the initiative, more than 500 kilograms of food were diverted from landfill.

More than 300 kilograms of edible surplus were redistributed to the community, while more than 200 kilograms of unavoidable food waste were separated for resource recovery.

There was nothing technologically remarkable about any of this.

Food donation is not new. Composting is not new. Waste segregation is certainly not new.

What was more interesting was everything that had to happen around those familiar solutions.

Stall operators had to participate. Food had to be separated correctly. Collection had to be organised. Different types of waste needed different destinations. Local authorities, community organisations and researchers had to coordinate their roles.

The experience illustrated something easy to overlook in discussions of the circular economy: Knowing what should happen to waste is very different from building a system that allows it to happen routinely.

That distinction has increasingly shaped our work in Bintulu.

The distance between awareness and action

Waste-reduction programmes often begin with awareness, for good reason. People cannot change practices they do not recognise as a problem.

But awareness has limits.

A household may know that plastic should be recycled and still throw it in the general waste if there is nowhere convenient to send it.

A restaurant may understand that food scraps can be composted but lack the space or staff routines to separate them.

An organisation may proudly say that it recycles without knowing how much material actually leaves its premises or where it goes.

The challenge is often not discovering another solution. It is connecting people to solutions that already exist.

This is particularly relevant in places such as Bintulu.

Southeast Asia’s conversations about sustainability, smart cities and the circular economy naturally gravitate towards major metropolitan centres. Yet much of the region’s economic and social life takes place outside them.

Bintulu is an industrial centre in Sarawak (Borneo) where hotels, industries, schools, government agencies, food businesses, community organisations and households generate different waste streams, while the systems needed to recover those materials are still developing.

It therefore offers a useful place to ask a practical question: What does a local circular economy look like before it becomes a neat policy diagram?

The answer, from our experience so far, is rather untidy.

It involves meetings, compost bins, school competitions, recyclers, mobile applications, hotel kitchens, community organisations and quite a lot of trial and error.

Getting people into the same room

One starting point was Towards Zero Food Waste in Bintulu, a collaboration among Universiti Putra Malaysia Sarawak, Tokyo University of Agriculture, and local stakeholders, funded by the Bintulu Development Authority (BDA).

In February 2025, the programme brought together approximately 300 participants representing around 120 organisations, including businesses, hotels, schools, government agencies, community organisations and other groups.

The attendance figure itself is not the interesting part. What mattered was that people who normally encounter different parts of the same problem were in the same conversation.

A hotel sees kitchen waste.

A recycler sees materials with different market values.

A school sees an educational opportunity.

A local authority sees collection, cleanliness and disposal.

Researchers see data, behaviour and potential interventions.

Community organisations see what people will realistically do.

Bringing those perspectives together does not solve the problem, but it helps reveal where the system breaks down.

This is vital because environmental programmes can easily become trapped at the awareness stage. A seminar can be successful by conventional measures: The room is full, photographs are taken, participants fill in evaluation forms, and everyone agrees that waste should be reduced.

Then Monday morning arrives, and old routines have a habit of returning.

The real question, then, is what happens to the waste.

The Ramadan bazaar initiative became one attempt to move beyond that point by linking awareness directly with a practical pathway for food recovery.

Giving waste somewhere else to go

The distinction between edible and unavoidable food waste sounds obvious, but it changes the question being asked.

The first question is no longer, ‘How do we dispose of this food waste?’ but, ‘Does this need to become waste at all?

Where food remained suitable for consumption, redistribution came first. Only the unavoidable fraction moved towards composting or other forms of recovery.

It also became clear that individual behaviour was only part of the problem.

Institutions often have greater scope to change material flows because they control kitchens, storage areas, staff responsibilities and relatively consistent waste streams.

Following the broader food-waste programme, composting activities were introduced or explored with hotels and other institutions in Bintulu.

The difficult questions were not about whether composting works. They were much more ordinary.

Where will scraps be separated? Who is responsible? What happens when trained staff are off duty? How much space is needed? Which materials can enter the system? Who will use the compost?

These mundane questions often determine whether an environmental intervention survives after its launch. Circular economies are built as much through routines as through technologies.

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When recycling happens, can we see it?

A different problem emerged around recyclable materials.

Many organisations already carried out some form of recycling, but the process was fragmented.

Materials accumulated until someone contacted a recycler. Different recyclers accepted different materials. Records varied considerably. Organisations could participate in recycling without having a clear picture of what had been recovered.

This was one of the problems behind the development of KitarNow.

Developed by Universiti Putra Malaysia Sarawak in cooperation with Tokyo University of Agriculture, with funding through the Asia-Pacific Telecommunity and support from local partners, the platform allows organisations to list recyclable materials, while recycling companies can identify available materials.

Transactions can then be recorded by material type and weight.

However, the technology should not be romanticised. KitarNow does not recycle anything. People do.

Recyclers still need vehicles. Someone still must separate cardboard from general waste. Markets still determine whether particular materials are worth collecting.

What the application adds is a coordination and information layer.

As of May 2026, 43 organisations were registered on the platform, including five recycling companies. It had recorded 8,401.73 kilograms of recyclable material, of which 8,199.64 kilograms were recorded as recycled.

For us, the useful change was partly conceptual.

Instead of saying, “We conducted a recycling campaign”, it becomes possible to ask: What material entered the system? What was recovered? What remains uncollected? Which materials repeatedly struggle to find a destination?

That shift from activity to material flow changes how a programme can be understood.

It also exposes weaknesses.

If glass or textiles remain difficult to recover, an app cannot manufacture a market for them. If recyclers do not participate, digital listings simply become digital piles of uncollected material.

Digitalisation can reduce friction between actors. It cannot remove the physical economics of waste.

That may be one of the more useful lessons from KitarNow: technology works best when it is introduced after the coordination problem is understood, not before.

An unexpected role for schools

Schools became one of the strongest early sources of recyclable material recorded through KitarNow.

This developed alongside the Towards Zero Waste in Bintulu: Youth Environmental Empowerment 2026 programme and the Bintulu Zero Waste Schools Challenge.

The programme combined environmental education with practical recycling and sustainability communication.

Rather than judging participation solely by attendance or enthusiasm, the recycling component could also be linked to actual quantities recorded through KitarNow and supported by recycling records.

Across the wider challenge, nearly five tonnes of recyclable material were recorded in less than two months. The tonnage was useful, but schools were interesting for another reason.

Schools are institutions, but they are also networks.

Students take messages home. Teachers organise collective action. Parents become involved indirectly. A recycling activity can become visible to hundreds of people at once.

But school competitions have an obvious weakness.

Competitions end.

The harder question is what happens once the certificates are distributed and the winners announced.

Temporary mobilisation is relatively easy. Institutional memory is much harder. Which brings the problem back to continuity.

