About the Asia-Europe Foundation

The Asia-Europe Foundation (ASEF) seeks to promote better mutual understanding between the peoples of Asia and Europe through greater intellectual, cultural, and people-to-people exchanges.

Established in February 1997 by the members of the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM), ASEF is based in Singapore and reports to a board of governors representing the ASEM countries, the European Commission and the ASEAN Secretariat.

One way ASEF carries out its mandate is by creating its own projects. Some of these initiatives include Asia-Europe Lecture, Asia-Europe Young Artists' Painting Competition and Exhibition, Informal Human Rights Seminar, Asia-Europe Youth Co-operation Network, and ASEF Editors' Roundtable.

Having completed over 300 projects directly involving 15,000 people to date, ASEF always seeks to work in partnership with other institutions and private sector entities to ensure its work is broad-based and spread as widely as possible throughout ASEM member countries.

The Foundation is funded by contributions from the member governments, but the cost of many of its projects are shared by other institutions as well as private corporations of ASEM countries.

For more information, please visit the ASEF website at www.asef.org.