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Executive Summary

Nearly a decade ago, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN)¹ signed Mutual Recognition Arrangements (MRAs) in seven occupations (accountancy, architecture, dentistry, engineering, medicine, nursing, and tourism) as well as a Framework Arrangement on Mutual Recognition in surveying,² designed to facilitate professional mobility within the region. MRAs are not easy to operationalize, however. ASEAN Member States face a new set of challenges in moving from the negotiation to the implementation stage.

There has been progress primarily in two areas: (1) the creation of implementing offices and bodies at the regional and national levels as outlined in the MRAs; and (2) the incorporation or transposition of MRA principles into national laws. There is a tremendous backlog, however, in a third key area: (3) the operationalization of MRA principles into detailed regulations, plans, procedures, and mechanisms that professionals can utilize now.

At the regional level, five out of the nine regional bodies the MRAs envisioned have been created and are fully functioning. The coordinating committees in the seven occupations meet regularly between 2 and 4 times per year with the assistance of the ASEAN Secretariat, while the registries for engineering and architecture are also currently active with more than 1,000 professionals already in the system.

At the national level, ASEAN Member States created or revised 12 offices after the MRAs were signed, with Myanmar creating the most new regulatory offices. Eight of the 10 countries in the region also enacted 29 laws since the signing of the MRAs. Some are revisions of existing laws, while the rest created entirely new sets of laws.

For the MRAs to be fully implemented, however, the laws must be translated into a clear working process of mutual recognition and registration. Progress in this area remains painfully slow and uneven across countries and for all occupations.

Accountancy, architecture, and engineering. The MRAs on engineering and architecture have gone farthest in terms of creating a working process that ASEAN professionals can utilize in order to get recognized and registered in another ASEAN country. However, 10 years into implementation, just seven engineers had completed that process and registered in the country of destination. More importantly, none so far has moved and worked in the country in which they registered. Setting the recognition process has taken time, with some countries progressing faster than others. Only two countries—Malaysia and Singapore—have completed all the steps required to fully implement the engineering MRA. It took an average of about 2 years for countries to submit their notification of participation, 3 years to create the monitoring committees and submit the assessment statements needed for the recognition process, and 1 year to start registering engineers in the MRA system. Architecture is progressing at roughly the same pace as engineering. The backlog, to date, is on registering engineers and architects in the destination countries. In accountancy, no country has progressed beyond the first step: the submission of notification.

Tourism. The tourism MRA has also envisioned a recognition process at the regional level, but many components are still missing. The registry is not yet operational and no ASEAN tourism professional has been registered in the MRA system. ASEAN Member States have focused on developing training toolboxes for common competencies in the six labor divisions identified in the MRAs. The toolboxes allow each country to develop its own national competency standards, curriculum, and tools based on the ASEAN standard. The alignment process, however, is far from complete. ASEAN member countries are in different states of readiness in developing the national framework and structures to implement the MRA.

Dental, medical, and nursing. Unlike the other occupations under MRAs, the health sector has not created a recognition process at the ASEAN level. Health professionals interested in utilizing the MRA system go directly to the Professional Regulatory Authority (PRA) in the destination country in which they intend to work. Most of the progress on health occupations so far has focused on the exchange of information on how regulatory and registration standards vary across ASEAN Member States in order to increase transparency and encourage benchmarking in the medium to long run.

A. CHALLENGES TO FULL IMPLEMENTATION

ASEAN Member States face several key challenges as they transform the ambitious goals of the MRAs into practice, among them significant technical hurdles. More remains to be done in creating and revising domestic policies, regulations, and processes to make them consistent with the spirit of the MRAs: to facilitate recognition of qualifications and facilitate mobility. Professionals also face hurdles when seeking to practice in another ASEAN country, including:

Language proficiency requirements. Seven countries impose local or English language proficiency requirements for doctors, and five countries do so for dentists.

Holding a degree from a recognized or accredited institution. Four countries require that foreign doctors have earned their degree from a list of recognized or accredited institutions, drastically limiting the source of potential foreign licensees.

Minimum years of study. In dental professions, seven countries require a minimum number of years of study, ranging from 4 to 8 years.

