by Kaisar | Feb 9, 2015 | Consumer Protection, Projects
Status: Completed. Consumer education can be done through both formal and non-formal mechanisms. In some countries, consumer education has been integrated into the formal school curriculum. However in most of the ASEAN Member States, consumer awareness and education programs are mainly implemented on a non-formal basis. Governmental and non-governmental organisations as well as private sector organisations whose activities have an impact on consumers should incorporate strong consumer awareness and education programs. The programs should ideally be placed within a larger national consumer education program, and overseen by government institution(s) responsible for consumer protection in the ASEAN Member State. This project aims to provide the responsible government institution(s) with advice on how to design, implement, monitor and evaluate a national consumer education program. The project will a) identify best practices, and b) develop models with clear parameters to guide the subsequent adoption of a specific model by ASEAN Member States. Adoption of a model for establishing a national strategy will be entrusted to a national agency responsible to oversee its implementation. The project was closed in 2016. It produced a policy brief, a report on Awareness and Education Models for Consumer Protection, and Guidelines for AMS in the selection of the most appropriate models. Click here to...
by Kaisar | Feb 9, 2015 | Consumer Protection, Projects
Status: Completed. Under the UN Guidelines for Consumer Protection, governments should establish or maintain legal and administrative measures to enable consumers or, as appropriate, relevant organisations, to obtain redress through formal or informal procedures that are expeditious, fair, inexpensive and accessible. In particular, such procedures should take into account the needs of low-income consumers. Governments should also encourage all enterprises to resolve consumer disputes in a fair, expeditious and informal manner, and to establish voluntary mechanisms, including advisory services and informal complaints procedures, which can provide assistance to consumers. Last but not least, information on the existing redress mechanism and procedures should be made available to consumers. To be able to do this, personnel of government agencies involved in consumer protection require specific expertise and knowledge in the workings of consumer protection mechanisms. This project aims to strengthen capacity of government agency personnel through the design, development and delivery of training programs on specific technical skills within 6 core areas (product safety and labeling, phone and internet services and e-commerce, consumer credit and banking, environment, healthcare services, professional services) as well as soft skills required to facilitate customer redress. Technical documents have been produced for each core area, and training for trainer were conducted for government staff of relevant ministries in each ASEAN Member States. Download the materials...
by Kaisar | Feb 9, 2015 | Consumer Protection, Projects
Status: Completed. Consumer protection requires consumers to have the ability to right the wrongs or to prevent future abuses. This requires access to an effective redress and complaint mechanism. According to data collected through the Road-mapping Capacity Building Needs in Consumer Protection in ASEAN project, only a handful of ASEAN Member States have put in place an effective redress and complaint mechanisms for consumers. In other ASEAN Member States, redress and complaint mechanism are not yet fully responsive. Due to the disparity, there is yet an effective regional or cross-border regional redress mechanism. This project aims to formulate models for a redress and complaint mechanisms that can be considered, adopted and implemented by ASEAN Member States based on the specific ASEAN Member States context. The project will identify best practices in setting up, implementing and enforcing redress and complaint mechanism from ASEAN Member States and other countries as appropriate, and develop models with clear parameters to guide the subsequent adoption of a specific model by ASEAN Member States. The models will be customised and phased to cater to the general ASEAN Member States and the sub-group countries. The models will serve as a reference to set up or enhance redress mechanisms at the national level, and provide an integrated basis for subsequently establishing an effective regional redress mechanism. This project has been completed in 2013. Results of this project can be downloaded below: Models for Internal Complaint Systems and External Consumer Redress Schemes in ASEAN Guidelines for the Selection and Implementation of Complaint and Redress Models ...
by Kaisar | Feb 9, 2015 | Consumer Protection, Projects
Status: Completed. This project focuses on identifying areas in ASEAN Member States that need to be strengthened in terms of the planning, development and implementation of consumer protection programs and the preparation of a capacity building roadmap. Best practices of those ASEAN Member States with consumer protection laws in place and related initiatives were compiled and documented. In addition, the study identified and prioritised potential follow-on projects which include the development of training modules and consumer protection awareness programs. It combined desktop research with field visits to and consultations in ASEAN countries. This project has delivered the following outputs: a policy brief and regional report on consumer protection in ASEAN, a sub-group report for ASEAN Member States that have not yet enacted consumer protection laws, and country-specific reports for each ASEAN Member States. The reports has been presented to the ACCP and used as basis for the design of subsequent regional activities identified below. Related download: ASEAN Consumer Protection: Essential actions towards a single market (2011) ...
by Kaisar | Feb 9, 2015 | Consumer Protection, Projects
Status: completed. As mandated by the ASEAN Economic Ministers, Senior Economic Officials and the Committee of the Whole, there is a need to develop closer coordination among various sectoral bodies of ASEAN. The ASEAN Committee on Consumer Protection (ACCP)Â is of the view that interaction with other ASEAN sectoral committees is essential to the work of ACCP from 2012-2014, in particular as regards cross-cutting issues affecting the consumers. The ACCP discusses and identifies such possible crosscutting issues, as well as significant trends and emerging issues, and provide the findings and recommendations to other ASEAN sectoral committees for their consideration. At the same time, there is a need to increase coordination between governments and other stakeholders including non-governmental organisations, trade and commerce associations, and the business sector at large, to inform the other ASEAN sectoral committees in setting their agenda in relation to consumer protection. This project aims to provide ACCP with the medium and substance to bring specific consumer protection trends and issues to the attention of other ASEAN sectoral committees and other stakeholders. Topics will be identified and timely studies will be carried out and published quarterly as policy briefs. The project will also support an annual dialogue between stakeholders held in conjunction with the ACCP annual meeting to develop consumer protection knowledge-base in the region and strengthen collaboration among stakeholders. Ultimately, the project would contribute to the design of more coherent ASEAN initiatives to be introduced by various ASEAN sectoral bodies, and help protect consumer rights across sectors and industries through increased participation and awareness of various stakeholders. This project supported the first ASEAN Consumer Protection Annual Conference...
