The 13th Meeting of the Governing Board of the AHA Centre took place on 26 November 2020, utilising Zoom video conferencing platform as is the norm during the 2020 pandemic. The Meeting was held back-to-back with a range of other key engagements, including: the 37th Meeting of the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management (ACDM); the 14th Meeting of the Joint Task Force (JTF) to Promote Synergy with Other Relevant ASEAN Bodies on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HADR); the 8th ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Management (AMMDM), and; the 9th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to AADMER (COP to AADMER), which were all held between 25 – 27 November 2020.

The Governing Board Meeting was attended by National Focal Points of the Parties to the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) from Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Viet Nam, as well as representatives from the AHA Centre as the Secretariat to the Governing Board, and the ASEAN Secretariat as ex-officio member.

Prior to the Meeting, the 37th ACDM Meeting endorsed the AADMER Work Programme (AWP) 2021-2025. The AWP is the primary document that will guide the activity of the ACDM – as well as the AHA Centre – for the next 5 years, focusing on five priority programmes of risk assessment and monitoring, prevention and mitigation, preparedness and response, resilient recovery, and global leadership.

As part of the Governing Board’s agenda, the AHA Centre also presented the proposed AHA Centre Strategic Direction for 2021-2025, resulted from a comprehensive rethinking and consultation process involving ASEAN Member States and partners, to assess the organisation’s scope and mandate and how the AHA Centre can further enhance its capacity. The AHA Centre will use the Strategic Direction paper and the AWP 2021-2025 as main reference documents for the Centre’s own five-year work plan.

During the Meeting, the AHA Centre also reported to the Governing Board regarding its activities during 2020. The Board noted a number of AHA Centre achievements despite the challenges posed by the pandemic, including the provision of humanitarian assistance to the communities affected by the widespread flooding and landslides in Viet Nam, caused by the combination of Tropical Storms LINFA and NANGKA. The Governing Board also highlighted the recent response to support communities impacted by the effects of Super Typhoon GONI (ROLLY) and Typhoon VAMCO (ULYSSES) in the Philippines. Alongside these, the AHA Centre was also commended for its efforts to deploy resources from the DELSA regional stockpile in Subang, Malaysia as well as DELSA satellite warehouses in Chainat, Thailand and Manila, the Philippines, to support the regional efforts combatting the COVID-19 pandemic.

The AHA Centre is grateful for the continuous support provided by the Governing Board of the AHA Centre during the challenging year of 2020, and hopes that the upcoming 2021 will bring better opportunity for the region.

Written by : Dipo Summa | Photo Credit : AHA Centre

As part of its 9th Anniversary, the AHA Centre recently implemented its own Partnership Forum, that was aptly named Transforming through Uncertainty. The forum was organised to reflect on the strong support provided to the AHA Centre’s journey by ASEAN Member States, the ASEAN Secretariat and its other humanitarian partners. The forum was also an opportunity for the AHA Centre to continue re-defining itself, in efforts to adapt and transform to remain agile and engaged, particularly with the uncertainty caused by COVID-19 and other challenges.

The forum was attended by 109 participants from nearly 40 partner organisations. The Executive Director of AHA Centre, Ms Adelina Kamal; the Chair of the Governing Board to the AHA Centre, Undersecretary Ricardo Jalad of the Philippines; and the Secretary-General of ASEAN, H.E Dato Lim Jock Hoi, all offered their welcome remarks to open the forum.

The event was divided into two dialogue sessions, each with a specific theme, namely Celebrating Partnership, and Renewed and Future Partnerships. Session 1 speakers included five representatives from foreign government offices and international organisations, namely: the Ambassador of Australia to ASEAN, H.E Will Nankervis; Head of Cooperation of the European Union Delegation to Indonesia, and Brunei Darussalam, Mission to ASEAN, Mr Hans Farnhammer; Deputy Head of Mission of Japan to ASEAN, Mr Yoshi Kodama; First Secretary of the Mission of the Republic of Korea to ASEAN, Mr Lee Soohong; Ambassador of Switzerland to Indonesia, Timor Leste, and ASEAN, H.E Kurt Kunz, and; Deputy Director of Emergency Response of Direct Relief, Mr Gordon Wilcock, PhD.

