Building on the work carried out last year, PECC will continue its international project led by its Japanese committee, JANCPEC, throughout 2011. Over the last 20 years, economic crises have hit the region almost every ten years. There is a need to consider not only the short-term economic rescue policy, but also the resilient infrastructure against frequent economic crisis in the long term. 

The SR Project is designed to shed light on the importance of social safety nets and to closely examine the mechanism of their roles in the domestic economy. This topic has never been discussed in depth among APEC economies. Overly focused on the liberalization of investment and trade, APEC has let slip opportunities to discuss the sense of security of those persons who underpin liberalization and brisk domestic demand as well as social safety nets for them in connection with a major paradigm shift toward the construction of a resilient model for sustained economic growth. In this regard, the SR Project is a very good opportunity to focus more on the social and living conditions of people and to share good or bad practices for social safety nets in the Asia-Pacific region. Comparative research on the actual status of Asian social safety nets would definitely be useful if we are to make our society more resilient against economic crises that may occur again in the future.

The first working group discussion for the project on social resilience was held at JIIA on 31 January 2011.