Digital systems still need physical places

In June 2026, SisaSMART@Bintulu was established as a community facility supporting waste separation, recycling, composting, training and environmental education.

Its purpose is straightforward: to provide a physical place where sustainable waste practices can be carried out rather than only discussed.

The arrangement also illustrates the institutional side of the circular economy.

Bintulu Development Authority provides support and coordination. Sarawak Federation of Women’s Institute (PPWS) Bintulu-Tatau contributes to day-to-day operation and community mobilisation. Universiti Putra Malaysia Sarawak provides technical guidance and training support.

No single organisation is expected to do everything.

That sounds obvious, but environmental projects are often designed as though a single institution could conduct research, mobilise communities, develop technology, collect waste, train participants, operate facilities, and monitor outcomes indefinitely.

In practice, few institutions can do all of these things well.

A more realistic approach is to identify which organisation is best placed to perform which function.

SisaSMART@Bintulu is still new, and it would be premature to claim that it has changed community behaviour or significantly altered Bintulu’s waste flows.

Its importance at this stage is more modest: It provides continuity.

Campaigns, competitions and workshops have an expiry date, but a physical facility can still be there the following week.

Infrastructure does not always mean sophisticated machinery or an expensive processing plant. Sometimes it is simply a reliable place, a responsible operator and a recognised process through which people can participate.

The connections matter more than the projects

Viewed separately, none of these initiatives is particularly unusual.

There is an awareness programme, food redistribution, composting, a recycling application, a school programme and a community facility.

The more interesting development is what happens when they begin to connect.

The stakeholder programme brings organisations into the conversation. The Ramadan initiative provides a practical pathway for food recovery. Organisational composting creates another destination for unavoidable organic waste.

Schools broaden participation. KitarNow records part of the recyclable material flow and connects organisations with recyclers. SisaSMART provides a physical community node where some of these activities can continue.

None is sufficient on its own.

An awareness campaign without an action pathway produces informed frustration.

A composting system without source separation receives contaminated waste.

A recycling application without recyclers becomes a database of unresolved listings.

A community facility without an operator becomes an empty building.

A local authority working alone cannot reasonably manage every part of the circular economy.

The emerging lesson from Bintulu is therefore less about the projects themselves than about the spaces between them.

Those spaces are where local circular economies either begin to function or fall apart.

What Bintulu has not solved

Bintulu is not a zero-waste town, and these initiatives should not be presented as evidence that it is becoming one.

The quantities recorded through KitarNow represent participating organisations, not the total recyclable waste generated in Bintulu.

Food diverted through individual programmes should not be confused with citywide reductions. Short-term participation does not demonstrate long-term behavioural change.

There are also practical constraints.

Some recyclable materials remain economically unattractive to collect. Recyclers have limited capacity. Community facilities require people and resources to operate them.

Organisations may participate enthusiastically during campaigns and gradually return to older routines. Digital platforms depend on users continuing to provide reliable information.

And almost every environmental programme eventually encounters the same uncomfortable question: who pays when project funding ends?

These are not reasons to dismiss local initiatives.

They are reasons to evaluate them realistically.

Circular-economy diagrams often make material loops appear almost effortless. Draw an arrow from “waste” to “resource”, and the loop appears complete.

In practice, every arrow requires an organisation, an incentive, a person, a vehicle, a facility, a buyer or some combination of them.

What may travel beyond Bintulu?

Bintulu’s experience is still developing, and it would be unwise to package it as a model for Southeast Asia.

Local conditions differ too much. Waste markets vary. Local authorities have different capacities. Formal and informal recycling systems differ across the region. What works in Sarawak cannot simply be copied elsewhere.

But some principles may travel better than individual projects.

One is to begin with the material pathway rather than the technology.

Where does the waste originate? Who currently handles it? Where could it realistically go? What prevents that from happening?

Only then does it make sense to decide whether the missing piece is awareness, collection, infrastructure, financing, data or technology.

A second is that awareness should be linked with an action pathway.

If people are asked to separate something, there needs to be an answer when they ask where it should go tomorrow morning.

A third is to measure participation increasingly through what happens to materials rather than through attendance alone.

A hall containing 300 people may be an excellent beginning. It is not, by itself, an environmental outcome.

Different institutions also need different jobs.

Universities can contribute research and technical guidance. Local authorities can coordinate and provide institutional support. Community organisations can sustain local participation. Businesses can change their operational practices. Recyclers understand material markets. Schools can mobilise students and families.

The system becomes stronger when those roles complement one another rather than trying to make every organisation responsible for everything.

And digital tools should solve actual coordination problems.

There is little value in digitising a process simply because digitalisation sounds modern. Technology becomes useful when it removes a specific friction that people already experience.

When Monday morning arrives

The food-stall operator separating leftovers at a Ramadan bazaar is a long way from the diagrams of circular economies that appear in policy documents.

But in some ways, that small act is where the circular economy actually begins.

A material that previously had one destination is given another.

For that to happen consistently, however, a chain has to exist around it.

Someone has to separate the material. Someone has to collect it. Someone has to use it. Someone has to coordinate the process. And increasingly, someone needs to know whether it happened at all.

Bintulu’s waste problem has not been solved. What has begun to change is the architecture around parts of that problem.

Food businesses have experimented with redistribution and segregation. Organisations are adopting composting. Schools have participated in measurable recycling.

Recyclers and waste-generating organisations can connect through a digital platform. A community organisation now helps operate a physical place where recycling and composting can continue beyond a one-day campaign.

These remain small interventions compared with the total waste generated by a town.

But perhaps that is precisely why they are worth examining.

The circular economy is often discussed in terms of national strategies, advanced technologies, and major infrastructure investments. Those things matter.

At the local level, however, it also has to work when the campaign is over, the banners have come down, and Monday morning arrives.

That requires something less glamorous but just as important: Connecting people, information, infrastructure and institutions well enough that yesterday’s waste has somewhere else to go.

Disclosure: This article has not been previously published. The author leads the Bintulu initiatives discussed in this article, including Towards Zero Food Waste in Bintulu and KitarNow.

Sources and further reading

Bintulu Development Authority. 2025. “Bintulu’s ‘Towards Zero Food Waste’ Initiative Diverts Over 500kg from Landfills.” 7 April 2025.

Unit Komunikasi Awam Sarawak (UKAS). 2026. “Agenda Sifar Sisa Bintulu Diperkasa Melalui Kolaborasi BDA-UPMS.”

Universiti Putra Malaysia Sarawak. 2025. “KitarNow: Digitising Recycling for an Inclusive Circular Economy in Bintulu.”

Universiti Putra Malaysia Sarawak. 2026. “SisaSMART@Bintulu Dilancarkan Sebagai Pusat Komuniti untuk Pengurusan Sisa, Kompos dan Kitar Semula.” 18 June 2026.

