East Asia Summit (EAS

plans to move toward more regional cooperation in DM and to strengthen civilian and military coordination during disaster relief missions. Work plans have increasingly been crafted to complement regional agreements like AADMER, and after Typhoon Haiyan hit the Philippines in 2013, the ARF ISM-DR reached a consensus that regional cooperation needed to be more robust and efficient.

Since 2014, civil-military cooperation and coordination have been the focus of DM planning and development with a particular focus on integrating government, military, and non-government stakeholders, particularly via inclusion in the ARF DiREx. However, in the last few years, DRR has become a more important concept as regional players focus on minimizing damage and loss among communities and economies rather than just focusing on reacting to events. This suggests that follow-on work plans will examine incorporating more community-based organizations and local administrations as means to strengthen central governments’ abilities to manage an overall emergency. This is all in line with the post-2015 agenda exemplified by the Sendai Framework on DRR.150

East Asia Summit (EAS)

The East Asia Summit (EAS) is a process for dialogue and cooperation among participating countries. Its culminating event is the annual meeting of participating countries’ heads of state and government; throughout the year, other working meetings involve various ministries – e.g., energy, environment, or education – from each participating state. In 2005, the first EAS brought together representatives of 16 countries – the 10 ASEAN member-states, Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, and South Korea. In 2011, the U.S. and Russia joined. ASEAN leads the forum, and the chair position rotates among ASEAN member-states annually. The EAS Unit at the ASEAN Secretariat was established in 2016 to improve coordination and facilitate cross-sector cooperation. The Unit oversees implementation and monitoring of decisions taken by EAS leaders.

Together, the 2005 Kuala Lumpur Declaration, the 2010 Ha Noi Declaration, the 2011 Declaration on the Principles for Mutually Beneficial Relations, the 2015 Kuala Lumpur Declaration, and the 2020 Ha Noi Declaration set the foundations for dialogue and cooperation among EAS participants on broad strategic, political, and economic issues of common interest and on promoting peace, stability, and economic prosperity in East Asia. The six EAS priority areas of cooperation are: 1) environment and energy, 2) education, 3) finance, 4) global health issues and pandemic diseases, 5) natural disaster management, and 6) ASEAN Connectivity. Each priority area has a plan of action. Other areas of cooperation that could become focal points for EAS in the future are food security, trade and economics, maritime security and cooperation, and non-traditional security issues.151 An example of the agenda of an annual EAS comes from the 2021 virtual summit hosted by Brunei; it included discussions and workshops on COVID-19, health security, the South China Sea, climate change, cyber security, countering violent extremism, mental health, and the situations in Myanmar, Hong Kong, and the Korean Peninsula.152 On the issues of global health and pandemic diseases, EAS has planned to enhance regional preparedness and capacity through comprehensive and integrated approaches to prevention, control, care, management, surveillance, and timely responses to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases.153

Under the rubric of natural disaster management, EAS does the following: • Support the operation of the AHA Centre and encourage all EAS participating countries to provide funding and technical support • Build links between EAS DM activities and

AADMER work and promote informationsharing, rapid response, and coordinated action • Deepen engagement between ACDM and national DM authorities of non-ASEAN

EAS participating countries to guide

cooperation in DM and DRR, especially via the ACDM Session on EAS Cooperation on

Disaster Management, the 24x7 Points of

Contact Network Meetings, and the Virtual

Knowledge Portal • Conduct disaster response and recovery exercises such as the EAS Earthquake

Response and Relief Joint Exercise; and • Conduct capacity-building and exchange experiences and sound practices in DM including activities on DRR and preparedness reporting in accordance with the Sendai

Framework.154

Among the major developments from the EAS is the Rapid Disaster Response Toolkit, the first iteration of which came from the 2011 Australia-Indonesia EAS Disaster Management Initiative. The Toolkit was launched in June 2015 as a reference guide for decision-makers when sending or receiving international disaster assistance, and from then on, participants would work to operationalize the Toolkit via regional exercises. In November 2016, Indonesia, in partnership with Australia, conducted the Ambon Disaster Response Exercise to promote awareness and application of the Toolkit. This was followed up by the 2017-2018 EAS International Disaster Assistance Workshop series, based on an Australian disaster scenario, which allowed all EAS participating countries to explore how they would receive requests and make offers of disaster assistance. The AHA Centre participated in order to explore how it would facilitate ASEAN’s collective assistance in conjunction with other EAS participating countries.155 The Toolkit contains three Tools: • TOOL 1: The NATIONAL FOCAL POINT

TABLE provides contact information (telephone numbers and e-mail addresses) for EAS participating country officials that have responsibility for managing offers of and requests for international disaster assistance. Each EAS participating country is encouraged to include in its contact information the way in which requests for or offers of assistance flow within a government. • TOOL 2: The GUIDANCE FOR RAPID

DISASTER RESPONSE is a reference booklet intended for DM decision-makers across the EAS. It outlines key issues to consider ahead of or during disaster response; such issues include but are not limited to legal frameworks, diplomatic concerns, the local ability to absorb external assets or personnel, and the appropriateness (or not) of domestic or foreign military assistance. This Tool contains checklists of issues to consider, easy-to-use references, links to templates, and similar documents. • TOOL 3: The EAS COUNTRY DISASTER

RESPONSE ARRANGEMENTS booklet outlines the rapid disaster response arrangements for each EAS participating country. This information includes a detailed inventory of capabilities available and likely gaps and, in some cases, includes details on acceptable standards for assisting state capabilities (e.g., the International Search and Rescue Advisory Group (INSARAG)

Guidelines for USAR Teams).156

The Toolkit is available either as a box set of hard-copy posters (Tool 1) and booklets (Tools 2 and 3) or in soft-copy on-line (via the following links). • Tool 1: National Focal Point Table https://www.rcrc-resilience-southeastasia. org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2015-EAS-

Toolkit-1-National-Focal-Point-Table.pdf • Tool 2: Guidance for Rapid Disaster

Response https://www.rcrc-resilience-southeastasia. org/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/2015-EAS-

Toolkit-2-Guidance-for-Rapid-Disaster-

Response.pdf • Tool 3: EAS Country Disaster Response

Arrangements https://www.asean.org/wp-content/uploads/ images/2015/June/EAS_toolkit/EAS-

Toolkit-3.pdf

Figure 14 shows Malaysia’s entry in Tool 3, Country Disaster Response Arrangements.157