On November 22nd-23rd, the 16th Economic Leaders meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) in Peru capped several months of consultations on the most pressing economic and social issues in the region. Among these, natural disasters were identified as a critical threat to human security and development to member economies.
In their “Lima Declaration”, APEC heads of state recognized that “greater coordination is needed as the number of disaster management arrangements and players in the region continues to grow.” They therefore endorsed a new Strategy for Disaster Risk Reduction and Emergency Preparedness and Response, developed this summer by APEC’s Task Force on Emergency Preparedness.
Among the potential initiatives included in the new APEC Strategy is a plan to cooperate with the IFRC and other partners to assist member economies to examine their level of legal preparedness for regional and international disaster assistance. This will include workshops and seminars to provide member economies with information about the IDRL Guidelines and other international norms as well as pilot projects at the country level to assist member economies to analyse their current state of legal preparedness for disaster cooperation.
The Economic Leaders Meeting also welcomed several other initiatives on disaster cooperation. These include a new set of “APEC Principles on Disaster Response and Cooperation” proposed by China, a “Stock-take on Disaster Management Capacity Building Needs,” and a joint Australia-Indonesia plan to develop a “Disaster Reduction Facility” in Jakarta to encourage risk reduction measures in the region.
The latter Facility, planned to be operational as of April 2009, will seek to increase the coherence of disaster cooperation in Asia Pacific, including through “advocacy for more comprehensive uptake by countries in the region of the IFRC Guidelines on disaster relief and recovery.”