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 2024. Food Waste Index Report 2024. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme.

United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). 2024. Circular Economy: From Indicators and Data to Policy-Making. Nairobi: United Nations Environment Programme.

(QOB)

🎯 The Main Takeaway

India, as the BRICS Chair in 2026, hosted the 18th BRICS Summit from 12 to 13 September at the Bharat Mandapam Convention Centre in New Delhi. BRICS member states, partner countries, and international organisations attended the summit.

Under the theme “Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability”, BRICS leaders discussed key global issues, including politics and security, the economy and finance, and cultural and people-to-people exchanges.

🗺️ What is BRICS?

BRICS is a group of major emerging economies established in 2006 by Brazil, Russia, India, and China. South Africa joined the group in September 2010.

BRICS membership has continued to grow. The group expanded to 11 members after Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) joined in January 2024, followed by Indonesia in January 2025.

Together, BRICS countries represent around 3.9 billion people, or 49.5% of the world’s population. They also account for around 26% of global trade and 40% of global GDP, and have already surpassed that of the G7, which accounts for around 28% of global GDP.

BRICS also has 10 partner countries: Belarus, Bolivia, Cuba, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Nigeria, Thailand, Uganda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. These countries are emerging economies from the Global South.

The group aims to strengthen economic and financial cooperation among its members, including by reducing reliance on the U.S., promoting trade in local currencies, and promoting multilateralism.

📡 Why It’s on Our Radar?

BRICS leaders discussed several global issues during the two-day summit, covering international security, global governance, multilateralism, and economic affairs. These issues include:

• Global conflicts: Ongoing conflicts involving Russia-Ukraine, the US-Israel-Iran, Israel-Palestine, Myanmar, and several countries in Africa.

• Limited participation: Emerging markets and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) still have limited participation in global decision-making and international forums.

• Less multilateralism: Some major powers tend to act independently to pursue their own interests rather than prioritise dialogue and diplomatic efforts.

• US dollar dominance: The US dollar remains widely used for international payments, increasing economic vulnerability when local currencies weaken.

⚠️ Why It Matters?

These global issues are having a major impact on many countries, pushing them to look for solutions:

• Global uncertainty: The Russia-Ukraine and US-Israel-Iran conflicts can drive up energy and commodity prices, disrupt supply chains, and push countries to diversify their energy sources. Meanwhile, conflicts in Palestine, Myanmar, and several African countries have caused thousands of deaths and humanitarian crises, including the forced displacement of millions of people and food shortages.

• More representation: More groups and forums are needed to give emerging markets and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) a stronger voice in global discussions and ensure their concerns are heard and considered in global decision-making.

• Promote multilateralism: Countries need to work together to promote multilateralism, address global issues, and use dialogue and diplomacy to find solutions.

• Alternative payment systems: Alternative payment systems are needed to reduce dependence on the US dollar and help strengthen the use of local currencies.

🏡 Why This Hits Home?

Five Southeast Asian countries were involved in the BRICS Summit: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines.

Indonesia is the only full BRICS member from Southeast Asia, after officially joining the group on 6 January 2025. Meanwhile, Malaysia, Thailand, and Vietnam are among the 10 BRICS partner countries, a status they gained on 24 October 2024.

The Philippines also joined the BRICS Summit as a guest from an outreach country, following its role as the ASEAN Chair in 2026.

📜 The New Delhi Declaration

The summit produced the New Delhi Declaration on Saturday (12/9), which was agreed by the leaders of BRICS member states. The declaration will serve as a roadmap to turn their commitments into concrete actions and results through cooperation and mutual support.

“We must work through partnership and collective action to bridge the gap between commitment and outcomes. The ‘New Delhi Declaration’ adopted today provides a clear direction for our collective resolve. It is now our responsibility to translate these commitments into tangible results.” — Narendra Modi, Indian Prime Minister and BRICS Chair

🤝 The Shared Commitment

BRICS leaders reaffirmed their commitment to the BRICS spirit of mutual respect, equality, solidarity, openness, inclusiveness, cooperation, and consensus.

The group also agreed to strengthen cooperation in three areas: politics and security, economic and financial matters, and culture and people-to-people ties. They aim to work together to promote peace, multilateralism, fairer global cooperation, sustainable development, and inclusive growth.

The bloc also recognised the important contribution of Partner countries. It said stronger cooperation with Emerging Markets and Least Developed Countries (LDCs) can help promote solidarity and international cooperation.

💡 Global Conflict Solution

BRICS leaders expressed concern about ongoing conflicts in many parts of the world, which are increasing fragmentation in the international order and spreading to neighbouring countries.

The group urged all parties involved in conflicts to respect each state's sovereignty and territorial integrity, in line with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, while stressing the need to protect civilians and civilian infrastructure.

The bloc encouraged efforts through dialogue and diplomacy to achieve lasting peace, security, and stability. It also called for maximum restraint and urged all sides to avoid actions that could worsen the situation.

BRICS countries also committed to supporting Palestine’s full UN membership and reaffirmed their commitment to the two-state solution, with an independent Palestinian state covering territories including Gaza and the West Bank, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

🏛️ Improving Global Governance

On the 20th anniversary of BRICS, BRICS leaders reaffirmed their commitment to reforming global governance and making international cooperation fairer, more effective, representative, democratic, and accountable.

The group also called for greater participation of Emerging Markets and Developing Countries (EMDCs) and Least Developed Countries (LDCs), especially from Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean, in global decision-making and international forums.

The bloc reiterated its support for reforming the United Nations (UN), including its Security Council, to make it more democratic, representative, effective, and efficient in addressing global challenges.

🌍 Strengthen Multipolarism

BRICS leaders recognise that strengthening multipolarism can create more opportunities for Emerging Markets and Developing Countries (EMDCs) to grow and benefit from fair and sustainable economic cooperation.

As a result, the group called on emerging markets and developing countries to strengthen dialogue and consultations to promote fairer global governance and mutually beneficial relations among nations.

The bloc also committed to upholding multilateralism to address global challenges that could threaten the world in the future, including climate change, terrorism, radicalisation, human trafficking, and transnational crime.

In addition, BRICS countries aim to strengthen partnership in knowledge sharing, capacity building, agriculture, food security, healthcare, disaster management, and energy diversification to drive innovation and create mutual benefits.

💰 The Local Currency Transaction

BRICS leaders recognised the BRICS Payment Task Force (BPTF) for its work on practical solutions for efficient cross-border payments among BRICS countries.

The group supported efforts to connect payment and messaging systems to promote trade and investment using local currencies, while respecting each country’s priorities.

The bloc encouraged the BPTF to continue developing fast, low-cost, accessible, efficient, transparent, and secure cross-border payment solutions among BRICS countries.

