NTS Insight- Disaster Governance in ASEAN after COVID-19_21

In the early phase COVID-19 of the outbreak, many countries were ill prepared for a pandemic of this scale and • ASEAN’s Response to COVID-19 faced a severe shortage of critical medical supplies, which threatened the security of healthcare workers as well as the success of pandemic response.1 In addition, • From Fragmented to Cohesive Response the COVID-19 pandemic has aggregated the pressure on c. [...] The ASEAN member states managed to complete the negotiation of the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) within half a year after the tsunami and signed the agreement in July 2005, which forms the legal basis of disaster management in the ASEAN region. [...] This is evident in the description of the mandate of the ASEAN Secretary-General as ASEAN Humanitarian Assistance Coordinator which “can be activated any time at the request of the affected ASEAN Member State in the event of a major disaster, whether it be a natural disaster or a pandemic.”13 The separation of pandemics from natural hazards has culminated in different systems with limited linkages. [...] Humanitarian Needs Induced by COVID-19 With the disruptions that the COVID-19 pandemic has caused to socio-economic activities and the health and security of individuals in the region, the pandemic poses another challenge to ASEAN’s goal to build a disaster-resilient regional community. [...] During the ASEAN Summit on COVID-19 in April this year, President Duterte specifically noted the shortage of vital medicines and medical equipment in the Philippines and called for intra-ASEAN cooperation in meeting the challenge.21 ASEAN adopted the “ASEAN Declaration on One ASEAN One Response” in Vientiane on September 2016, which represents the region’s commitment to collective responses to dis.