Launch webinar of ARMOR 3rd Edition
The LACER project is pleased to contribute to the launch webinar of ARMOR in its 3rd edition, supported by the European Union. The theme of this edition is the intersection of disasters and pandemic.
In light of the health crisis endured globally as a result of COVID-19, the articles highlight how the pandemic affected disaster management policymaking across the ASEAN region. Of particular interest is how ASEAN has adapted its disaster management tools in response to the pandemic, including innovative methods, information and communication technology that can be used to improve the analysis of real-time data and the cross-border provision of aid during disasters, in anticipation of future pandemics.
LACER risk expert, Dr. Emmanuel Raju, participated as a panellist commenting on the article entitled "Disaster and Pandemic: The Exacerbating Effects of COVID-19 to ASEAN’s Disaster Riskscape" by the AHA Disaster Monitoring and Analysis team and Pacific Disaster Center.
Dr. Raju underscored the importance of talking about vulnerability as a central issue in disaster risk management because “in many places not just the EU but across the world we’ve seen how it’s very often the same communities, the same geographic locations, the vulnerable populations that we speak about are repeatedly impacted by these disasters or have seen worse effects over and over again.”
Dr. Raju noted that the pandemic has presented us with some learning opportunities, for instance by highlighting key questions at the global level, such as “how do we make sure that the slogan of leaving no one behind continues to be at the centre of all discussions for policy makers?”
The pandemic has also forced us to revisit the link between DRR and sustainable development. Dr. Raju explained:
“If we truly want to achieve disaster risk reduction, we also need to think about the sustainable development goals because at the end of the day disaster risk reduction is about making sure that we have risk informed development processes.”
LACER’s role in the ARMOR discussion of regional risk is a continuation of the Risk Assessment Workshop carried out in September of last year under the auspices of LACER, which brought together experts from the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, DG ECHO, MSB and the AHA Centre to compare the processes of compiling and assessing regional risk across the EU and ASEAN regions.