Five Southeast Asian countries also shared their views during the summit, highlighting the need for UN reform, respect for sovereignty, unification, and cooperation.

🇮🇩 Indonesia: Highlighting UN Reform

President Prabowo Subianto brought the message of the Bandung Spirit to bring the Global South together, especially countries from Asia and Africa that have gained independence. He called for their voices to be gathered and amplified so they can be heard more clearly in global decision-making.

He also shared his vision of building resilient nations by ensuring people have enough food, providing access to education, strengthening energy security by connecting energy systems, and promoting joint industrialisation to use resources better.

Prabowo also highlighted the need to reform the UN and international financial institutions to make them more representative, responsive, supportive, and focused on delivering concrete results for people, helping strengthen global resilience through multilateralism.

“Together we can build a stronger multilateral system that supports the needs and the interests of all nations, big and small, strong or weak. For this to succeed, we must keep the United Nations at the center of that system because the United Nations remains the only multilateral institution where all nations come together as equals.” - Prabowo Subianto, Indonesian President.

🇲🇾 Malaysia: Highlighting Sovereignty, Rejecting Colonialism

Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim said progress on the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development remains uneven, as many countries face debt and financial difficulties.

He stressed that development financing should meet people’s basic needs and provide public goods without leaving countries with unsustainable debt.

He added that BRICS can offer geoeconomic benefits to its members by creating an integrated market, diversifying trade, and reducing overreliance on Western markets.

Anwar also highlighted that Israel’s aggression in the Middle East has gone too far, causing insecurity, higher inflation, and economic uncertainty in other countries. He urged an end to the aggression, respect for sovereignty, and the protection of civilians.

“Our position is clear. Sovereignty must be respected, civilians protected, and the arteries of the global economy kept out of the battlefield. Malaysia hopes BRICS will say plainly and unequivocally that any form of aggression against fellow countries, occupation, settler colonialism, or more in point, settler terrorism, cannot become destiny and no life weighs less for where it is lived.” - Anwar Ibrahim, Malaysian Prime Minister.

🇹🇭 Thailand: Highlighting Global South Unification

Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Affairs Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow stressed that, amid a changing world order, Global South countries must work together to achieve concrete results.

Thailand supports a rules-based international order, stronger regional cooperation, and multilateralism. He also highlighted Thailand’s interest in working with BRICS on trade, investment, emerging technologies, artificial intelligence, risk management, and financial reform.

He also mentioned the potential ASEAN-BRICS cooperation in food security, supply chains, and the digital economy. Thailand is ready to act as a bridge between the two regions.

🇵🇭 The Philippines: Highlighting ASEAN Priorities

President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. highlighted ASEAN priorities on peace and security, economic prosperity, and people empowerment during the summit.

On peace, security, and stability, Marcos said regional and global peace depends on ASEAN centrality and continued dialogue based on international law. He highlighted the need for cooperation on maritime issues, disaster management, and climate security.

On economic prosperity, Marcos said ASEAN is improving regional connections to support inclusive growth, while strengthening supply chains, energy, and food security. ASEAN is also promoting green investment and climate-ready agriculture to support sustainability.

On people empowerment, Marcos stressed that ASEAN’s development agenda must remain centred on its people. This includes investing in young people, digital literacy, and resilient families, while protecting vulnerable groups to build strong and lasting social resilience.

“ASEAN’s enduring strength lies in consensus, bridge building, and constructive engagement across regions. By anchoring peace and stability, expanding prosperity corridors, and empowering our people, we turn shared aspirations into tangible realities,” - Ferdinand Marcos Jr., Philippine President.

🇻🇳 Vietnam: Highlighting Development and Cooperation

Prime Minister Le Minh Hung said Vietnam supports closer cooperation between BRICS and other regional and global organisations to promote peace, stability, and development. He also called for fair development opportunities, stronger dialogue, and multilateral system reform to better support developing countries.

He proposed three key actions: making economies more resilient and self-reliant; creating new and sustainable sources of growth; and turning cooperation in science, technology, and innovation into practical projects.

Through BRICS cooperation, Vietnam will strengthen trust and understanding while exploring opportunities in trade, investment, science and technology, energy, infrastructure, healthcare, education, tourism, and culture.

Looking ahead, Vietnam will work with BRICS members and partners to support economic resilience, self-reliance, and new growth drivers, while strengthening multilateral institutions to better serve developing countries.

📌 The Bottom Line

Multilateralism is not only about giving countries a voice, but also about working together to promote peace, strengthen global governance, and create fairer opportunities for developing countries.

BRICS focuses not only on economic cooperation, but also on building stronger partnerships in trade, technology, energy, food security, and other areas to support resilience and sustainable development.

🔍 Need More Angle?

Anwar Ibrahim, 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit - Open Session

BRICS, About BRICS

Ministry of External Affairs, Government of India, BRICS New Delhi Declaration: Building for Resilience, Innovation, Cooperation and Sustainability (September 12, 2026)

Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Vietnam, PM’s attendance at BRICS Summit in India advances Vietnam’s multilateral diplomacy: FM

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kingdom of Thailand, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs leads Thai delegation to the 18th BRICS Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi, Republic of India

Presidential Communications Office, President Marcos highlights ASEAN priorities at 18th BRICS Summit Open Session

Sekretariat Presiden, Pernyataan Presiden Prabowo dalam Sesi Terbuka KTT BRICS India, 13 September 2026

(NGO/JUN/QOB)

🎯 The Main Takeaway

On 19 September 2026, the Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia (FPCI) once again gathered a global consortium of think tanks, universities, civil society organisations, and international institutions for the seventh edition of Global Town Hall (GTH).

The event carried the theme “Calling for a Global U-Turn: Recentering Development, Reclaiming Humanity, Restoring Justice in a Crazi(er) World.”

The event brought together over 8300 participants from over 120 countries who attended and shared their perspectives in a virtual forum on the current state of the world.

FPCI is growing concerned that the current international system is drifting away from the principles that have long underpinned global peace and cooperation. The forum aims to connect East-West-North-South and elevate the perspectives of citizens and communities whose voices must shape national and multilateral decisions.

🔍 Why it’s on our Radar

Amid shifts in the global order, Southeast Asia is not merely adapting to these changes but also has the scope to help shape their direction.

As a region comprising countries with diverse interests and capacities, Southeast Asia plays a vital role in fostering dialogue, building cooperation, and bridging interests amid competition among major powers.

This makes the topics discussed at the Global Townhall 2026 highly relevant to the region. The issues covered range from shifts in the global order and development and technology to the future of multilateralism and the challenges facing South-East Asia.

ASEAN is not merely a party affected by global changes; it must also help shape the response. These efforts are evident in how countries in the region maintain strategic space, strengthen regional cooperation, and contribute to various international forums.

