How Asean can ramp up regional cooperation on disaster relief
Asean should strengthen disaster-relief cooperation by organising partnerships around shared capabilities, not institutions, as cross-border crises like haze show.
Partnerships must shift purposefully and be organised around capabilities instead of institutions
ACROSS South-east Asia, the haze has returned.
Smoke and smog from fires in Indonesia have crossed national borders, degraded air quality in Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, once again demonstrating how a man-made environmental hazard, aggravated by the El Nino weather phenomenon in one location, can have consequences in the region.
The haze forces us to consider something larger than the current emergency. The crises we face do not respect borders nor follow sectoral or institutional mandates.
Source: The Business Times https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/opinion-features/how-asean-can-ramp-regional-cooperation-disaster-relief?ref=global-opinion
