Delivering the Sendai Framework: An ASEAN Approach to Inclusive Disaster and Climate Resilience

Distinguished guests, please be seated. Our event will begin soon. Thank you. Excellencies, distinguished guests, as your emcee today, it is my pleasure to welcome you to our side event on delivering the Sendai Framework and ASEAN approach to inclusive disaster and climate resilience, co-sponsored by Thailand, UNDRR, Japan, and the Philippines. Without further ado, to commence our high-level segment, may I invite His Excellency Mr. Sihasak Wongkittakul, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand, to deliver his opening remarks.

Thank you very much, Your Excellency, Madam Maria Teresa Lazaro, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, Senator the Honorable Penny Wong, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia, Your Excellency, Madame Ana Claudia Roschbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, Excellencies, distinguished participants, well, good afternoon and a very warm welcome. I would like, first of all, to express my sincere appreciation to UNDRR, Philippines and Japan, our co-organizers, as well as to our ASEAN colleagues, ASEAN partners, and United Nations representatives for joining us today. Now, as we approach the final milestone of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction and the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the risk landscape is becoming increasingly complex. Climate change is intensifying the frequency and impacts of disasters, while demographic, technological, and socioeconomic changes are creating new and interconnected risks. ASEAN remains among the most disaster-prone regions in the world. Disaster takes lives, damage livelihoods and infrastructure, disrupt essential services, and can reverse hard-won development gains. This reminds us that resilience is not only a disaster management issue, it is a development imperative. We must move beyond responding after disasters occur towards anticipating risks, reducing vulnerabilities, and acting before disasters strike. ASEAN has a strong foundation for this regional approach. First, we have the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management, Emergency Response and its work programme 2026-2030. Second, the ASEAN Community Vision 2045 and the Complementarities Initiative 2.0. And third, the Asian UN Joint Strategic Plan of Action on Disaster Management 2026-2030. These frameworks provide an important basis for linking disaster risk reduction, climate action, and sustainable development. Now looking towards 2030 and beyond, the Sendai Framework, I would like to highlight three priorities that we would like to see ASEAN advance together. First, better data, timely, comprehensive and precise data are essential to ensure that policies, preparedness and emergency response reflect the needs of different groups. We must strengthen our capacity to collect share and use such data effectively with continued technical support and knowledge transfer from our partners. Second, timely and trusted information. In crisis, information can spread as quickly as the disaster itself. Misinformation can undermine public confidence and complicate response efforts. We therefore need proactive, coordinated crisis communication supported by reliable information and rigorous fact checking. And third, rapid and coordinated action. Strong preparedness requires clear mechanism, defined responsibility, and effective communication across institutions. Standardized procedures and response protocols are particularly important when disasters are high impact and communities expect immediate coordinated assistance. Thailand certainly looks forward to working with partners to carry this agenda forward. We will host the United Nations Conference on the Protection of Persons in the Event of Disaster in Bangkok in January 2027. This demonstrates our commitment to strengthening the protection of people affected by disasters while promoting a more inclusive approach to disaster response. Building on this momentum, as Thailand takes on the ASEAN chairmanship in 2028, we will further advance regional cooperation towards a stronger, safer, and more resilient ASEAN. Guided by the spirit of One ASEAN, One Response, we can strengthen our collective capacity to anticipate risks, act early, and ensure that resilience translates into practical protection for our people and communities. As ASEAN Coordinator for Sustainable Development Cooperation, Thailand looks forward to continuing this work with all of you towards 2030 and beyond. Thank you.

Thank you, Your Excellency. Next, may I invite Her Excellency Ms. Maria Teresa P. Lazaro, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, to deliver her remarks.

