CoST – Infrastructure Transparency Initiative – attended the OECD Southeast Asia Regional Forum on 2nd May 2025 in Bangkok. The meeting’s focus was Thailand and Indonesia beginning their accession discussions with the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
Thailand and Indonesia are the OECD’s first accession candidate countries from Southeast Asia, the region’s two largest economies, and members of CoST. Thailand is a member at a national level, and Indonesia at a sub-national level across three provinces of West Lombok Regency, Nusa Tenggara Barat Province and Belitung Sub Province.
They have shown promising success utilising the CoST approach to improve infrastructure transparency to ultimately provide quality infrastructure that improves local lives and strengthens economies, work aligned closely to OECD standards required for accession.
There was a strong agreement at the OECD meeting that achieving accession will offer mutual benefit for both countries as well as the OECD itself.
CoST will continue to support CoST Thailand, CoST West Lombok, CoST Nusa Tenggara Barat and CoST Belitung with our tools, standards, technical resource and support to deliver infrastructure transparency during their journey to accession.
CoST works in partnership with OECD on the Global Initiative to Galvanise the Private Sector as Partners in Combating Corruption programme, and as part of this supported OECD on their recently launched Infrastructure Anti-Corruption Toolbox Handbook.