The publication “10 Years of ASEF: Voices from Asia and Europe” commemorates ASEF’s 10th Anniversary. The book contains messages from the key statesmen whose vision brought the Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) into being from the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) process. The greater part of this commemorative publication, however, is given over to those Asians and Europeans whose lives have been professionally and personally enriched through their direct involvement in ASEF’s work, whether as our valued partners or as participants in our projects. It is through their personal narratives that the story so far is told, about how ASEF has conducted its mission and what its key achievements to date have been.
The reader will find a mix of perspectives not only of Asian and European women and men, but also of people from different professional sectors, social backgrounds and age groups. The accounts given by post-graduate students, government officials, museum directors, newspaper editors, philosophy professors, environmentalists and choreographers, among others featured in this book, take us beyond the facts and figures of ASEF’s first decade: over 400 projects and events in Asia and Europe, more than 14,000 alumni till 2007, some 500 cooperating institutions in both regions and a constituency that covers more than 60% of the world’s population, with 43 countries plus the European Commission and the ASEAN Secretariat.