Thank you, Foreign Minister Siahaan, Foreign Minister Penny Wong, and representative from the UN-Habitat, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. I thank the Kingdom of Thailand for convening this discussion and for inviting the Philippines as ASEAN Chair to co-organize the event. We are now in the final years of implementation of the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction. This gives added importance to discussions on what has worked, where gaps remain, and what more needs to be done before 2030. Southeast Asia has long had to manage a wide range of disaster risks. Typhoons, floods, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, droughts, and other hazards continue to affect our communities and economies. Climate change is adding to these pressures and, in many cases, increasing the scale and complexity of the risks we face. Our experience in the Philippines and across ASEAN has shown that disaster resilience has to be built into development From the beginning, preparedness, early warning, risk information, resilient infrastructure, and recovery planning all matter if we are to reduce losses before the disasters occur. ASEAN has developed a strong regional basis for this work. The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response, or what we call AADMER provides the framework for regional cooperation, while the AHA Center, the ASEAN Humanitarian Center, supports coordination and collective response when member states require assistance. The AADMER work program 2630 now carries the work forward and provides a usual bridge, or rather a useful bridge, between ASEAN's regional priorities and the remaining years of the Sendai Framework. An important part of this work is ensuring that resilience is inclusive. Disasters affect communities differently. Access to information, mobility, income, location, age and disability can all determine how people prepare for, respond to and recover from a disaster. These considerations need to be reflected in the way policies and response systems are designed. There is also a clear development dimension. Major disasters can reverse gains in health, education, livelihoods, infrastructure and poverty reduction. Reducing disaster risk is therefore closely linked to sustaining development. ASEAN values the partnerships that have supported our work in this area. We see particular scope for deeper cooperation in early warning, anticipatory action, disaster risk financing, resilient infrastructure, data and technology, and local capacity building. As ASEAN Chair, the Philippines will continue to support practical cooperation that strengthens the ability of our member states and communities to prepare for and respond to the disasters. As we move toward 2030, our focus should remain on implementation and whether our institutions are better prepared, whether communities have better access to information and protection, and whether the systems we have built are reducing risk in practice. The Philippines looks forward to working with our fellow ASEAN member states, the United Nations, and our partners in advancing this work. I wish everyone a productive discussion. Thank you.

Thank you, Your Excellencies. May I next invite Senator the Honourable Penny Wong, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Australia, to deliver her remarks.

Thank you, Keck. It's an honor to be able to make a contribution after my friends and colleagues, Deputy Prime Minister CSAC and Secretary Lazzaro. And can I thank the Kingdom of Thailand, the Philippines, UNDRR, and Japan for bringing us here together today. In recent weeks, we've seen the devastating floods and landslides in Nepal and Tibet, China. And we've seen communities have lost loved ones, have lost homes and livelihoods, 1400 confirmed dead, six and a half thousand or more remain missing, amongst them 34 Australians. And Australia rapidly mobilised humanitarian support in response to the government of Nepal, and we continue to work closely with partners to deliver assistance and help communities recover. But it is a reminder that across the Indo-Pacific, the impacts of natural disasters are compounding existing vulnerabilities, threatening food security, stability and displacement. And I, of course, emphasise that these impacts are heavy, but they are not felt equally, with women and girls and people with disability or other vulnerable people often facing heightened risks. We know that these challenges are regional and they are global, and therefore our responses must likewise be regional and global. And what we also know is that preventing disaster impacts is far better than only responding after the fact. And the Sendai Framework provides us all with a clear roadmap, reminds us that understanding risk, investing in resilience, strengthening governance, and improving preparedness are the most effective ways to protect our communities particularly when those who are affected have a voice in shaping the systems designed to protect them. And we're really pleased, Australia is really pleased to be able to support this, both through our direct support to UNDRR and our development partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. I want to talk briefly about ASEAN's role. Australia is a strong supporter of ASEAN's central role in coordinating regional disaster preparedness and response in Southeast Asia. ASEAN is the center of our region and it plays a vital role in building norms, in setting expectations of behavior, and therefore supporting peace, stability, and prosperity across our region. And as we mark 10 years of the One ASEAN, One Response that my colleagues have referred to, effective implementation of the Disaster Management and Emergency Response Work Program 26 to 2030 It's really a very long name, but will be central to strengthening regional preparedness, risk reduction and recovery efforts. And a robust, a coordinated, an inclusive response will be critical because, regrettably, disasters are likely to become more intense, more complex as climate change compounds existing risks. Can I give the Australia's commitment? We will continue to support ASEAN's priorities. We will continue to engage with ASEAN-led mechanisms, and we will continue to back practical regional action. My colleague, Secretary Lazzara, referred to the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance. As you know, Australia has supported that since 2011, and three Australian-funded technical experts are currently embedded in the centre to support its critical work. We will continue to deepen our cooperation to deliver on the Sendai Framework together. Together, we can build a future where our communities are better prepared, where climate risk and disaster risk are better understood, and where resilience is built before crises occur and where local knowledge, local leadership, local experience are central to respond. And most of all, we can build a future where no country faces these challenges alone. Thank you.