⚠️ Why it’s important

• The global order is changing faster than its institutions

The distribution of global power continues to shift, whilst international institutions face the challenge of adapting to increasingly complex conflicts, geopolitical competition, development disparities and fragmentation.

For Southeast Asia, this is crucial, as the region requires stability, openness, and strategic space to continue cooperating amid competition among major powers.

• Development cannot be separated from security

Various conflicts and geopolitical tensions divert attention and resources from the development agenda, while competing interests and limited access to economic opportunities can also make communities increasingly vulnerable.

Therefore, security is not only about conflict and defence but also about creating conditions that enable development and well-being to continue.

• Global cooperation is becoming harder when global problems require it most

Climate change, technology, digital security, inequality and cross-border conflicts all require cross-national cooperation.

Yet, diverging interests and increasing fragmentation are making cooperation increasingly difficult.

This poses a particular challenge for Southeast Asia, especially in maintaining spaces for dialogue and cooperation, including regional approaches such as ASEAN Centrality, particularly as global interests become increasingly diverse.

• Those affected by global changes need a voice in shaping them

Changes and developments in technology, the economy, security and development will ultimately have a direct impact on communities. However, they do not always have the opportunity to help shape policy.

Therefore, representation and participation are crucial to ensure that responses to global changes are not determined solely at the level of governments or institutions, but also take into account the needs of the communities experiencing them.

🤖 Technology, AI & Information

At the Global Townhall 2026, two sessions highlighted issues related to technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI), and information: ‘Reality Check: How to Live in the Age of Mass Manipulation and Deception’ and ‘Green Lights, Red Lines: How Far Should We Let AI Go?’

In these two sessions, a key point is that information moves faster than institutions can verify and respond to it.

• Information is moving faster than institutions can respond: The speed of information makes verification increasingly difficult, while manipulation can shape public perceptions and even justify real-world actions. Credibility and societal resilience are therefore becoming increasingly important.

“Manipulation is intentional.” – Ebrahim Rasool, former South African Ambassador to the United States

• AI is becoming a governance issue: As AI enters education, healthcare, finance, public services and security, the question is no longer only what AI can do, but who decides how it is used and where its boundaries lie.

• AI could deepen existing inequalities: Unequal access to data, computing power, capital and talent could widen the digital divide, while changes in the labour market may leave some groups struggling to adapt. AI also raises questions about how much decision-making should be delegated to systems.

“delegating the power of judgement.” – Dr WU Shenkuo, Senior Adviser to the United Nations on Cybersecurity and Cybercrime

• Middle powers have a role in shaping the rules: Rather than simply adopting technologies and regulations developed elsewhere, Southeast Asian countries can coordinate their positions on AI governance, digital inclusion and workforce transition, helping ensure that technological progress does not concentrate benefits and decision-making in the hands of a few.

Global Order & Multilateralism

Reforming Multilateral Governance and The United Nations (UN)

• Geopolitical Gridlock of the UN: The Security Council is often paralysed because a few powerful nations hold veto power, allowing a single country to block global action during major conflicts and human rights crises. This prevents swift diplomacy and keeps essential technical and humanitarian agencies from operating on the ground and delivering life-saving assistance to millions of people daily.

• Priorities and Structural Reform: The UN structure reflects the post-World War II era, which no longer matches today's global landscape. Meaningful reform requires updating the Security Council to include permanent representation for underrepresented regions, reworking the veto, and choosing proactive leadership that mediates peace rather than managing institutional decline.

• Inclusive, Transparent, and Financial Autonomy: The UN relies heavily on funding from a small group of wealthy nations, which can disproportionately influence its priorities. Establishing independent funding streams would give the institution financial independence. Decision-making must become more open by directly involving civil society, youth, and local communities rather than relying solely on closed-door government negotiations.

"People lose confidence in institutions when they perceive that they cannot fulfill the functions they were supposed to perform—when decisions appear distant from their lives, and when rules apply differently to the powerful on the one hand and to everybody else on the other." — H.E. Francisco Sagasti, Former President of Peru (2020–2021) & Member of Club de Madrid

Middle Powers, North-South Dynamics, and The Multipolar Order

• New Approach: the traditional "donor-recipient" model, where wealthy nations provide aid and set conditions for developing nations, is obsolete. As emerging economies in many countries have developed strong industries, technical innovation, and strategic influence, the world needs a shift toward balanced partnerships based on mutual respect, shared accountability, and equal responsibility.

• Connector Countries and Pragmatic Coalitions: When superpowers are locked in rivalry, global consensus slows. Middle powers step in to form coalitions. focus on solving specific, practical challenges—like climate adaptation, trade agreements, and artificial intelligence governance—without waiting for universal agreement.

• Exercising Strategic Agency: By maintaining an active, non-aligned posture, smaller and medium-sized countries can build diverse diplomatic and economic partnerships, safeguard their national sovereignty, and help balance global power dynamics, without the need to align themselves exclusively with one major power

“We need to understand that the future of multilateralism cannot be built by the north or the south acting alone. But the only way to confront the challenges we are experiencing is building together this new architecture.” — Laura Chinchilla, former President of Costa Rica

Peace, Justice & Development

Choosing SDGs Over Armaments

• The Development Dilemma: Global military expenditure reached $2.9 trillion in 2025, and this rapid militarisation crowds out fiscal space for Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Recognising that security and development are mutually reinforcing, it is essential to protect citizens today without undermining the foundations of their security tomorrow.

• Human Security Focus: True security requires a comprehensive human security framework that guarantees health, education, livelihoods, and climate resilience are foundations of long-term security. Governments need to balance responding to immediate security threats with protecting the investments that make society safer over time.

• Local Empowerment: Weapons cannot protect communities from rising sea levels, severe droughts, or economic collapse, which lead to foreign assistance. Some policies are dictated by the geopolitical interests of major powers rather than the needs of local communities, as essential development aid shrinks or is diverted from basic human necessities.

• Middle Power Role: Problems originating outside a country's borders can inevitably spill over as refugee flows, economic disruption, supply chain shocks, and cross-border criminal networks. This strengthens their role in addressing instability, driven by practical self-preservation rather than geopolitical rivalry.

“Development and security are not competing agendas; they are mutually reinforcing. True security is built when people can live with dignity, exercise their rights, and look to the future with confidence.” — Izumi Nakamitsu, UN Under-Secretary-General and High Representative for Disarmament Affairs

The Foundation of Durable Peace

• Spillover and Profitability of War: domestic repression breeds regional instability, influences neighbouring regimes, and feeds transnational security threats such as organised scam operations and human trafficking. Persisting also due to defence industries and political elites who privatise financial gains while diffusing the social costs onto society

• Enforcement Gap and Double Standards: While institutions like the International Criminal Court (ICC) and International Court of Justice (ICJ) come under political pressure, contrasting responses to global conflicts such as the case of Ukraine compared to Gaza erode global trust

• Power Agency and Minilateral Coalitions: non-superpowers and middle powers must exercise collective agency to prevent the international system from degenerating into a "law of the jungle" where power determines rights. It can collectively impose real costs on norm-violators and protect an equitable, rules-based international order

• The 5-Step Peace Framework: Pita outlined a strict 5-step path to legitimate peace: Fact-finding > Amnesty > Compensation > Justice Upheld > Reconciliation. Sustainable peace cannot exist without formal accountability; slower steps should be taken, given the possibility of recurring conflict.

