The APEC Secretariat, through a partnership with The Asia Foundation and Edelman, fielded an online survey of more than 7,000 respondents throughout the Asia-Pacific to gain a more thorough understanding of public and stakeholder perceptions of APEC’s role within the context of the events of 2020 as well as the challenges and opportunities posed by public information in the digital age—at a time when digital platforms have become increasingly prevalent in daily life due to lockdowns.

APEC’s expanded goals, as well as the milieu-changing social and economic effects of the ongoing pandemic, presents an opportunity to amplify its responsiveness to the needs of people in the region and ensure it remains relevant in the coming decades. This will allow the forum to reassess how it communicates and reconsider how it wants to be perceived by its stakeholders and members of the public.