Thank you, Your Excellencies. Next, allow me to invite His Excellency Mr. Suthakadala, White Minister for Economic Relations of the Ministry of External Affairs of India to deliver his remark.

Thank you very much, Excellencies, distinguished colleagues, ladies and gentlemen. I thank Thailand in its capacity as ASEAN coordinator on sustainable development cooperation, Philippines as chair of ASEAN, Japan and UNDRR for convening this timely discussion. As we enter the final years of this entire framework, our task is not only to accelerate implementation, but also to ensure that the global disaster risk reduction agenda beyond 2030 is practical, inclusive, and centered around people. ASEAN's experience of regional cooperation, anticipatory action, and institutional preparedness offers valuable lessons to all of us. India's own experience has reinforced one fundamental lesson, Resilience must be built before disaster strikes. We have strengthened multi-hazard early warning systems, risk-informed infrastructure, institutional preparedness, and use of technology solutions. Equally important is effective last-mile communication so that early warning is translated into early action and protection of local communities. Inclusion must also be built into disaster risk governance. Risk information preparedness and financing must respond to the needs of vulnerable communities and those most exposed to climate and disaster risks. Our Prime Minister has identified five priorities for stronger global resilience. Skills and education, sharing of lessons and best practices, innovating financing accessible to developing countries, special attention to vulnerable island countries, and stronger early warning systems and coordination. The Coalition for Disaster-Resilient Infrastructure is also helping translate these priorities into practical international cooperation. Regional partnerships are equally important. In their values is growing cooperation with ASEAN, including through a cooperative framework between our National Disaster Management Authority and the AHA Center, covering capacity building, disaster monitoring, preparedness, and humanitarian response. We look forward to deepening this cooperation with ASEAN. Japan has been a long-standing partner of India in disaster risk reduction. India deeply appreciates Japan's support for our offer to host the fourth United Nations World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in 2030. We also look forward to continued cooperation, including through the Asia-Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai next year. India is keen to host the fourth WCDRR with the objective of carrying forward the spirit and principles of the Sendai Framework and contributing constructively to the global DRR agenda beyond 2030. We would value the support of our partners in this endeavor. India stands ready to work with ASEAN, Japan, Australia, UNDRR, and all partners to build a safer, resilient, and inclusive future. I thank you.

Thank you, Your Excellencies. May I next invite Her Excellency, Mrs. Anna-Claudia Rosbach, Executive Director of UN-Habitat, to deliver her remark.