“Peace is not simply the moment when weapons become silent. Peace begins with political courage, makes dialogue possible, and it survives when justice, dignity, and commitments are respected.” — Malik Mahmud Al-Haythar, Wali Nanggroe & Custodian of the State of Aceh

📷 The Big Picture

Southeast Asia stands at a critical juncture in 2026.

While the region continues to lead as one of the world's fastest-growing economic hubs, achieving major strides in basic poverty reduction, health access, and digital connectivity, it faces severe headwinds in climate adaptation, green energy transition, and geopolitical balance.

Regional integration through the ASEAN Community Vision 2045 and the ASEAN Climate Change Strategic Action Plan (ACCSAP 2025–2030) reflects strong policy alignment, but structural implementation gaps remain the primary bottleneck.

Key regional projects driving this progress include:

• ASEAN Power Grid (APG) & LTMS-PIP Pilot: Connects cross-border electricity grids (from Laos and Thailand to Malaysia and Singapore) to share surplus renewable energy—such as hydro and solar power

• Regional Payment Connectivity (RPC): Links real-time QR payment systems across member states, lowering cross-border transaction fees and expanding financial inclusion for millions of unbanked citizens and small businesses.

• ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA): Harmonises digital trade, e-commerce, and data flow rules across the region to streamline supply chains and accelerate equitable economic growth.

• ASEAN Catalytic Green Finance Facility (ACGF): Provides technical assistance and over $1 billion in loans to help Southeast Asian governments prepare and finance low‑carbon, climate‑resilient infrastructure projects.

🏁 The Bottom Line

From the seventh Global Town Hall, one thing became certain: the current multilateral system built after World War II is straining under the pace of change it was never designed to handle.

AI is rising faster than the governance needed to regulate it, record-high military spending is beating out development budgets, and the UN Security Council remains tied to a few select powerful states.

For Southeast Asia and many of the world’s middle powers, a change is needed to address these issues; instead of waiting for consensus among great powers, middle powers must step up while resisting a global system that pits security against development.

🔍 Need More Angles?

Foreign Policy Community of Indonesia Global Town Hall 2026

(FRD/DHM/DEV/NOV/MHS/ANN/VNS/NIS/QOB)

🎯 The Main Takeaway

Indonesia is looking to turn sport into a bigger national industry through the Indonesia Sports Summit 2026, held from 11 to 13 September at the Jakarta International Convention Centre (JICC), within the Bung Karno Sports Complex in Jakarta.

Under the theme “Beyond the Game 2.0: From Nation Building to Global Industry,” the second annual summit brought together key players from the sports sector to promote collaboration, innovation, and new opportunities for Indonesia’s sports industry.

More than 20 speakers, along with 80 global and national partners from government, companies, organisations, sports federations, and the private sector, joined the three-day event. They shared ideas, showcased products, and introduced sports activities to visitors.

The summit also aimed to strengthen partnerships across the sports sector, create more jobs in sports tourism ecosystems, and support the growth of a sustainable sports industry. These efforts are also expected to contribute to Indonesia’s economic growth.

📡 Why It’s on Our Radar?

The sports industry and sports tourism are growing globally, with strong economic potential:

• Sports Industry: The global sports industry was worth around USD 521 billion in 2024. About half came from event revenue, which is expected to grow by 8% annually. The growth could reach 25% per year with the use of AI.

• Sports Tourism: The global sports tourism market was valued at USD 609 billion in 2024. It is expected to reach USD 680 billion in 2025, USD 721 billion in 2026, and USD 958 billion by 2031.

⚠️ However…

Indonesia has not yet fully captured the growth of the global sports industry and sports tourism, with the following figures:

• Sports Industry: According to the Ministry of Youth and Sports, the industry grew from IDR 37.3 trillion in 2023 to IDR 39.4 trillion (~USD 2.56 billion) in 2024. The growth was supported by sports merchandise, events, venues, and travel.

• Sports Tourism: The Ministry of Tourism reported that the sports tourism sector reached around IDR 19 trillion (~USD 1.23 billion) in 2023 and 2024, mainly driven by international sporting events such as MotoGP Mandalika, F1 Powerboat, and marathons.

With a population of around 280 million, Indonesia’s figures are still small compared with the global market. While both sectors tend to grow each year, Indonesia needs to find the main challenges and solutions to unlock their full potential.

💡 The Problem and Solutions

According to the Ministry of Immigration and Correctional Affairs, complex regulations are one of the main challenges holding back Indonesia’s sports industry and sports tourism, especially when organising international events.

The Ministry of Youth and Sports alone has 191 regulatory points and around 1,500 articles. Some of these rules involve different ministries and stakeholders and can overlap, making it harder and slower to organise events, attract investment, and support sports development.

“One of the difficulties we often hear from businesses, especially event organisers, is the difficulty of organising events. There are many stakeholders and ministries involved before an event can be held, including sporting events.” — Hendarsam Marantoko, Director General of Immigration, Ministry of Immigration and Correctional Affairs.

To solve the issue, the Ministry of Youth and Sports cut the regulations from 191 to four, covering around 600 articles, effective from April 2026. It also launched sportinindonesia.id, an online platform that makes sports-related services easier to access.

These changes are expected to make sports programmes more efficient, speed up athlete development, attract more investment, and attract more visitors to Indonesia’s sports industry and sports tourism.

“We are trying to build an ecosystem and create one door for all portals, covering investment, events, visas, and other needs. We must believe and agree that sport is not a cost, but an investment. This growth can only happen through cooperation between the government, private sector, and society.” — Erick Thohir, Minister of Youths and Sports.

🌐 About the Website

Minister Erick Thohir launched the website on Friday (9/11) in Jakarta. It offers several features, including:

• Sports History: Facts about Indonesia and the history of sports events held in the country since independence.

• Event Information: Information about past, current, and upcoming sports events and tournaments in Indonesia, from traditional to international events.

• Trip Planning: Information on planning a trip to Indonesia, including international entry points, transport, accommodation, local rules, and travel tips.

• Event Calendar: A list of upcoming sports events, sortable by sport, ticket payment, and date. Users can also connect events to their phones as reminders.

• Event Organiser: Information for promoters planning to host events in Indonesia, including requirements, procedures, venues, capacity, processes, government services, and FAQs.