Passing national licensure exams. Half of the countries in the region require dentists to pass the national licensure exams, which substantially reduces the value of going through the MRA system.

Among the three health occupations (dentistry, medicine, and nursing), nurses face the most restrictive domestic regulations. Nine countries require nursing professionals to pass national licensure exams, and all 10 ASEAN countries have language requirements.

Some of these additional requirements are also present in the accountancy, architecture, and engineering services, leading stakeholders to question whether the MRAs have led, in practice, to “double recognition” rather than mutual recognition. Many professionals are essentially going through the qualification process twice, first at the ASEAN level and then again with the destination-country regulatory authority.

A second key challenge is that many governments lack the institutional capacity to implement the MRAs. Some national regulatory authorities have yet to be created, while others that already exist do not have the financial and technical resources to fulfill their growing and increasingly complex mandates. Developing countries in the region face real spending and allocation constraints due to limited financial resources. Governments must also navigate a highly complex system with a wide range of stakeholders responsible for various aspects of the recognition process. Implementation becomes even more difficult as many countries suffer from poor coordination between government agencies—a shortcoming that has even led to situations in which multiple government agencies provide the same applicant with multiple certifications. The frequent turnover of government personnel has also delayed implementation, hindered data collection and sharing, and resulted in incomplete legislative and regulatory frameworks.

Third, core development issues in the region affect whether professionals choose to seek recognition and take up practice in another ASEAN country. MRAs do not exist in a vacuum. Even if the technical and institutional challenges of implementation are fully addressed, there is no guarantee that professionals and employers will utilize MRA systems. Wage disparities and poor working conditions in some areas have generally discouraged professional movement.

B. OPPORTUNITIES FOR COOPERATION

Finding the way forward in MRA implementation requires policymakers to take into account the diversity of the region and draw guidance from the principles that underpin the “ASEAN Way”: a diplomatic approach distinct to ASEAN and centered on consensus building and incremental progress driven from the bottom up. ASEAN governments and stakeholders would do well to focus on two areas ripe for regional cooperation.

First, real progress cannot be made without first addressing the restrictive domestic regulations that limit the ability of MRAs to facilitate mobility. Countries in the region may consider testing ways to lower barriers and bringing them to scale if proven effective. Such pilot programs might aim to build flexibility into the system (e.g., by offering professionals the opportunity to prove their skills through compensatory measures³ or apply for conditional licenses) or to strengthen educational and regulatory infrastructure (e.g., by providing training faculty with professional development opportunities, creating shared accreditation lists, and establishing an implementation monitoring system).

Second, effectively implementing the MRAs also requires a concerted effort towards capacity building at both the national and regional level. Governments in the region, alongside other stakeholders, must commit to supporting the creation of necessary regulatory offices and fully funding existing ones. The cost will be high, especially for small and less-developed countries. There is wisdom in a coordinated approach, particularly among donors.

By taking advantage of these opportunities for cooperation, regional, national, and local stakeholders are one step closer to meeting the goals of mutual recognition and in reaping the undeniable advantages brought to the ASEAN region by skill mobility.

Box 1: About This Research Project

This report is one in a series of four produced through a research partnership between the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Migration Policy Institute (MPI). The project aims to improve understanding of the barriers to the free movement of professionals within the ASEAN region and to support the development of strategies to overcome these hurdles.

The reports in this series draw on the insights of 387 regional and international experts and practitioners through their participation in focus group discussions, meetings, and surveys. Contributors include ASEAN Member States officials directly responsible for Mutual Recognition Arrangement (MRA) implementation, as well as private-sector employers, academics, training directors, MRA monitoring committee members, and current and former ASEAN Secretariat officials.

ADB and MPI convened 12 days of focus group discussions and meetings between May and September 2015 that were attended by more than 100 regional stakeholders. Additionally, ADB and MPI administered an extensive qualitative survey on the development and implementation of MRAs that was completed by more than 300 individuals directly involved in or affected by the MRAs. See the Appendixes of this report for more on the methodology of the study and for a complete list of stakeholders involved.