Sixth CICA summit: transformation, Kazakhstan’s renewed chairpersonship, and new member
Initiated by Kazakhstan in 1992, CICA is a multi-national forum for enhancing cooperation toward promoting peace, security, and stability in Asia. It builds on the concept that there is a close link between peace, security, and stability in Asia and in the rest of the world, which can be achieved through dialogue and cooperation leading to a common indivisible area of security in Asia, where all states co-exist peacefully, and their people live in peace, freedom, and prosperity. Now, CICA has 27 member states accounting for nearly 90 percent of the territory and population of Asia. The procedures to accept Kuwait as a new member began today.
Giving a push to multilateral mechanisms and a return to open dialogue was one of the key messages in President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev’s address to the plenary session of the sixth summit on October 13.
«We live today through an unprecedented geopolitical storm and a growing global economic crisis. This phenomenon has already been called a global dysfunction. Since the previous CICA summit in 2019, the global community has experienced severe trials, and their negative consequences continue to affect global development. I think a particularly important challenge is achieving sustainability in international relations in the face of emerging unprecedented threats,» said Tokayev.
Forecasts given by international experts earlier that the 21st century will be the century of Asia became a reality. Asia possesses enormous human and natural resources, which has enabled it to become a recognized global economic leader in terms of nominal GDP and purchasing power parity.
Asia is home to 21 of the world's 30 largest cities. In fact, of all the estimated $30 trillion growth in middle-class consumption by 2030, only $1 trillion is expected to come from Western economies. The future of the continent, however, is contingent upon the collective willingness to strengthen dialogue among cultures, traditions, and worldviews, according to Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
Kazakhstan’s chairpersonship for 2022-2024
Kazakhstan chaired CICA in 2020-2022, where the theme of its chairmanship was a partnership for security and development in Asia. Among its key priorities were the implementation of the Catalogue of Confidence Building Measures, creation of the CICA Fund, which was reflected in the Declaration of the Dushanbe Summit of 2019, establishment of the CICA Council of Eminent Persons, and transformation of the CICA Think Tanks into a permanent platform – all in effort to further the institutional development of CICA, increase its effectiveness and influence at the global level. Last year, new priority areas of cooperation were included in CBM, such as epidemiological safety, health and pharmaceuticals, and information and communication technology security.
Addressing the plenary session of the sixth summit on October 13, President Tokayev outlined five priority areas in how the country sees CICA’s development.
The first is the economic dimension, where the focus should be on developing transport and logistics.
«Disruptions in global supply chains force us to take a fresh look at the formation of efficient transit-transport corridors. Convenient and accessible routes for transporting goods are an important factor in sustainable growth of our economies. It is important to focus on realizing the transit-transport potential by developing diversified communication and delivery routes,» said the President.
The second priority is strengthening cooperation in the finance sector, building on the CICA Finance Summit initiative proposed by China. Tokayev proposed transforming it into a permanent platform, as this will foster economic recovery, sustainable and inclusive development, and create favorable conditions for regional and sub-regional financial cooperation.
The environmental dimension is becoming increasingly important, according to the President. He spoke about the rising number of natural disasters stemming from climate change.
«In 2021, 57 million people in Asia were affected by them. By 2050, the potential damage to Asian economies from such natural disasters could be as much as 26 percent of GDP,» said Tokayev, recalling the recent massive deadly flooding in Pakistan.
Decarbonization is also central to this priority area, which Tokayev described as «extremely urgent» for Asia. Kazakhstan itself is in the midst of its effort to achieve an ambitious goal of reaching carbon neutrality by 2060.
Tokayev proposed to hold a high-level conference in 2024 in Astana on environmental issues in CICA countries, which could eventually become the basis for the establishment of a CICA Council on cooperation in the field of ecology.
Food security is the fourth priority for Kazakhstan’s chairpersonship at CICA. Despite producing two-thirds of the world's agricultural products, Asia remains vulnerable in food security.
«We need to develop unified approaches to assessing the compliance of important products with national standards and create green corridors between CICA member states for this category of products,» said Tokayev, emphasizing prospects for establishing cooperation between CICA and the Islamic Organization for Food Security, headquartered in Astana, also among Kazakhstan’s initiatives.
All these efforts, however, will not be effective unless countries invest in human dimension development. «People must always be at the center of our efforts. Economic measures can only be considered effective if they focus on the human dimension, saving and developing human resources,» said Tokayev.
Summit begins the process to transform CICA into a full-fledged organization
The sixth summit is marked by a significant milestone in the history of CICA, as it kicked off the process to transform CICA into a full-fledged organization, a priority in Kazakhstan’s chairpersonship.
«The key tenet in the remarks of the head of state was the transformation of CICA into a full-fledged organization. It is due to the growing importance of CICA as an Asian partnership model. Over the past 30 years, Asia is emerging as a world pole, and the economic, technological and demographic potential of the continent is growing. In this context, the transformation of the conference into an organization will reflect the increasing role of Asian countries on the world stage and their growing weight in the geopolitical balance of power,» said Aliya Musabekova, senior researcher at Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies. Significance of the summit
In the current geopolitical environment, confidence-building among Asian states is an extremely important issue, according to Bekzhan Sadykov, chief researcher at Kazakhstan Institute for Strategic Studies.
«The CICA member countries have taken several concrete steps. First, the institutional framework has been strengthened, the Business Council and the Business Forum have been established. There is a youth council and a forum of think tanks. The availability of such tools in an international organization facilitates the exchange of views on topical issues of the agenda,» he said.
The areas of development announced today at the summit are important given the implications of the current geopolitical situation. «Joint efforts of participating countries can offset or minimize the negative consequences of the breakdown of global commodity chains, as well as find compromise solutions,» he added.
At a time when the world is facing growing geopolitical tensions and increased distrust between states, the will for cooperation that summit participants demonstrated today gives hope that despite the differences in terms of economy, and culture, the desire for stability and peaceful existence and development both within CICA and beyond is mutual.
Written by Assel Satubaldina