Asean aims to ramp up disaster relief

The recent dam collapse in Laos and earthquake in Lombok, Indonesia, have shown how Asean partners can come together in disaster relief and management - though more can still be done.

The executive director of the Asean Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA Centre), Ms Adelina Kamal, told The Straits Times yesterday that numerous exercises, agreements and working groups have fostered seamless operations and relationships among Asean nations.

She was speaking on the sidelines of the Asean Strategic Policy Dialogue on Disaster Management at the InterContinental Hotel in Bugis, attended by 160 professionals involved in disaster relief and management.

"The procedures are there, but what is lacking is the scale. 'One Asean One Response' is about scaling up," said Ms Adelina, 47, referring to the Asean vision to coordinate disaster responses both within and outside the region.

She said the AHA Centre, an inter-governmental organisation that facilitates disaster management and emergency response in the region, is in the process of trying to improve the scale and speed of its responses.

She recently returned from Lombok and said the AHA Centre's team in Indonesia took a day to reach the site after the first magnitude-6.9 quake on Aug 5. "Perhaps we can get even faster than that," she said.

However, she acknowledged that Asean disaster response has developed over the years and she has seen the "fruits" of initiatives like the AHA Centre's executive programme to train disaster management personnel.

One example was the Singapore Civil Defence Force's Captain Muhammad Azhar Said, who was deployed to Lombok on Aug 8 as part of the centre's team.

Ms Adelina said the centre is also setting up more warehouses in key countries like Thailand and the Philippines that can serve the region. It currently has one in Malaysia.

It also aims to establish a greater network of suppliers in each of the Asean countries.

"We cannot work alone; we have to work with private sectors, and through local procurement, we can also increase the availability of supplies, scale up and improve response speed," she said.

Cooperation between stakeholders to build Asean's resilience against disasters was also a point made by Home Affairs and Law Minister K. Shanmugam, who spoke at the start of the dialogue.

He said the impact of climate change and threat of natural disasters will get worse, along with security challenges like terrorism that can cause massive damage and loss of life.

"Given these challenges, it is ever more critical that this region - Asean - is vigilant and we are prepared to deal with natural disasters and any type of disasters that strike us," he said. "This is not an area where anyone has all the solutions. We all have to share our experiences and try and help each other."