ASEAN Secretariat - The Workers

Dr Surin (The Secretary General)

The ASEAN Secretariat has 51 openly recruited International Staff and 153 locally recruited personnel. They are headed by the Secretary General and four Deputy Secretaries General. The Secretary General is chosenbased on merit and appointed by ASEAN's head of govenrment and work for a term of five years. As for the Deputy Secretaries General, two of them are nominated by their governments and the other two are openly recruited and if chosen, they are to work for three years term. These four Deputy Secretaries General should come from four different ASEAN member states.

The Secretary General for the ASEAN secretariat at the moment , from the year 2008-2012, is Dr. Surin Pitsuwan from Thailand.

For those people who are interested to work with the ASEAN Secretariat may look for any job vacancies in the internationally recruited professional ranks in ASEAN publications or simply on the ASEAN websites. Applicants should be of Asean nationals.

As for the locally recruited staff, these are only open for the ASEAN nationals resident in Indonesia.


P/S: Dr. Surin has an amazing profile. If you're interested to get to know him better, check out this website : http://www.aseansec.org/CV-SGSurin.pdf

ASEAN headquarters

ASEAN Headquarters

The ASEAN headquarter is located at 70A Jalan Sisingamangaraja, Jakarta, Indonesia. The building was provided by the Indonesian Government. This is where the ASEAN Secretariat is located.

The ASEAN Secretariat was established after the signing of the Agreement on the Establishment of the ASEAN Secretariat on 24th February 1976. With the donation of this building made by the Indonesian government, the ASEAN Secretariat then get to have their own permanent headquarters on 9th May 1981 and was officially officiated by the then President of Indonesia, H.E Soeharto

ASEAN's working language

Everyone speaks English

According to the ASEAN Charter Article 34 :

The working language of ASEAN shall be English.

The working language of ASEAN is English. So, if the association was to conduct meetings, everyone should speak English. Even every reports, records, statements and all those which concerned interactions should be done in English. As an association, it has no translation or interpretation service. Therefore, the member states of ASEAN should step forward into the teaching of the English language to its people and that includes us. We should make our best effort to learn this language. We know that ASEAN member states consist of people speaking different languages. With us having a common language, which is English, will make it easier for us to communicate with each other as part of the ASEAN Community.

Religion

Religions are diverse among the ASEAN member countries and not one country is homogenous.

Islam

Islam is the most widely practiced religion among the ASEAN. It is the official religion of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia. So, majorities of Muslims are from these three countries. Indonesia is known to have the largest Muslim population not just among the ASEAN members but the whole world. Malay Islamic Monarchy (MIB) is the ideology uphold in Brunei. Eventhough they are non-Muslims in Brunei, it is illegal to spread religions other than Islam in the country. Majority people are Muslims in Brunei. However, in Thailand, the Muslims are the minority population. In the Philippines, most Muslims come from Mindanao and Sulu Islands. There are also some Muslims in Myanmar. Meanwhile in Singapore, the largest minority is the Muslim people.

Christianity

This religion can be found throughout Southeast Asia. Among the ASEAN member countries, Christianity is predominant in the Philippines and this is followed by Vietnam.

Buddhism

Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar are the countries in ASEAN which practiced this religion predominantly. Some Singaporeans and Vietnamese also practise Buddhism. It is the second most practiced religion after Islam in ASEAN.

Hinduism
Hinduism is one of the main religion of Cambodia and Laos. Angkor Wat which is in Cambodia is the largest Hindu temple in the world. In Indonesia, Hinduism is very dominant in Bali. A number of Hindus can also be found in Thailand.