Since the inauguration of the new government in 2017, Korea has been striving to deepen its cooperative relationship with ASEAN to the level of the four traditional major partners to the Korean Peninsula through the New Southern Policy. This requires strengthening cooperation not only in the economy but also in various fields. In 2015, the ASEAN created three communities ? the ASEAN Political-Security Community (APSC), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) ? also providing a blueprint for each community. In this context, this study aims to suggest our comprehensive strategies and sectoral policies to cooperate with ASEAN member countries, with a particular focus on the ASCC.
   In line with ASEAN’s people-oriented commitment to improve quality of life, the ASCC can play an important role in achieving ASEAN social integration and promoting sustainable development in the region. In this context, the ASCC includes a wide variety of social issues such as culture and arts, education, public health, environment and disaster management and these issues are closely related to the political and economic integration efforts of ASEAN. When considering ASEAN’s needs for cooperation, relevant global agenda and Korea’s recent policy toward ASEAN, the research areas in this report cover social infrastructure culture and arts and sustainable environment.
   In Chapter 3, we analyzed the current status of the social infrastructure in the ASEAN region and their cooperative activities with other countries, especially focusing on the area of health care, including water and sanitation and education. These issues are not only main agenda of governmental meetings under the ASCC, but also major areas of cooperation between Korea and ASEAN member countries. ASEAN is committed to building and improving its regional social infrastructure while seeking sustainable and inclusive growth according to the ASCC blueprint. However, we found that there are still development gaps in health care and education sectors among member countries, with each income group showing different weaknesses. These gaps and weaknesses are likely to coincide with demands in ASEAN to cooperate with other countries. With diverse experiences and expertise in the social infrastructure, developed countries and institutions such as Japan, the U.S., Germany and the EU have been working with ASEAN to align their national/regional interests and strengths with ASEAN’s needs. This includes various collaborative projects at bilateral, regional and multilateral levels. For Korea, on the other hand, the health care and education sectors are key areas of cooperation with ASEAN member countries, but it is mainly promoting bilateral cooperation projects without much consideration for their income levels and development needs at the ASEAN level. We also need to pay attention to the issues that ASEAN is currently discussing, such as aging society, higher education cooperation between member countries, policies for vulnerable groups and so on.
   The main goals of Chapter 4 are to analyze ASEAN-level development strategies and basic conditions in the field of culture and arts, and to identify promising directions for future cooperation strategies through a comparison between Korea’s cooperation with other countries and with ASEAN. Detailed development plans of the ASEAN in the field of culture and art are presented through the Strategic Plan for Culture and Arts, the Strategic Plan for Information and Media, and the ASEAN ICT Master Plan. According to the main contents of these strategic plans, ASEAN seems to give high policy value to securing equal opportunities for cultural activities, supporting cultural diversity, preserving cultural heritage, and enhancing the competitiveness of the cultural industry.
   On the other hand, with the recent emphasis placed on the importance of public or cultural diplomacy in international relations, many countries are using the culture and arts sector as a major means of their foreign exchange and support policies. ASEAN is attracting attention as a regional cooperation partner in various aspects such as the economy, politics, and security. Therefore, in addition to Japan and China, Korea also has established overseas base organizations and promoted cultural cooperation policy to expand its influence. In the case of Europe, especially France and Germany, various cultural exchanges and language dissemination projects are carried out to increase their influence within the ASEAN region through cultural ODA and the establishment of cultural centers.
   The results of comparing Korea's ASEAN culture and art cooperation policy with main leading countries can be summarized as follows. First, overseas networks for cooperation in the field of culture and arts still remain insufficient in terms of quantity and quality compared to the major leading countries. Second, achievements in terms of establishing differentiated support channels and related policies in the field of culture and arts with ASEAN are still insufficient. Third, compared to various cooperation and support policies with individual ASEAN countries, efforts to develop multilateral cooperation agenda and projects for the ASEAN community are showing a relative lack of outcomes. Fourth, there are grounds for concerns about the lack of cohesion and inefficiency in cooperation channels, caused by the current situation in which exchange and cooperation projects in the field of culture and arts are conducted by various organizations.
