US Group to boost ASEAN disaster relief capabilities
On November 17, a U.S.based nonprofit inked an agreement with ASEAN to help boost its disaster relief capabilities.
As one of the world’s most disaster prone subregions, Southeast Asia has been working on setting up new institutions to strengthen regional capabilities to respond to natural disasters. Following the ratification of the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response in 2009, Southeast Asian states set up an ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management in 2011 in Jakarta to facilitate regional and international collaboration, with the Emergency Rapid Assessment Team brought to bear to provide dozens of rapidly deployable experts as well. But ASEAN states continue to look for additional opportunities to boost disaster relief capabilities. At the 28th ASEAN Summit held in Vientiane in September, ASEAN leaders signed an ASEAN Declaration on One ASEAN, One Response to achieve a faster and collective response to disasters, which ASEAN Secretary General Le Luong Minh called “a major step” for the development of the ASEAN Community. Other countries and organizations, including the United States, have helped the organization with this undertaking as well. Last week saw another useful, if under noticed step in this direction. Direct Relief, a humanitarian aid organization active in all 50 U.S. states and 70 countries worldwide, inked a memorandum of intent with the AHA Center to provide prepositioned emergency medical supplies for ASEAN’s collective response to regional disasters.
