ASEAN Prepares Future Leaders in Disaster Management

ASEAN
Kuala Lumpur, MALAYSIA
31st July 2015

The ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (the AHA Centre) has officially concluded the second batch of its signature programme – the AHA Centre Executive Programme (ACE Programme) today in Kuala Lumpur. Sixteen disaster management officers from ASEAN Member States' National Disaster Management Offices (NDMOs) from Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Thailand and Viet Nam have successfully completed the six-month training with satisfactory performance.

As ASEAN is moving towards realising the vision of One ASEAN, One Response, “the AHA Centre as the knowledge hub for disaster management in ASEAN shall continue to implement the ACE Programme to provide opportunities for disaster management practitioners in ASEAN to prepare themselves as future leaders and champions to build a safer and disaster-resilient ASEAN, where ASEAN is responding to disasters together as one,” said H.E. Le Luong Minh, Secretary-General of ASEAN in his opening remarks.

“We hope the sixteen officers will make good use of the knowledge and experiences they have acquired in order to play a leading role in disaster management,” said Ms Yukiko Okano, Minister-Counsellor, Deputy Chief of Mission of Japan to ASEAN.

The ACE Programme last year involved 13 disaster management officers from the ASEAN Member States and was conducted from February  to August. Based on this experience, the AHA Centre introduced a new and improved curriculum by providing additional modules such as coordinated-needs assessment and field visits to different areas in Indonesia that have been severely affected by natural disasters.

“The successful completion of the second batch of ACE Programme is undoubtedly due to the joint and collaborative efforts of our partners and stakeholders. They have helped us immensely. We would like to extend our deepest gratitude to the ASEAN Member States, in particular the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management (ACDM and its Preparedness and Response Working Group), the Government of Japan, the ASEAN Secretariat, the ASEAN Dialogue Partners as well as many other partners that have been supporting AHA Centre in the programme,” stated Mr. Said Faisal, Executive Director of the AHA Centre.

The graduation ceremony was also attended by Mr. Ogu Salim Omar, Deputy Secretary, Malaysian National Security Council, ASEAN Dialogue Partners and other partner agencies.

The ACE Programme is supported by the Government of Japan through Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund (JAIF) under the Disaster Emergency Logistics System for ASEAN (DELSA) project and JICA. The programme also gets support from the Government of Australia, the Government of New Zealand, the Government of the United States of America, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UNOCHA), the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the United Nations Humanitarian Response Depot (UNHRD) Subang, the AADMER Partnership Group (APG), the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), the Indonesian Red Cross (PMI), International Organization for Migration (IOM), RedR UK, RedR Australia, University of Canterbury of New Zealand, Syiah Kuala University Indonesia (TDRMC), United States Department of Agriculture Forest Services (USFS), Asia Pacific Alliance for Disaster Management, Civic Force Japan, DHL, Cohn & Wolfe PR, British Council Indonesia and London School Academy Indonesia.