LACER’s Johanna Rixer sat down for a chat with Dipo Summa, Resource Mobilisation Manager at the AHA Centre and focal point for the LACER project, to discuss challenges, development and current priorities.

To what extent do differing capabilities among ASEAN Member States create challenges in effective regional response?
“The different capacities of the Member States is certainly a challenge in realising One ASEAN, One Response, Mr Summa says. The ambition to respond collectively as one is one of the biggest challenges, given that all Member States have different capacities. Even if the intention is shared by all. Having said that, there is a silver lining, a bright spot in the fact that the Member States already are capable to respond on an individual country level. It’s a matter of bringing the capacity under the regional umbrella. This is definitely a possibility for improvement within the next years of the AHA Centre’s development.”

What would you consider the best possible development of the AJDRP modules* in the future? In what ways could these be better aligned with current conditions and needs?
“The objective of the response plan is to be able to mobilise ASEAN resources, for immediate activation and deployment. If we can achieve that, we can find real satisfaction. We are truly working towards that goal and we need to have the resources and commitment of the Member States to achieve this. Right now we are in a quite good place with 5 Member States who have registered their assets, but it is not yet tested. This is our next step, to test and to see how it actually looks in practice.”

How can ASEAN deal with the growing differences in risk profiles among ASEAN Member States?
“Many of the aspects are beyond the control of the AHA Centre… what we can do is to focus on risk awareness, raising awareness and providing advice, rather than dealing with the issue of risk profiles as there are so many components that affect this. One mandate of the AHA Centre is to facilitate support when a disaster happens, and this can really help mitigate the disaster.”

How can AHA and ASEAN best assist Member States that face a recurring pattern of weather-related hazards including typhoons and flooding, along with associated displacement of populations? For instance, the Philippines during the period 2010−2021, reported more than 49 million people displaced, mostly triggered by storms. Is this a particular gap that ASEAN can help address?
“With regards to a recurring pattern of weather related hazards and climate change, here we are still focused on preparedness and response, capacity building programmes for member states and anticipatory actions. In this field there is room to do more… to develop a predictability system, supporting the Member States. This is also one of the priorities for the future.”

What do you see as other priorities for the AHA Centre in the coming 5 years?
“For me the AHA Centre will have several important priorities in the coming years. First, as outlined by the ASEAN Vision 2025, the AHA Centre should facilitate ASEAN responding collectively as one beyond the region. By 2024, the AHA Centre will conduct a feasibility study to create better understanding what this means. Secondly, the AHA Centre should continue to support innovation and implementation of new technologies in disaster management, in particular taking advantage of the continuous development in the field of big data analysis and artificial intelligence. Thirdly, the ASEAN Vision 2025 also mentioned the ambition to become a global leader in disaster management by leveraging through the long experience of the region in managing disasters in the region. To support this vision, the AHA Centre aims to become a regional knowledge hub on disaster management, where stakeholders can come to look for data, information and knowledge.”

* (deployable assets registered under the ASEAN Joint Disaster Response Plan)

Written by: Johanna Rixer | Photo Credit: AHA Centre

The AHA Centre held the Public Launch and Webinar of the 3rd edition of the ASEAN Risk Monitor and Disaster Management Review (ARMOR) on 11 October 2022, supported by the European Union (EU). The Levering ASEAN Capacities for Emergency Response (LACER) project contributed to the launch webinar.

The theme was the intersection of disasters and pandemic. Against the backdrop of the health crisis endured globally as a result of COVID-19, the articles highlight how the pandemic affected disaster management policymaking across the ASEAN region. Of particular interest is how ASEAN has adapted its disaster management tools in response to the pandemic, including innovative methods, information and communication technology that can be used to improve the analysis of real-time data and the cross-border provision of aid during disasters, in anticipation of future pandemics.

LACER risk expert, Dr. Emmanuel Raju, participated as a panellist commenting on the article “Disaster and Pandemic: The Exacerbating Effects of COVID-19 to ASEAN’s Disaster Riskscape” by the AHA Centre Disaster Monitoring and Analysis team and Pacific Disaster Center. Queried on how the pandemic had impacted disaster management in Europe, Dr. Raju noted a number of challenges and opportunities for learning which have emerged. A key learning in the context of natural hazards is the importance of talking about vulnerability as a central issue in disaster risk management because in many places, it is very often the same communities, the same geographic locations, where vulnerable populations are repeatedly impacted by disasters or have seen worsening effects over and over.

The pandemic has also forced us to revisit the link between Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and sustainable development.

“If we truly want to achieve disaster risk reduction, we also need to think about the sustainable development goals because at the end of the day disaster risk reduction is about making sure that we have risk-informed development processes.”
LACER Risk Assessment Expert, Dr. Emmanuel Raju

LACER’s Johanna Rixer caught up with Dr. Raju after the event and posed some further questions about learning.

How can academic learning best contribute to developing the capacity of an actor like the AHA Centre that is focused heavily on humanitarian response?
“This is an important question. Most professionals from academia would like to see impact, not only theoretically but to be able to go from theory to practice. We should use the experience of academia and put into practice what we learn. The discussions we had during the webinar are one example of such an opportunity. We also had a very interesting and fruitful workshop within the LACER project looking at risk from a scientific standpoint, where we had participants from the EU and the AHA Centre. The focus was to dig deeper on how we could use science to communicate risks in our day-to-day work. ”

How does the EU deal with differences in risk profiles among its members?
“It’s not easy. Different members have different interests. In this context it is important to continue to talk about impacts of climate change and extreme weather, as well as to nudge political actors to have these issues high up on the agenda. Disaster vulnerability is central to this discussion – both within the EU and the ASEAN. There are also lessons exchanged and learned between EU and ASEAN. Some factors continue to be central to the advancement of DRM in both Europe and ASEAN, such as applying lessons learned to leadership, keeping a focus on vulnerability, etc.”

What do you see as the priorities of ASEAN and the AHA Centre in the coming 5 years?
“Promoting localisation of efforts in disaster risk management, to allow a more robust and timely response and risk reduction efforts, will be of great significance to ASEAN over the next few years. And of course post-disaster, there is the issue of promoting recovery that is green and sustainable.”

Written by: Johanna Rixer | Photo Credit: AHA Centre, NORDRESS