ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER

Since its ratification in 2009, the AADMER has been the legally binding regional agreement that details ASEAN’s commitment to reducing disaster losses, responding collectively to disasters, and supporting resilience-building. In addition to regional strategies, it explicitly supports ASEAN member-states’ initiatives and complements member-states’ national technical and institutional capacities for DM. The process of implementing AADMER involves setting five-year work programs that incrementally improve ASEAN capacity for early warning and monitoring, preparedness, response, and DRR. The strategic components of AADMER are: • Risk Assessment, Early Warning, and

Monitoring – AADMER lays down guidelines and protocols for identifying risk, collecting, analyzing, and storing data on risks, and disseminating regional risk information and assessments. • Prevention and Mitigation – AADMER promotes the development and strengthening of DRR via plans, education, and advocacy, particularly by involving communities in

DRR planning and sufficiently funding DRR and climate change adaptation. • Preparedness and Response – By laying down the foundations for the AHA Centre, SASOP, and other tools, AADMER targets collective, fast, and reliable ASEAN response in line with humanitarian standards and integrated into the international humanitarian architecture. • Recovery and Rehabilitation – The

AADMER Recovery Strategy addresses issues related to longer-term and sustainable reconstruction. • Training and Knowledge Management

Systems – AADMER lays out ways for

ASEAN to help build the skills and networks of national DM agencies, expand the pool of experts available in the region, develop

a means of certifying practitioners, and institutionalizing training down to the community level. • Partnership – AADMER seeks to create platforms for partnership among local, national, regional, and international practitioners both within governments and among civil society. • Resource Mobilization – ASEAN memberstates identify and build up human, financial, and physical assets, and plan for their mobilization.78

In line with international best practice, AADMER institutionalizes the leadership of affected or requesting states during emergency responses within their territories. Affected states may request assistance either directly from a fellow ASEAN member-state or via the AHA Centre, and assisting states will submit their acceptance of the overall direction, control, coordination, and supervision of the affected state during the response within legal bounds. AADMER does recognize the role of regional military forces in disaster management, and parties to ASEAN agree that military personnel involved in a response may wear their uniforms while conducting official duties.79

The AADMER Work Programme was first developed in 2010 to translate the spirit of AADMER into more practical actions and chart the priorities of the ACDM in 5-year cycles. The Work Programme generally will outline the key initiatives of ASEAN in strengthening the regional mechanisms for joint response and DRR.80 The AADMER Work Programme 20212025 was agreed to in November 2020. Its stated mission is to “enhance and support ASEAN’s disaster risk reduction and disaster management capabilities through inter-sectoral cooperation, capacity building, scalable innovation, resource mobilization, new partnerships, and stronger coordination among ASEAN Member States.” The five-year program will see the AADMER carried out through five priorities: 1. Risk Assessment and Monitoring 2. Prevention and Mitigation