• Investment Opportunities: Information for government and private investors interested in Indonesia’s sports industry and tourism, especially infrastructure, hospitality, equipment, training, scholarships, and broadcasting.

• Visa Application: Information on applying for Indonesian visas, including visa-free entry, visa on arrival, and sports visas, with details on eligible countries, duration, costs, and requirements.

All these features are connected to relevant ministries, agencies, and ticket sellers, allowing users to complete processes more easily and reducing overlapping procedures between institutions.

📸 The Big Picture

The website is expected to help Indonesia and the government achieve several key targets, including:

• Venue Management: Indonesia has thousands of sports venues across the country, owned by the government and private sector. Some can host international events, while others are no longer used. The government plans to identify, restore, and better manage these venues through cross-sector cooperation.

• Athlete Development: Indonesia has around 125 million people aged 13–30, offering a large pool of potential athletes. The government plans to identify young talent in elementary school and begin training them in junior high school. Starting next year, the government will also provide around 100 scholarships to support their development.

• Event Selection: The ministry will select sports events to be featured on the website based on their consistency, responsibility, long-term commitment, and economic impact on local communities around the venues.

• Event Promotion: Indonesia hosts several international sporting events, including the FIFA ASEAN Cup. The website is expected to help promote these events and attract more audiences and foreign visitors to Indonesia.

In conclusion, the website is expected to help the public, businesses, and investors take a more active role in Indonesia’s sports industry and tourism. It also aims to promote the idea that sports is an investment, sports can generate revenue, and sports is not a cost.

“We register events that have continuity. We do not want to register one-off events, unless they are endorsed by an international sports organisation, such as FIFA ASEAN Cup or a world championship.” — Erick Thohir, Minister of Youths and Sports.

🌏 The FIFA ASEAN Cup

The FIFA ASEAN Cup is a new regional football tournament initiated by FIFA for Southeast Asian national teams, with invited teams from outside the region also able to take part. The tournament is planned to be held every four years.

The tournament will feature 14 teams from 11 ASEAN member states, along with three invited teams from Bangladesh, Hong Kong, and Pakistan. The teams will be divided into two divisions, with matches hosted across two countries.

“We have Hong Kong who is hosting, and we have Bangladesh and Pakistan, just to give a little bit of spice in the competition, so we bring other countries from Asia, and let them play with each other, and bring a little bit of interesting factor to the competition.” — Lavin Vignesh, FIFA’s Lead Regional Office for East and Southeast Asia.

The championship is also included in FIFA’s international match calendar for the September–October window, meaning that a win, draw, or loss can affect the participants’ points and potentially increase or decrease their global rankings.

🧑‍🤝‍🧑 The Matches

Indonesia will host the Premier Division, featuring eight countries divided into two groups of four. The group matches will run from 25 September to 2 October 2026, followed by the bronze final and final match on 5 October.

Group A includes Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, and Bangladesh, with matches at Bung Karno Stadium in Jakarta.

Group B features Vietnam, Thailand, Pakistan, and the Philippines, with matches held at Si Jalak Harupat Stadium in Bandung, West Java.

“We discussed internally, obviously Indonesia has a lot of experience hosting many events, FIFA events, U17, AFC events, AFC Futsal recently, so they have the experience. The population is also here, so we thought that for the first edition, at least, maybe we try it out in Indonesia, and we see where we go after this.” — Lavin Vignesh, FIFA’s Lead Regional Office for East and Southeast Asia.

Hong Kong, China, will host the Challenge Division, featuring six countries divided into two groups of three. The group matches will run from 24 September to 3 October 2026, with the final also taking place on 3 October.

Group A consists of Hong Kong, Laos, and Brunei Darussalam, while Group B features Cambodia, Myanmar, and Timor-Leste. Both groups will play at Mong Kok Stadium and Kai Tak Stadium, depending on the match schedule.

🏆 The Trophy

The tournament also features two trophies, one for each division.

The Minister of Youth and Sports, Erick Thohir, unveiled the first trophy with the FIFA Lead Regional Office for East and Southeast Asia, Lavin Vignesh, on Friday (9/11). It will be awarded to the winner of the Premier Division, hosted by Indonesia.

FIFA also unveiled the second trophy, which will be awarded to the Challenge Division winner. It was displayed at Victoria Peak in Hong Kong, China, the tournament's other host.

By taking part in the tournament, FIFA aims to improve the performance of Southeast Asian national teams and help more countries in the region qualify for the FIFA World Cup in the future.

“I think what I can comment on is the gap. Last time when Indonesia played Australia, maybe the scoreline was a little bit bigger. But now Indonesia can go and win against Saudi, can go and win against Australia, same with Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia as well. So the gap is slowly closing. And this is the whole idea of having more competition, more competitiveness. So yeah, just a matter of time, one of our countries in the region will qualify for the World Cup, and hopefully the next edition.” — Lavin Vignesh, FIFA’s Lead Regional Office for East and Southeast Asia.

💪 Indonesia’s Readiness

Minister Erick Thohir said FIFA, as the tournament organiser, will prepare the rules, trophies, prize money, venues, training grounds, and accommodation.

As the host country, Indonesia will prepare the facilities, especially the stadiums, as well as transportation for the teams competing in the tournament.

Head coach John Herdman will fully manage the selection of Indonesia’s national team players, team formation, strategy, and training. The players have also shown their commitment to representing the Garuda since their recruitment.

“I am confident that as long as our national team players are not injured, they will be happy to fly the Indonesian flag. From the beginning, when we recruited players from Indonesia or the diaspora, we always asked whether their hearts were with the Red and White. They share the same commitment, and hopefully, with better preparation, our national team can give its best in the FIFA ASEAN Cup.” — Erick Thohir, Minister of Youths and Sports.

➕ In Addition…

Besides the Sport in Indonesia website launch and the FIFA ASEAN Cup trophy unveiling, several other activities were held during the exhibition, including:

• Sports Awards: The Indonesia Sports Award 2026 recognised companies and foundations that actively support Indonesia’s sports industry. Recipients included Djarum Foundation for its badminton scholarships and support for women’s football and Supersoccer Arena; Indofood CBP Sukses Makmur for its 10-year support for Indonesian badminton, football, basketball, and volleyball; and Bank Rakyat Indonesia for six years of support for the Super League.

• MoU Signing: PSSI and AFC Ajax signed a strategic partnership to support local youth football development and create pathways for talented young Indonesian players to potentially join the prestigious Ajax academy.

• Mini Competitions: Visitors could take part in competitions such as 3x3 basketball, taekwondo, and wall climbing.

• Traditional Sports: The exhibition also introduced visitors to Indonesia’s traditional sports, including pencak silat.

• Job Fair: Various state-owned and private companies opened booths offering job opportunities in the sports industry and tourism sectors.

