H.E. Dr. Phoak KUNG

H.E. Dr. Phoak KUNG
Secretary of State, Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation
Course: Master of Public Policy (Development Administration)
University: Australian National University (ANU)
Graduation: 2007

H.E. Dr. Kung Phoak was appointed as the Deputy Secretary-General (DSG) of ASEAN for ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community (ASCC) from 2018 to 2021. He supports the Secretary-General of ASEAN by providing leadership in implementing the ASCC Blueprint and will lead the ASCC Department of the ASEAN Secretariat. He will also oversee the implementation of projects under ASCC that focus on forging a common identity and building a caring and sharing society.

Before assuming this role, DSG Dr. Kung was the Undersecretary of State at the Office of the Council of Ministers of the Royal Government of Cambodia and was working on foreign policy in the Office of the Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia. He is a Grand Cross of the Royal Order of Cambodia.

H.E. Dr. Kung co-founded the Cambodian Institute for Strategic Studies, which started in 2014 as a network of Cambodian and foreign scholars called the Cambodian Strategic Study Group aimed at providing pragmatic, non-partisan and evidence-based policy solutions. He had been a visiting Doctoral scholar at the University of Oxford in United Kingdom and Cornell University in United States of America.

DSG Dr. Kung received a PhD in political science and international relations from the University of Warwick, United Kingdom. He obtained Master’s Degree in Public Policy and Graduate Diploma in Public Administration at Australian National University under an Australian Federal Government scholarship. He obtained a Bachelor’s Degree in Industrial and Mechanical Engineering at the Institut de Technologie du Cambodge under a Royal Government of Cambodia scholarship. He has written and published extensively on foreign policy, defense policy, national politics, and international trade.