Promoting Agile Regulatory Governance for Innovation in Southeast Asia

The pace, scope and complexity of innovation pose far-reaching and interrelated regulatory challenges for governments. These include: the “pacing problem”; designing “fit-for-purpose” regulatory frameworks; regulatory enforcement challenges, and institutional and transboundary challenges. The Covid -19 crisis has intensified these challenges and forced governments to rethink their approach to rulemaking. While recovering and adapting, governments should ensure that the innova tion that will power economic growth and solve the world’s most pressing social and environmental challenges is not held back by regulations designed for a different time.

The ASEAN-OECD Good Regulatory Practices Network (GRPN) has analysed these issues in the course of 2021 at its virtual meetings and in a technical note on regulatory responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Asia. This virtual side-event will gather experts and policy makers from the ASEAN and the OECD communities to explore opportunities for governments to use and adapt regulatory policy and governance in the face of the disruptive innovation and opportunities to harness digital tools to regulate better. The recently adopted OECD Council Recommendation on Agile Regulatory Governance to Harness Innovation (2021) provides vital guidance that will be discussed in practice at this event, including how governments can apply it.