   In Chapter 5, ASEAN’s intra- and inter-regional efforts to realize a sustainable environment through disaster management, emission mitigation, biodiversity conservation and plastic waste management are reviewed. When considering the rapid economic and population growth, urbanization and the geographical characteristics of the ASEAN region, the goals of realizing environmentally sustainable development and establishing a community which is resilient in the face of natural disasters can be seen as urgent priorities to further ASCC progress. Japan, Germany and EU, major aid donors for environment protection and climate change in ASEAN, regularly communicate with ASEAN to identify cooperation potentials and opportunities through policy dialogue specifically dedicated to environment issues. Also, these donors closely partner with various bilateral and multilateral donors in the field of culture and arts with the aim of enhancing the effectiveness and efficiency of cooperation programs. Korea should develop strategic policy and priorities for cooperation with ASEAN in environment and climate change issues with an understanding of the environmental needs in ASEAN, recent global agenda and Korea’s competitive advantages.
   Chapter 6 presents the basic directions and strategies of ASEAN-Korea cooperation in connection with the ASCC initiative. Since the formal consultation channels of ASEAN-Korea so far have focused on the diplomatic and economic fields, a formal dialogue channel on the lines of an “ASEAN-Social and Cultural Policy Dialogue” (tentative name) needs to be established. Through these dialogue channels, it will be necessary to lead discussions on the development of cooperation fields, strategy and action plan establishment, and discussions at the ministry level to establish the goal of ASEAN-ROK joint prosperity by establishing working groups for each major field.
   Among the major sectors, cooperation strategies to achieve goals in the social infrastructure sector can be presented as follows. First, it is necessary to re-examine ASEAN’s cooperation needs by each income group based on research results on policy, project promotion process and obstacles in recipient countries. Second, we need to develop various cooperation models that reflect ASEAN policy needs. This could be explored by reviewing current policies such as the ASEAN Post-2015 Health Development Agenda and discussing our suggestions with ASEAN. Third, it is necessary to promote projects to improve ASEAN’s health care system and services including supporting ASEAN to manage and treat infectious diseases effectively, and also to pursue a collaborative response to the issue of aging societies. Fourth, there is a need to strengthen the mutual cooperation system to promote exchange of human resources among ASEAN member countries as well as between Korea and ASEAN in the field of higher education through linkages between current projects.
   Next, in the field of culture and arts, we derived the following cooperative strategies to utilize Korea’s comparative advantages and to effectively respond to ASEAN's support needs. First, it is necessary to revitalize mutual beneficial exchange and cooperation in the field of culture and arts between ASEAN and Korea such as supporting projects for enhancing the competitiveness of the ASEAN culture industry. Second, it will be necessary to develop exchange and cooperation projects at the ASEAN community level, not bilateral cooperation with individual countries, such as developing an online platform to record and share ASEAN cultural heritage information. Third, stronger support must be provided for preservation and restoration of cultural heritage in ASEAN through cultural ODA. Fourth, it will be necessary to prepare support policies to effectively utilize human resources such as overseas Korean networks within the ASEAN region. 
   Lastly, in the case of sustainable environment, we derived the following policy strategies to achieve specific goals within the sector. First, it will be necessary to establish higher strategies for environmental cooperation and to identify priority areas for cooperation with ASEAN. Since each ASEAN member country possesses different environmental and policy conditions, the target countries should be classified into different groups and projects developed by each agenda of environmental cooperation. Second, in order to strengthen environmental cooperation with ASEAN, it is necessary to understand international discussion trends and reflect them in cooperation strategy. Third, private participation should be encouraged to expand and mobilize financial resources related to ASEAN environmental cooperation. Fourth, it will be necessary to find various ways of cooperation aside from financial support, such as policy consulting, professional training and partnership in the green finance sector.