Regional disaster response in Asia
By Dr Arvind Kumar
Recent media reports indicate that the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Center) was formally endorsed and signed at the association’s summit on 17 November in Bali (Indonesia), signalling a greater role for regional mechanisms. Oliver Lacey-Hall, regional head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Bangkok said: “That’s the goal. That’s the way forward.” When disaster strikes, national capacities are often not enough; with regional mechanisms such as the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) and the Secretariat of the Pacific offering a second line of response. The UN and international community would form a third tier – ready to assist national and regional efforts.
Establishing order in times of crisis is one of the goals for the AHA Center, active some five years after the first regional workshop on its establishment in 2006. According to Lacey-Hall, Southeast Asian countries have not always had the capacity to respond in full, but the time when the international humanitarian system was dominated by a few countries and western aid agencies is over. “Many of these countries now see disaster management as a priority. There has been a change from the government saying, ‘Give us what you’ve got’ to ‘This is what we need’. Asia is the most disaster-prone region in the world; in 2010, disasters affected more than 200 million people. In global terms, 89 percent of all people affected by emergencies live in Asia. But coordinating the increasing capacities of nations to respond to their own crises and those of others remains largely unchartered territory for regional groups.
