The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) promotes understanding, strengthens relationships, and facilitates co-operation among the people, institutions and organizations of Asia and Europe. Founded in 1997, ASEF is an intergovernmental organisation, that functions as the central institution of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process. ASEF, through its programmes, promotes ASEM’s relevance and visibility by fostering mutual understanding and closer ties between civil societies, people-to-people exchanges, and closer links between ASEM governments and civil societies.
2021 marked ASEM’s 25th and ASEF’s 24th anniversaries respectively. We reached these milestones at a time when the world was disrupted by a global pandemic, thus highlighting the need for innovative ways of connecting Asia and Europe. ASEM partners were more committed than ever to multilateral cooperation to mitigate the socio-economic impact of COVID_19. Catalysed by the challenges posed by a global pandemic, ASEF has scaled up its digital capabilities by streamlining its internal processes and successfully transforming its programmes into virtual and hybrid platforms.
We at ASEF are grateful to all our employees, partners, donors, and participants for their continued support and dedication in furthering ASEF’s mission. We are pleased to present ASEF’s Annual Report 2021- “Digital ASEF” and invite you to explore the dialogues, networks and exchanges we facilitated across our thematic areas of culture, economy, education, governance, media, public health and sustainable development. As we mark our 25th Anniversary (#ASEF25) this year, we look forward to working with all of you in ensuring peace, mutual understanding and closer connectivity between Asia and Europe.