Foreign Affairs Assistant Secretary for Asean Affairs and Temporary Senior Officials’ Meeting (SOM) Leader and Director-General of Asean-Philippines Junever M. Mahilum-West, along with fellow SOM Leaders in the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean), the Asean Deputy Secretary-General, and Deputy Secretary of the Indo-Pacific Group Justin Hayhurst of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Australia with Senior Officials from Australia, convened the 32nd Asean-Australia Forum via videoconfe­rence on May 18.

The meeting discussed priority areas for enhanced Asean-Australia cooperation through health security, stability, and economic recovery to ramp up the region’s resilience to overcome Covid-19 and meet the threat of future pandemics.