These representatives – through their government and organisations – support current and ongoing AHA Centre projects including:

Strengthening the AHA Centre’s Capability to Respond Effectively to Human Induced Crises (Australia)

Integrated Programme for Enhancing the Capacity of AHA Centre and ASEAN Emergency Response Mechanism (European Union)

Disaster Emergency Logistic System for ASEAN (DELSA) Phase II (Japan)

ASEAN Standards and Certification for Experts in Disaster Management (ASCEND) (Republic of Korea)

Cooperation on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (Switzerland)

Enhancing DELSA Satellite Warehouses (Switzerland and Direct Relief)

ASEAN Village in Central Sulawesi (Australia and Direct Relief, complementing Brunei Darussalam and Philippines’ support)

Session 2 provided an opportunity for the new and existing partners to share their insights on the existing gaps for humanitarian issues in the region, and insights on their expectations for partnerships and future engagement with the AHA Centre. Five panelists were invited to shared their opinions, including: First Secretary in Development Section of the Mission of Canada to ASEAN, Mr Abdullah Mojaddedi; Deputy Head of Mission of France to ASEAN, Ms Myriam Saint-Pierre; Chief Executive Officer of RedR Australia, Ms Kirsten Sayers; Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Italy to Indonesia and ASEAN, H.E Benedetto Latteri, and; Executive Director of the Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), Mr Ray Shirkhodai.

The Forum was closed with a presentation and introduction of the new AHA Centre project proposals that include:

1. Future Disaster Emergency Logistics System and Digital Transformation for ASEAN (DELSA-Transformed);

2. Enhancing ASEAN Member States’ Government Local Capacity through Local Capacity Building Programme (Go-Local);

3. Future Strengthening of Capacities of ASEAN Disaster Management Professionals in Emergency Response and in Building Resilience (FutureScape), and;

4. Learning Management System in Disaster Management (ASEAN-Learn).

Written by : Yuniarti Wahyuningtyas | Photo Credit : AHA Centre

Following the inaugural publication of the ASEAN Risk Monitor and Disaster Management Review (ARMOR) in 2019, the AHA Centre has successfully released the second edition with support from the European Union. The ARMOR 2nd Edition – “Time is Running Out: Why ASEAN Must Act Now against Climate Emergencies?” – aims to offer scientific perspectives regarding climate change influence towards the risk and threat of disasters, particularly within the ASEAN region.

The public launch event was conducted on 19 November 2020 via Zoom Webinar platform, as part of the commemoration of the AHA Centre’s 9th anniversary. The event also kicked-off the launch of the ARMOR Webinar Series that aims to ensure widespread dissemination of key findings from the ARMOR 2nd Edition articles. The virtual public launch was officiated by H.E. Igor Driesmans, Ambassador of the EU Mission to ASEAN and Ms. Adelina Kamal, the Executive Director of the AHA Centre.

Overall, the ARMOR 2nd Edition consists of nine articles by an array of authors from the AHA Centre and external partners, such as UN University, Pacific Disaster Center (PDC), ASEAN Disaster Preparedness Center, USAID, Emory University, NTU Singapore, DDPM Thailand, IFRC, ASEAN Specialised Meteorological Centre (ASMC), and Gadjah Mada University, Indonesia. Following the initial ARMOR publication that focused on bridging science and decision making, this 2nd Edition aims to provide information required by the ASEAN Member States to better prepare, mitigate, respond and recover from disasters, most importantly as caused by the increasing threat of climate change.

The coinciding Webinar Series is made-up of four separate sessions that highlight different articles in the publication. With the first session taking place after the initial launch, the remaining three webinar sessions are under development, with the second session scheduled to take place in the fourth week of January 2021.

