Humanitarian action in the Asia-Pacific during COVID-19: new challenges, modalities, and cooperation

ABSTRACT

As the world continues to grapple with the COVID-19 pandemic, the threat of natural hazards still looms large. While pandemic response remains dominant, states and societies also need to be prepared for concurrent risks and hazards. If unaccounted for, the overlapping effects of a pandemic and a natural hazard for example, can compound socio-economic vulnerabilities in countries. This article assesses the effects of concurrent risk events, and how they impact states and societies in the Asia-Pacific. With overseas travel and supply chain restrictions severely hampering the movement of relief items and international humanitarian workers during the COVID-19 pandemic, the need to empower and strengthen local humanitarian actors became acute. This article further critically examines the role of new technologies in adapting the sector in terms of remote management, empowering local staff, providing an alternative to in-kind assistance, and localizing global supply chains. The underappreciated activities and mandates of regional organizations and initiatives in the sub-regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific Island countries facilitated localization efforts and illustrate the importance of the regional level in multilevel approaches to disaster governance.

KEYWORDS:

• Disaster
• COVID-19
• humanitarian assistance
• Asia-Pacific

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alistair D.B. Cook

Alistair D.B. Cook is coordinator of the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief programme and Senior Fellow, Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.

Christopher Chen

Christopher Chen is an Associate Research Fellow on the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief programme, Centre for Non-traditional Security Studies, S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.