THE AHA CENTRE
ANNUAL PLANNING MEETING 2019
BOGOR, INDONESIA
TEAMWORK MAKES THE DREAM WORK
Failing to prepare means preparing to fail. Therefore, the AHA Centre team dedicated two full days away from their regular duties to reflect on their 2018 achievements, as well as undertake the planning of the organisation’s activities for 2019. The AHA Centre’s Annual Planning Meeting took place in Bogor, just outside of Jakarta. Alongside consolidating their 2019 agenda, the Centre’s staff also worked together to ensure that all planned activities will contribute to the AADMER* Work Programme 2016-2020.
“The AHA Centre has several departments and we are here as a reminder that each individual is important to the team. If the AHA Centre is a boat, the operations team might be the hull. But, the boat will not move without the propeller that gives it power to move forward, which in a way symbolises the Corporate Affairs Division who takes care of finance and human-resources management. The boat also needs a steering wheel as it gives direction on where the boat needs to go, which symbolises the role of the Office of Executive Director who holds control of the steering wheel and gives direction for the organisation”, said Arnel Capili, the newly-appointed Deputy Executive Director of the AHA Centre. Arnel was using the metaphor of a boat to describe the working mechanism of the AHA Centre.
Throughout the meeting, AHA Centre’s team identified room for improvements based on 2018’s learnings, and scheduled priorities for the business as usual agendas, including induction courses for the ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ERAT), the 6th Batch of the AHA Centre Executive Programme, and many other integral programmes and projects. On top of that, the Centre also began preparations for the launch of two new satellite warehouses to strengthen the Disaster Emergency Logistics System for ASEAN (DELSA), as well as the humanitarian mission in Rakhine State, the establishment of the ASEAN Resilient Village in Central Sulawesi, and the implementation of Integrated Programme in Enhancing the Capacity of AHA Centre and ASEAN Emergency Response Mechanism (EU-SAHA) project. The Team also agreed to reorient the organisation’s core business into five core services, in accordance to its main mandate to facilitate cooperation and collaboration in disaster management in ASEAN. The five core services of the AHA Centre cover coordination, data intelligence and analysis, resource management, knowledge and outreach, and financing.
Dipo Summa, the Knowledge and Change Management Officer of the AHA Centre underlined that, “The Centre has completed numerous activities in 2018. However, we learned that we over-estimated our capacity and placed too many plans on our plate. It is good for us to reflect on our strategies in order to re-prioritise our forthcoming agenda in 2019”.
*AADMER : ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response
Written by: Shintya Kurniawan | Photo : AHA Centre