📌 The Bottom Line

The Indonesia Sports Summit 2026 shows that sport is not just about games and competition, but also about building a bigger sports industry. Indonesia wants to use sport to create new opportunities for businesses, athletes, workers, and the tourism sector.

Sport is not only entertainment, but also an investment. Through the Sport in Indonesia website, international sporting events, athlete development, and sports tourism, Indonesia is looking to create more jobs, attract investment, and grow the economy.

The summit is not just a three-day event, but also part of Indonesia’s long-term plan to grow its sports industry. With every stakeholder working together, sport can be not only a source of national pride, but also a source of economic growth.

🔍 Need More Angles?

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(NGO/QOB)

🎯 The Main Takeaway

On 14 September 2026, the 3rd ASEAN Think Tanks Summit (ATTS) convened at the ASEAN Secretariat in Jakarta under the theme of the Philippine ASEAN Chairmanship, “Navigating Our Future, Together”.

🤝 Track-Two Synergy: Co-organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) on behalf of the ASEAN Institutes of Strategic and International Studies (ASEAN-ISIS), the two-day summit brought together over 150 experts, research institutions, and international partners.

💡 Strategic Input: The summit connects independent regional research with formal policymaking as ASEAN advances the ASEAN Community Vision 2045: Our Shared Future.

📋 Direct Outcomes: Key insights and trade-off analyses will form a policy memo and serve as input for the ASEAN Summits in November 2026.

📡 Why It’s on Our Radar?

The summit comes at a pivotal junction for regional governance and diplomatic milestones:

🚀 Implementation Phase: Marks a phase as ASEAN advances the four Strategic Plans under the ASEAN Community Vision 2045.

🏛️ Historic Milestones: Prepares the groundwork for the 50th Anniversary of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation in Southeast Asia (TAC) and ASEAN’s upcoming 60th Anniversary in 2027 under Singapore’s chairmanship.

🌐 International Support: Backed by key dialogue partners, including Australia, Germany (via GIZ), Switzerland, and Singapore.

🌍 Key Speech Highlights: Dr Kao Kim Hourn

In his keynote address, ASEAN Secretary-General Dr Kao Kim Hourn urged the think tank community to provide “candour with purpose, rigour with practical value, and a strong sense of ASEAN ownership.”

Dr Kao outlined four critical priorities for regional research and policy alignment:

🕊️ Peace and Dialogue: Reaffirming ASEAN Centrality and instruments like the TAC and ASEAN Outlook on the Indo-Pacific (AOIP) amid rising minilateralism and strategic rivalry.

⚡ Economic Security & Resilience: Linking energy, food security, and connectivity—moving frameworks like the ASEAN Power Grid and Emergency Rice Reserve into concrete, shock-resistant outcomes.

💻 Inclusive Digitalisation: Ensuring technological transformations—driven by the upcoming ASEAN Digital Economy Framework Agreement (DEFA)—equitably support MSMEs and workforce convergence.

🛡️ Converging Transnational Security: Intersecting maritime tensions, cybercrime, climate risks, and online scams into integrated, cross-sectoral policy responses.

📖 Core Discussion Pillars & Workstreams

Over two days, the summit evaluated regional pressures through three plenary sessions and dedicated technical workstreams to formulate actionable policy options.

• The first plenary session focused on peace and dialogue, examining the evolving role of regional organisations and middle powers while reinforcing ASEAN Centrality.

• The second plenary commemorated the 50th anniversary of the Treaty of Amity and Cooperation (TAC), assessing its continued relevance within an increasingly fragmented regional architecture.

• A third plenary addressed complex transnational security threats, highlighting the intersection of cyber risks, climate pressures, and cross-border security challenges alongside Indo-Pacific partners.

Complementing these plenary debates, targeted workstreams tackled specific regional vulnerabilities: balancing economic efficiency with supply chain redundancy and energy resilience, safeguarding agricultural resilience against severe climate disruptions, and accelerating AI skilling, governance, and technology adoption for Southeast Asian small businesses.

⚠️ Why This Matters Beyond the Summit Room

• 🔗 Regional challenges rarely remain regional

Transnational crime, cyber threats, climate risks, energy disruptions and economic shocks are increasingly cross borders and interact with one another. Regional coordination is no longer just about responding to a single issue, but also about linking various policies before a single disruption causes widespread impact across the region.

• ⚖️ Resilience also means keeping policy choices open

The ATTS, which focuses on energy, food, connectivity and economic security, raises the question: ‘How can ASEAN strengthen its resilience without losing flexibility?’. Strengthening regional cooperation, diversifying supply chains and building up reserves can help ASEAN countries weather shocks whilst retaining the flexibility to respond to future uncertainties.

• 🤖 Digital growth comes with a distribution question

AI and digitalisation undoubtedly open up new opportunities for businesses in Southeast Asia, but their benefits also depend heavily on access to skills, infrastructure and technology. Consequently, discussions on AI skilling and MSMEs are not only about technology adoption, but also about ensuring more economic actors can adapt to and participate in digital transformation.

• 🧩 ASEAN Centrality is also about problem-solving

Discussions regarding the TAC, ASEAN Centrality and transnational security are not merely about maintaining ASEAN’s position within the regional architecture. Rather, they concern how ASEAN can remain a relevant platform as regional challenges increasingly involve actors, risks, and interests that extend beyond ASEAN’s borders.

Core takeaway: The ATTS's relevance lies in how these issues are interconnected. Rather than viewing security, economic resilience and technological change as standalone agendas, this summit seeks to consider how ASEAN can maintain space for collective action amidst increasingly complex and interrelated pressures.

🚀 Moving Forward: From Ideas to Policy

The ASEAN Think Tanks Summit does not merely bring together perspectives from think tanks, researchers, and international partners; it incorporates these perspectives into recommendations that will form a policy memo, which will serve as input for the ASEAN Summits in November 2026.

At the same time, ASEAN-ISIS and SIIA will also develop a roadmap to guide future ATTS workstreams.

The pathway is: Think tanks & experts → Track-Two dialogue → policy recommendations → policy memo → ASEAN Summits.

📌 The Bottom Line

Geopolitical shifts, transnational security, economic resilience, energy, agriculture, and AI on the summit agenda show that ASEAN’s challenges are increasingly interconnected and require multi-actor responses.

The value of these discussions will ultimately depend on what happens beyond the summit, namely whether the ideas raised can be further developed through ASEAN’s ongoing policy discussions and future ATTS workstreams.

🔍 Need More Angle?

ASEAN 3rd ASEAN Think Tanks Summit (ATTS) Advances Ideas for ASEAN’s Future

ASEAN Secretary-General of ASEAN officiates third iteration of ASEAN Think Tanks Summit

(JUN/DHM/QOB)