The first webinar session focused on the first two articles of the publication, with article one titled “Real and Present Danger: What Does a 1.5˚C Increase Mean to ASEAN?” by Dr Mizan Bisri from the UN University, and article two titled “The Threat-Multiplier: Climate Change and Disaster Riskscape in ASEAN”, co-authored by LA Dimailig and Keith Landicho from the AHA Centre together with Dr Joseph Green and Daniel Morath from the PDC. The session was designed as an interactive discussion, and attended by approximately 100 participants, with the panelists comprised of the articles’ authors, with comments from Dr Riyanti Djalante, Head of the Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance Division of the ASEAN Secretariat, and moderated by Adelina Kamal, the Executive Director of the AHA Centre.

The idea for the theme arose from the growing threat posed by climate change to the survivability of humankind. The first article in the publication on the risk and threat posed by the 1.5˚C increase on climate to the disaster risk in ASEAN became the centre of discussion. The article summarises the latest assessments and outlook of climate change impacts in the ASEAN region that inspired the overall publication title.

Written by : Caroline Widagdo | Photo Credit : AHA Centre

While the global pandemic has interrupted capacity building efforts such as the AHA Centre Executive (ACE) Programme, the Centre continues to provide education for ACE Programme Graduates. The AHA Centre has been implementing a webinar series to support its objectives of capacity-building, networking, and utilising leadership competencies to improve national and regional coordination response mechanisms and disaster management more broadly. As part of the AHA Centre’s 9th Anniversary celebrations, the final instalment of the ACE Programme Webinar Series 2020 was held on 18 November 2020, with a focus on the area of humanitarian diplomacy.

In collaboration with the Asian Institute Management (AIM) – an Asian pioneer in management education – the AHA Centre had the fortunate opportunity to engage H.E. Ambassador Laura Quiambao-Del Rosario (Distinguished Fellow in Development Management of AIM) as a resource speaker, as well as Dr. Miguel Manuel C. Dorotan (Adjunct Faculty of AIM) as the moderator for the humanitarian diplomacy webinar.

The webinar itself began with a poll to identify the geographical background of participants, their role in their organisation, and their experience or involvement in diplomatic negotiation. This was done to support the aims of ensuring that the webinar materials could successfully cover all aspects and needs of the participants related to humanitarian diplomacy. Out of all webinar participants, 95% were located in the ASEAN region, and one each were from Europe and the Pacific. A third of the participants were in middle-management, 15% were in senior management, another third (31%) were technical specialists, a fifth (21%) were rank and file. 38% said they have previously been involved in diplomatic negotiations.

Ambassador del Rosario started by describing the difference between Human Rights Law and International Humanitarian Law as basis for humanitarian diplomacy. While both legal frameworks aim to protect life, health and dignity of humanity, human rights law applies in both peace time and war, while International Humanitarian Law applies only during war and conflict. Under such circumstances some human rights can be suspended for internal security reason, except the right to life, the prohibition of torture, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, and the prohibition of servitude and slavery.

Humanitarian diplomacy is specifically needed in circumstances that include: densely populated areas of need; during unstructured conflict; where there is displacement of people; where there is a breakdown of systems of health, education, distribution of food and water, and; where there is sexual violence. The Ambassador highlighted that as part of diplomatic negotiation during humanitarian situations, it is important to know the interest or objectives of other parties in the conflict. A lot of questions were raised with regard to the role of the AHA Centre during conflict. The Ambassador emphasised that the application of neutrality as a humanitarian principle must be maintained. The role of any humanitarian in a situation of conflict is to alleviate the suffering of affected people, while addressing the root of the conflict should be left to political stakeholders.

Dr. Dorotan summarised the key takeaways on humanitarian diplomacy by spelling out an acronym using DIPLOMACY itself. Know the discipline of humanitarian diplomacy, international human rights law, and humanitarian law. The Ambassador suggests to not only focus on the problem but also on the people affected. Openness to share your views among each other across different level of population is important in negotiations. Just as in any other profession, one must have a mastery of the craft one is doing. As a diplomat it is important to be a communicator. And finally, y stands for “yehey”, as a term of expression for celebrating the small but successful accomplishments.

Written by : Shella Ningtyas, edited by Gaynor Tanyang | Photo Credit : AHA Centre