Dear Excellences and distinguished participants,
It is my great pleasure to be here in the 34th meeting of the ICAPP standing committee. Though it is hard to have in person meeting due to covid pandemic, I believe that we could use this virtual meeting platform to gear up our programs amidst of unfavorable time.
First of all I would like to congratulate Mr. Cho Byung-jae for his new responsibility as Secretary General of the ICAPP and also two new standing committee member from Republic of Korea. My best wishes for the successful tenure.
From the very beginning of launched day of the International Conference of Asian Political Parties (ICAPP) in Manila, it is advocating to promote the cooperation among the political parties of Asian countries, enhance the mutual trust and identify the common programs to foster the environment of peace, prosperity and development.
We have aimed to focus on different social, cultural and economic development related issues via political parties affiliated to ICAPP but implementation doesn’t seems satisfactory. In our previous standing committee meeting we exchanged our views how ICAPP can cooperate and collaborate on issues such as education, healthcare, agriculture and sustainable tourism that can build up the human skills and scopes. The role of political parties should be more proactive to address the concerns related to youth, woman and other marginalized community. I think ICAPP should be more engaged to resolve such issues with result oriented action package.
Similarly we should gear up the process for the inter-city collaboration that not only exchange the innovative technology but also cultural and social aspects. Asian countries are civilizational countries with several sites of world heritages. It is through cultural diplomacy that we can work together to foster exchange of views and ideas, promote knowledge of other cultures, and build bridges between countries. As the world grows more diverse, more multiethnic, multicultural, multireligious and multilingual, maintaining unity and diversity ICAPP must initiate to promote such programs.
Additionally, I think the world order may change in post covid era therefore we standing committee members and whole ICAPP team should prepare with new concept and plans for coming years.
Thank you so much