Stratbase ADRi has four programs: Trade, Investment and the Global Economy; Energy and the Environment; Right Governance and Open Governments; and Security and East Asian Regional Affairs. Each program is convened by a Filipino academic well-respected in their respective program’s specialty. Each program’s output includes papers, commentary articles, and events, which have been convened on topics as diverse as Philippine foreign policy, infrastructure development, public-private partnerships, Philippine manufacturing, climate change and disaster risk reduction, economic integration with ASEAN and the country’s prospects for joining the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Trade, Investment, and the Global Economy

The Trade, Investment and the Global Economy program explores economic integration and its effects on Southeast Asia and the Philippines, and on the Philippines’ economic relationship with major trading partners. The program examines the development of intra-regional trade and investment relations and impact of trade and investment flows into the region. In addition to its primary thrust, the program covers issues of concern for the domestic economic environment.

Global Energy and the Environment

As the world faces increasing impact from climate change, countries have grown concerned over how the drive towards development and sustained growth will affect the environment. In the Philippines and Southeast Asia, vulnerability to extreme weather makes the environment an urgent concern. As countries shift in their environmental perspective, their actions will be defined by sustainable energy concerns. The Global Energy and the Environment program examines the challenge for the Philippines and its Asian neighbors in increasing energy supplies while protecting the environment.

Right Governance and Open Governments

As East Asia’s economies have growth, so too has democracy in the region progressed; the Asian economic crisis in the late 1990’s discredited the totalitarian or authoritarian model of prosperity. The Right Governance and Open Governments program explores the institutionalization of openness and transparency in the Philippines and the region and the importance of these norms to national development, sustained regional prosperity, and working democracies.

National Security and East Asian Affairs

Security remains a major issue in East Asia, as countries balance competition for vital resources in the maritime space and cooperation against non-traditional and sub-national threats in the forms of terrorism, piracy, and organized crime. At the same time, existing regional mechanisms and multilateral institutions in the region have not yet proven their strength. The Security and East Asian Affairs program conducts a continuous search for venues and means to find effective and lasting solutions to the security concerns in the area.