Senior Policy Forum:

“Mega Disasters – a Global “Tipping Point” in Natural Disaster Policy, Planning and Development”

Pacific Disaster Center, Maui, Hawaii, 15-16 August 2006

- Mega Disasters and Resulting “Tipping Points”: An ASEAN View -

1.                  The Indian Ocean tsunami in its epic proportion has motivated Member Countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to come to terms with their individual country’s vulnerability to natural disasters. Here are the “Six Rs” (i.e. Reduce disaster risks, Rebound quickly, Reinvigorate leadership, Renovate the plan, Respond better, and Revive the ASEAN’s sense of community) that transpire from ASEAN’s experience throughout the tsunami episode and the events that followed.

Reduce disaster risks

 2.                  The mega disasters, in particular the Indian Ocean tsunami of 26 December 2004, put everyone off guard. The impact was so overwhelming, and the loss of life and property was unprecedented. It showed us that our communities are vulnerable to natural hazards, and such vulnerability is heightened as long as development policy in those communities does not appropriately take into account disaster risks. As shown by the Indian Ocean tsunami, natural disasters killed more people in developing countries than developed countries. Environmental degradation also contributed to the increased incidence of such natural disasters.

 3.                  A critical challenge facing the global community today is to adopt modes of development that reduce disaster risks and facilitate achievement of sustainable development goals. Disasters are not inevitable. On the contrary, they can be managed and risks can be reduced through appropriate development policies, relevant preparedness programmes, and responsive actions.

 4.                  ASEAN endeavours to promote better understanding of disasters risks in the region, enhancing capacities in reducing them, and consolidating efforts to achieve development goals of Member Countries. The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER), which was signed by the Foreign Ministers of ASEAN in July 2005, provides a comprehensive regional platform to strengthen preventive, monitoring and mitigation measures to reduce disaster losses in the region. The Agreement indicates as one of its principles that ASEAN Member Countries “shall, to the extent possible, mainstream disaster risk reduction efforts into sustainable development policies, planning and programming at all levels”.

 5.                  Policy leaders, therefore, must shift their development paradigms to reducing risks through hazard management and promoting community resilience by giving priority to pre-disaster investment strategies. We need to pursue sustainable development in such a way that helps reduce losses from natural disasters.

Rebound quickly

 6.                  The affected ASEAN Member Countries quickly turned the disasters into opportunities to rebound the devastated communities and better re-build the destroyed structures and damaged mechanisms. In the villages devastated by the Indian Ocean tsunami, the earthquakes in Indonesia and the landslides in the Philippines, among many recent disasters, recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction must ensure that we build back better.

 7.                  Disaster is measured by its damaging impact on human lives and properties. Since the people, particularly those facing high vulnerability and having low capacity, are the one who would suffer the most from such incidents, they are the main stakeholders in disaster risk reduction efforts. We therefore need to ensure that communities affected by disasters could rebound quickly, and recover from the tragedy much less vulnerable and more resilient than ever. Therefore, the policy leaders need to ensure that investment on disaster reduction and management must be vested on its people. These include giving priority to community-based development programmes and poverty eradication.

Reinvigorate leadership

 8.                  In a matter of days after the tsunami struck, ASEAN Leaders demonstrated their leadership by calling for an international summit that set the highest level of coordination. The Special ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting on the Aftermath of Earthquake and Tsunami on 6 January 2005 in Jakarta charted the road map for improving emergency relief operations, coordinating rehabilitation and reconstruction of the affected areas, and reinforcing the need for prevention, preparedness and mitigation. ASEAN Member Countries also led the adoption of the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 59/279 of 19 January 2005 to strengthen emergency relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and prevention in the aftermath of the Indian Ocean tsunami. ASEAN seized the moment to reinvigorate leadership through partnership with the global community.

Renovate the Plan

 9.                  The Indian Ocean tsunami exposed ASEAN Member Countries’ unpreparedness and weaknesses in responding to such large scale calamities collectively. It demonstrated that regional emergency response could not be deployed rapidly and effectively not so much because of lack of resources but more of a lack of a regional system to identify and mobilise available resources into an effective response system. Our experience with the Indian Ocean tsunami, however, also attested that our region has a large potential in terms of capacity, assets and commitment.

