ASEAN to identify areas of focus on disaster management

14-Nov-2016

Source:  ASEAN Secretariat News

ASEAN to identify areas of focus on disaster management

JAKARTA, 14 NOVEMBER 2016 – ASEAN continues to affirm its commitment to provide collective response to disasters in and outside the region. Today, a discussion on the recent World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) implications for Asia Pacific was held in Jakarta. The discussion assessed the outcomes of the WHS summit, what has been achieved, the remaining gaps and challenges, and to what extent the WHS outcome document and the ASEAN Vision 2025 on disaster management are mutually reinforcing.

The gaps and opportunities in ASEAN humanitarian systems and identify policy options for future progress are also discussed.

The ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (The AHA Centre) together with the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) Singapore conducted the policy discussion today on the World Humanitarian Summit Implications for Asia Pacific. The discussion was held as part of the series of events commemorating the fifth anniversary of the AHA Centre in 17 November. The gaps and opportunities in ASEAN humanitarian systems and policy options for future progress were discussed.

“2016 is an exciting year for the AHA Centre not only because we mark our fifth anniversary, but this is the year when the AHA Centre reached out and collaborate with think-thanks such as RSIS and began to be more involved on the policy issues level, complementing our existing operational or technical capacity level,”, said Mr Said Faisal, Executive Director of the AHA Centre during his opening remarks. The policy discussion engaged different stakeholders from the academe, civil-society organisations, think-thank, ASEAN Secretariat as well as UN Agency to discuss the implications of the World Humanitarian Summit (WHS) conducted earlier this year in Istanbul Turkey.

Firstly, the discussion assessed the outcomes of WHS, what has been achieved what are the remaining gaps and challenges and to what extent are the WHS outcome document and the ASEAN Vision 2025 on disaster management mutually reinforcing? Meanwhile the second session talked about the gaps and opportunities in ASEAN humanitarian systems and identify policy options for future progress, where it was moderated by Ms Adelina Kamal, the current Deputy Executive Director of the AHA Centre.

Prof Anthony, Head of the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre) Singapore said

“We are excited to partner with the AHA Centre on this discussion and to be actively engaged with different stakeholders at the same time. We hope this would be a beginning for us to have more engaging and thought-provoking discussion in the future.”

Towards the end of the discussion, the panellist discussed strategies to achieve ASEAN Vision 2025 where it examined and identified areas of focus for the next five and ten years, what are as well as the roles and responsibilities of regional organisations, civil-society organisations and other stakeholders to achieve tangible progress in the coming years.

The policy discussion engaged different stakeholders from the academia, civil-society organisations, think-thank, ASEAN Secretariat and UN Agency.

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