Thank you. His Excellency, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Thailand, Mr. Prayut Chan-o-cha. Her Excellency, Maria Teresa Lazaro, Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines. Senator the Honorable Wong, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Australia. Mr. Sudhakar Dhalala, Vice Minister for Economic Affairs, India, also the representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, Mr. Masatoshi. Excellencies, delegates, colleagues and partners, it is a pleasure to join you for this very important discussion on the Sendai Framework. So as we enter the final years of both the Sendai Framework and the 2030 Agenda, there is one reality that is very clear. We cannot achieve resilience without addressing the way we plan our cities. We build and finance the urban areas and will not achieve full progress on the SDGs without urban resilience, which begins with safe land, adequate housing, and risk-sensitive planning. So climate change is intensifying risks, floods, storms, extreme heat, sea level rise, while rapid urbanization, demographic change, environmental degradation, and inequality are creating new and interconnected vulnerabilities. And these risks increasingly converge in cities. with the consequences disproportionately falling on people living in informal settlements, inadequate housing and underserved neighborhoods, where infrastructure, services and protection are often very weak. This is why the Sendai Framework and the New Urban Agenda must be implemented together. They both recognize that well-planned and well-managed urbanization can help prevent the creation of new risks and strengthen resilience. Specifically, the Sendai Framework reminds us of a fundamental point. Disaster risk is closely linked to policy and implementation choices, including whether these choices are inclusive. It also reminds us that disasters are not only natural events, our decisions shape risks. And just two months ago, at the General Assembly, the high-level meeting on the mid-term review of the New Urban Agenda, Member States 148 reaffirmed the importance of environmentally sustainable and resilient urban development. The message from the mid-term review was clear. Resilience must be built into urban development through housing, land use planning, transformation of informal settlements, infrastructure, basic services, also strong stronger local governments and increased investment. Recent disasters underline the urgency of this message. The devastating flash floods that struck Bangladesh in 26, Nepal just now in 20, just now in August, could have could not have been prevented, but the impacts reminds us that hazards do not have to become human tragedies. Recently, the devastating floods in southern Thailand, including Hat Yai, again showed how a hazard can quickly become an urban crisis affecting homes, transport, infrastructure, services, livelihoods and local economies. So risk sensitive land use planning, recognizing that land has an ecological and a social function, resilient infrastructure, functioning drainage, early warning, community preparedness and coordinated local action can substantially reduce exposure, vulnerability and damage. The lesson is clear, while we cannot prevent every hazard, the choices we make about where and how we build can significantly reduce disaster risk and limit losses, protecting lives. This is also why adequate housing must be at the heart of disaster risk reduction, reflecting the direction of UN-Habitat Strategic Plan for 2026-2029, which places housing, land, basic services, transformation of informal settlements at the center. Thailand, by the way, offers important experience, community-led housing, settlement upgrading, demonstrate how secure housing, local knowledge, collective action, and inclusive planning can strengthen At city level, experiences in flood monitoring, community preparedness, and local planning also show the importance of connecting technology with institutions and communities. And these approaches can contribute to a wider learning across Asia and the globe. The region has demonstrated how regional cooperation can strengthen preparedness, anticipatory action, and risk-informed development. For Asia, this agenda is both urgent and achievable. The region has demonstrated the value of solidarity. So as we look towards 2030 and the future of Sendai framework, we have an opportunity to move from managing disasters to reducing risk, from reacting to crisis to anticipating them, and from treating housing, climate and disaster risk not as separate agendas, to addressing them through integrated urban policy. So UN-Habitat, together with the UN system, particularly our sisters and brothers from UNDRR. We are ready to work with Thailand, Asian member states, cities, communities and partners to support this priority, to support through three priorities. First, as you said, Minister, using risk data to guide urban growth and investment. Second, in scaling inclusive and resilient housing and settlement upgrading. And third, strengthening the capacity and financing of local governments to lead. So let us ensure that urbanization does not create tomorrow's disasters. Let us make it the pathway to safer homes, stronger communities, and more resilient cities for all. I thank you.

Thank you, Your Excellency. Next, allow me to invite Mr. Sugiura Masatoshi, Director General and Assistant Minister for Global Issues, to deliver the message from His Excellency, Mr. Motegi Toshimitsu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Japan.

Participants, ladies and gentlemen, allow me to deliver this statement on behalf of Motegi Toshimitsu, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Japan. And the first and foremost, I wish to extend my deepest gratitude to His Excellency Mr. Sihasak, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Thailand; Her Excellency Ms. Lazaro, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs of the Philippines, the current ASEAN Chair; then Senator Penny Wong, the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Australia; and then Mr. Dharadhar, the Vice Minister for Economic Relations, Minister of the External Affairs of India. as well as Her Excellency Ms. Ros Bahar, the Executive Director of UN-Habitat, and all the countries and organizations involved in facilitating this event. The Asia-Pacific region is one of the most disaster-prone regions in the world. This year alone, we have witnessed numerous disasters, including fresh flood in Nepal, major earthquakes of the coast of Mindanao in the Philippines, of Flores in Indonesia, and in Kumamoto, Japan, as well as floods across the region, including Thailand and Japan. And then the ASEAN has demonstrated strong leadership in disaster risk reduction through regional cooperation, including disaster response coordination and early warning initiatives. anchored by the ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management, AHA Center. These regionally-led efforts form the bedrock of disaster-resilient societies, and Japan has been supporting them through concrete cooperation, including support via the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund. As part of our commitment to saving lives when disaster strikes, Japan has contributed to strengthening life-saving and medical response capabilities through the ARCH project. Through joint training and capacity building under this project, we aim to advance ASEAN-led sustainable approaches and enhance disaster response capacity across the region. From the perspective of passing down the memory of disasters to future generations, Japan has been hosting the High School Student Summit on World Tsunami Awareness Day since 2016 as a platform for high school students from around the world to learn about tsunami threats and countermeasures. Next month, approximately 100 students from 14 countries, including ASEAN member states, will gather in Iwate Prefecture, Japan. In October next year, Japan will host the Asia Pacific Ministerial Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction in Sendai City. We hope to make this a meaningful forum for advancing the implementation of the Sendai framework and for shaping the disaster risk reduction agenda beyond 2030. in cooperation with ASEAN and its member states as well as other the countries in the region. Disaster response is not something any single country can achieve alone. Japan is committed to working hand-in-hand with ASEAN, Australia, India and the international community and to leading the dialogue toward building more resilient societies. Thank you for your attention.

