More than 60 professionals attended the online half-day conference from 11 countries. Vietnam hosted the webinar with Singapore’s Eddie Lee, AHDO Executive Director, and Malaysia’s Mallory Loone, Executive Director of the Malaysia Chapter moderating the event.
Four years after creating the region’s human development organisation, AHDO held its first summit. In a short period of time, 5 ASEAN countries have started the process of establishing AHDO offices.
See the slides of the opening speech by AHDO’s Chair and Liaison officer for milestones in the startup phase here.
ASEAN has a directorate in human development headed by Ms Rodora Turalde-Babaran. She gave the keynote speech with an overview of key ASEAN declarations concerning human development in the workplace and how ASEAN is developing human capital.
You can watch a recording of her presentation here.
The conference was an opportunity to discuss where the ASEAN human development movement should set as priorities and how it will help professionals. In less than 2 years, AHDO has certified more than 60 professionals in the region.
How do professionals see the future in general? They reported high confidence (83%) in the growing importance of human development in ASEAN in the next 5 years.
In 2023, Malaysia takes over the Chair from Vietnam as leadership rotates through the Member countries of AHDO. Nadiah Tan-Abdullah laid out the goals that the Malaysia chapter has set for next year.
AHDO Founder Bob Aubrey commented on the firsts that AHDO had already initiated. These include the world’s first certification of human development professionals and the collaboration with the University of Malays to launch next year the the first Master degree in human development in ASEAN. He pointed to evidence that AHDO’s core purpose to make work as a human development experience for all is becoming mainstream with social movements supporting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion for workers as well as capital investors requiring companies to report on human impact as part of ESG requirements.
At the end of the webinar, participants reported their key takeaways:
