Regional Humanitarian Platforms—The Case of ASEAN

Since the devastating Indian Ocean Earthquake and Tsunami in 2004 there are three significant broad trends that have shaped the regional humanitarian landscape in Southeast Asia, namely ASEAN centrality, sectoral approaches and a diversifying multi-stakeholder environment. The challenge for the region remains how these communities of actors engage with one another for more effective action. Over the next five years as the region moves towards realizing the ASEAN Vision 2025 on disaster management, it will face multiple challenges. States and societies in Southeast Asia have demonstrated a commitment to build up their disaster response capacity which is often termed “nationally-led, regionally-supported and international as necessary” so that they can respond themselves to natural hazards. The next steps will be to reflect on the strengths of the different actors in the regional humanitarian community and focus on community leadership; determine how transferable the skills developed by humanitarian responders in the region are and adapt them to new scenarios; strengthen relationships across the diverse humanitarian community; and be better prepared for complex humanitarian emergencies in all their forms.