International Day
ASEAN Day for Disaster Management Event
The theme for this year’s event was “Strengthening Partnership and Innovation for Disaster Management in ASEAN”, in line with the IDDRR 2021 theme.
ASEAN and its partners reaffirmed their commitment to raise the ASEAN people’s public awareness on the importance of disaster risk reduction.
The ADDM is convened annually and jointly with the International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (IDDRR) every 13 October. This year’s commemoration took place on 14 October via video conference, hosted by Singapore as the current Chair of the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Disaster Management (AMMDM).
This year’s theme, “Strengthening Partnership and Innovation for Disaster Management in ASEAN”, in line with the IDDRR 2021 theme, was adopted from the Sendai Framework Target to “substantially enhance international cooperation to developing countries through adequate and sustainable support to complement their national actions for implementation of the present Framework by 2030”.
ADDM 2021 was commemorated at the sidelines of the 9th AMMDM, which was held today. ASEAN Ministers in-charge of disaster management or their representatives, ACDM members, other ASEAN Sectoral bodies and partners– all of whom have been reliable sources of support to ASEAN throughout this challenging year– were in attendance.
In his remarks, the AMMDM Chair, Associate Professor Dr. Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, noted that “the commemoration demonstrates ASEAN’s commitment and efforts towards disaster reduction and management. This leads to an important end goal – to alleviate the hardship and suffering of peoples of ASEAN, who live in one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world.”
Remarks were also delivered by partners including Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to ASEAN Deng Xijun, Ambassador of Japan to ASEAN Chiba Akira, Assistant Secretary-General of UNOCHA Ramesh Rajasingham, Executive Secretary of UNESCAP Armida Salsiah Alisjahbana and Mohammad Naciri, the Regional Director of UN Women for Asia and the Pacific.
In his closing remarks, Secretary-General of ASEAN Dato Lim Jock Hoi highlighted the importance of innovation and partnership in disaster management in the years ahead, as well as ASEAN’s commitments towards realising a disaster-resilient ASEAN.
The commemoration witnessed the progress made through partnership and innovation, including the embarkation of the AADMER Work Programme 2021-2025 implementation, and the capitalisation of new technologies to chart the progress through the Web-based Monitoring and Evaluation System, which ensures that ASEAN is on-track towards meeting the goals of its five-year plan.
Further, the commemoration welcomed the finalisation of key documents that set strategic actions in disaster management, in the next five years. This includes the launch of (i) the ASEAN Regional Plan of Action on Adaptation to Drought 2021-2025; (ii) The ASEAN Framework on Protection, Gender and Inclusion 2021-2025; (iii) The ASEAN-UN Joint Strategic Plan of Action in Disaster Management (JSPADM) IV 2021-2025; (iv) the ASEAN Disaster Resilience Outlook; (v) the ASEAN Mapping Exercise; and (vi) the Web-Based Monitoring and Evaluation System for the AADMER Work Programme 2021-2025.