 10.              The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response, which is a milestone accord, is not a by-product of the Indian Ocean tsunami. ASEAN had recognised the need to come up with a comprehensive, multi-hazard regional instrument and prioritised the development of such an instrument in our disaster management agenda before the tsunami hit the region. Just three weeks before the tsunami of 26 December 2004, the ASEAN Ministers responsible for disaster management gave the necessary mandate and political commitment for the senior officials to proceed with the formulation of the regional instrument. The instrument, later known as the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response, is one of the fastest negotiated agreements in ASEAN. It took us only four months to conclude the negotiation process from the original plan of one year. Undoubtedly, the tsunami provided a momentum for ASEAN to expedite the negotiation of the Agreement, and an opportunity for us to re-visit, re-prioritise and renovate our regional programme.

Respond better

 11.              As we all know, disaster response is a function of preparedness. The effectiveness of our disaster response depends on the quality of our preparedness. Emergency preparedness and responsiveness is therefore a programme thrust of ASEAN.

 12.              ASEAN has made significant progress in strengthening cooperation of Member Countries in enhancing their capacities for disaster reduction and response. The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response conveys the collective resolve of Member Countries to confront the problem of disasters in the region squarely.

 13.              The Agreement will enter into force upon ratification by all ASEAN Member Countries. So far, Malaysia and Thailand have ratified the Agreement while other ASEAN Member Countries are in the process of ratifying the Agreement. Even as the Agreement is being ratified, ASEAN Member Countries have begun to implement many of the provisions of the Agreement. ASEAN Member Countries have started formulating standard operating procedures for the development of regional standby arrangements, mobilisation of military and civilian personnel and assets, and coordination of joint disaster relief and emergency response operations. A regional inventory of assets and capacities, entitled “ASEAN standby arrangements” is being compiled based on earmarked assets and capacities of ASEAN Member Countries. A network of pre-designated areas will be established as entry points to speed up movement of relief items across borders. ASEAN is also committed to conduct regional simulation exercises regularly to enhance our preparedness and maintain the applicability of our standard operating procedures. The first-ever ASEAN regional disaster emergency response simulation exercise (code-named ARDEX-05) based on an earthquake scenario was held in Selangor, Malaysia in September 2005. We are set to test next month (i.e. the end of September 2006) our capacities and capabilities for collective humanitarian response in a regional exercise simulating a flood disaster in Cambodia. 

Revive the ASEAN’s sense of community

 14.              As I said in many occasions, ASEAN’s ‘sense of community’ was manifested and revived at its best throughout the tsunami episode and the events that followed. ASEAN countries rose to the occasion to help their affected neighbours. Even affected countries offered relief effort to other affected countries. This happened much ahead of sophisticated and large-scale assistance that followed later on.

 15.              Following the earthquake of 27 May 2006 in Indonesia, assisting teams from the ASEAN Member Countries were among the first to respond to the earthquake, bringing in search and rescue teams, as well as medical and other emergency supplies. Teams from five ASEAN Member Countries, namely, Brunei Darussalam, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, were at various locations in Yogyakarta and Central Java providing medical assistance and relief efforts to the earthquake victims in close coordination with the Indonesian authorities. Other ASEAN Member Countries, including Cambodia, Lao PDR and Viet Nam, sent food supplies and cash contributions to Indonesia. These joint emergency response efforts were coordinated within the framework of the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response.

Conclusion

 16.              The devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami have dramatically demonstrated that we are all vulnerable to disasters, both natural and man-made. Our preparedness and response plans are all being closely scrutinised. We need to examine how those crisis situations could be turned into opportunities. Crises force us to think, but we need to think one step ahead and act two steps ahead. Otherwise, we will stay where we were before. Policy leaders and the global community at large should also use the momentum provided by the mega disasters to rebound, build back better, and be more resilient than ever. Partnership is essential in managing the impact of disasters. Lastly, it is the challenge for all of us to seize the opportunity to strengthen, on a long-term basis, the state of our disaster preparedness, and take precautionary measures to prevent, monitor and mitigate disasters.

Thank you.

---ooo---