1.In recent decades, the world’s economic center of gravity has shifted from a North Atlantic axis to the Asia-Pacific region.

2.However, recent geopolitical and socio-economic developments — including ethnic and religious conflict, extreme poverty, environmental degradation, and health emergencies — continue to pose challenges to efforts that seek to enhance peace and security in the Asia-Pacific region.

3.To navigate these challenges, it is imperative to establish synergy between actors and stakeholders at every level. International cooperation needs to be complemented with a grassroots approach that is based on adherence to universally accepted ethics and values.

4.ASEAN has the potential to facilitate the peaceful navigation of regional challenges, as it consists of countries that have historically shared a similar set of civilizational values, rooted deeply within its respective community traditions.

5.Indonesia assumes the ASEAN Chairmanship in 2023 amidst ongoing, multi-dimensional challenges characterized by heightened geopolitical rivalries. To address these challenges, Indonesia has adopted the theme “ASEAN Matters: Epicentrum of Growth.”

6.Through this theme, Indonesia has underlined the need for ASEAN to prepare for future regional and global challenges, while maintaining its strength as an epicentrum of growth, by focusing on the urgent needs of the region’s people.

7.In this regard, Indonesia will convene an ASEAN Conference on Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue titled “ASEAN Shared Civilizational Values: Building an Epicentrum of Harmony to Foster Peace, Security, and Prosperity.”

8.The Conference seeks to precipitate a revival of the cultural and civilizational mentality, or worldview, that was long characteristic of Southeast Asia, prior to the modern era. This “cultural and civilizational mentality” is characterized by a willingness to accept differences while preserving and strengthening harmony among society’s diverse elements.

9.Integral to this effort is a regional strategy called the “Ashoka Approach,” a mode of interreligious and intercultural dialogue that championed compassion, extensive discussion and interchange among followers of diverse spiritual paths, inter-faith tolerance, mutual understanding, and respect for the dignity inherent in others.

10.Convene a regional conference with the theme ASEAN Shared Civilizational Values: Building an Epicentrum of Harmony to Foster Peace, Security, and Prosperity to engage mass, grassroots organizations across the region to facilitate and build consensus regarding shared values essential to sustaining a rules-based order in the region.

11.The conference will build upon the existing work of Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama fostering pluralism, and is in line with the implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on Culture of Prevention. It aims to:
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Mobilize like-minded cultural and religious leaders throughout South and Southeast Asia, and foster a renewed appreciation for the principles and respect for pluralism that were once defining features of the region;

Forge concrete avenues of cooperation among ASEAN’s major religions, based upon shared values;

Enhance the region’s position as a cohesive, vital, and proactive civilizational sphere, which functions as a powerful, independent pillar of support for a rules-based international order; and

Project ASEAN’s cultural and religious soft power globally, through the Movement for Shared Civilizational Values.

12.Indonesia’s Nahdlatul Ulama (NU), supported by the Government of the Republic of Indonesia, shall organize the ASEAN Conference on Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue. The conference shall be titled “ASEAN Shared Civilizational Values: Building an Epicentrum of Harmony to Foster Peace, Security, and Prosperity.”

13.The ASEAN Conference on Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue shall consist of a one-day summit held in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 7 August 2023, and a half-day planning consultation, on the morning of 8 August 2023, prior to and in conjunction with the ASEAN Plus Leaders’ Summit, which will be held in September.

14.The ASEAN Conference on Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue shall consist of an opening plenary and three panel sessions that shall address a series of interrelated topics:
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Rediscovering, and re-enlivening, the principle of unity within diversity;

Building societal consensus regarding shared moral and spiritual values between and within nations, that will contribute to ASEAN becoming an epicentrum of peace, social harmony and resilience, environmental flourishing, and economic prosperity; and

The Movement for Shared Civilizational Values: preserving and strengthening a rules-based international order founded upon universal ethics and humanitarian values.

15.Participants will include religious leaders, and scholars, from throughout the ASEAN Plus region, as well as international observers from Europe, the Americas, the Middle East, and Africa.

16.Participants will discuss how to prevent the misuse of culture and tradition in conflict situations; how shared values in the ASEAN Community may help to preserve and strengthen a rules-based international order; and how shared values will be essential to respecting and preserving the environment in a holistic manner that fosters balance within nature and society.

17.International delegates will be invited to participate in a half-day planning consultation on the morning of 8 August 2023 in order to discuss follow-up to the ASEAN Conference and to establish lines of cooperation with one another.

18.The format of the ASEAN Conference on Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue will be conversational and dialogical, reflecting the Conference’s concern to foster a cultural mentality of respectful dialogue and a spirit of “unity within diversity.” Though a few keynote speakers will deliver prepared texts, each of the main panel sessions will take the form of a structured conversation in which an expert moderator will invite the designated panelists and the members of the audience to explore a series of questions in dialogue with each other.

19.The ASEAN Conference on Interreligious and Intercultural Dialogue shall consist of a one-day summit held in Jakarta, Indonesia, on 7 August 2023, and a half-day planning consultation, on the morning of 8 August 2023, prior to and in conjunction with the ASEAN Plus Leaders’ Summit, which will be held in September.