Thank you, Excellencies. Excellencies, thank you for your insights today. Please remain seated as we proceed to the group photo session. Excellencies, please remain seated as we have group photo sessions. May I next also invite our panelists and moderator to join in the group photos. Thank you, excellencies, distinguished guests. Distinguished guests, our next session is the panel discussion. As we set the stage, allow me to introduce our next session. Our panel discussion segment will be moderated by Mrs. Chathuradi Jindal-Wong, Director, of the Department of ASEAN Affairs of Thailand. As we set the stage, please also allow me to further introduce our panelists today. First, we have Mr. Sujit Mohanty, Head of UNDRR's Partnership Branch. We also have Ms. Sarah Hendriks, Director of the Policy, Program and Intergovernmental Division at UN Women. Next, we have Dr. Parichat Krongkhan, advisor of Thailand's Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. And lastly, we have Professor Devry Shen-Gomesh, faculty director of National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia University. Distinguished guests, our next section will be panel discussion moderated by Mrs. Chatwadi Jinda Wong, Director General of the Department of ASEAN Affairs of Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Thailand. Please join me in welcoming our panelists as well. First, we have Mr. Sujit Mohanty, Head of UNDRR's Partnerships Branch. We also have Ms. Sara Hendrix, Director of the Policy, Program and Intergovernmental Division at UN Women. Next, we have Dr. Parichat Krongkhan, advisor of Thailand's Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. And lastly, please join me in welcoming Professor Jeffrey Schlegelmilch, faculty director of National Center for Disaster Preparedness, Columbia University.

Thank you. Thank you for the introduction. And again, Please allow me to welcome you all up to this ASEAN SDG side event on the Sendai Framework. Well, as mentioned by my Deputy Prime Minister and Prime Minister, as we are taking on the championship after Singapore, our championship will be in 2028. But, you know, we've been, I think ASEAN is a region that has been faced with disaster challenges, you know, and most recently, you know, in our country, Thailand, we also faced one of the most disastrous flood last year. So I think of the issue of disaster risk reduction is very relevant, especially as we seek to build our economic resilience in the years to come, you know, because one big disaster, you know, everything can just be gone, you know, in one big disaster. So that's why we like to pay more attention on this particular issue. And it is my pleasure to moderate this discussion on how we can strengthen inclusive disaster and climate resilience as we look towards the final years of the Sendai Framework and beyond. And I am honored to have a very excellent panel bringing together perspectives from the United Nations, from national disaster management experts, academia, and also practitioners working on gender and inclusion issues. Well, I will start with a presentation by each panelist, and then we'll have one round of interactive discussion, and if time permits, then maybe a question from the floor. So first, may I give the floor to Mr. Suchit Mohani, head of the UNDRR Partnerships Branch. I think My colleague already gave some brief introduction, so I give the floor to you, Mr. Mohani. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Chair. And it's really a pleasure to be here with the ASEAN group. I have worked in Thailand. I lived in Thailand for six years, so it's almost going back, in a way, home. So, colleagues, as As already mentioned, we are in the last stretch of the Sendai Framework. We have another three years to go. And we have really seen tremendous progress by countries in terms of their institutions, their strategies, policies in place, strengthening their capacity of institutions. And I think we should really celebrate that success of the Sendai Framework. But at the same time, I must say that we have still a way to go, still a long way to go. And the real question now is that in the next three years, how we can really scale what we have been doing, what the countries have been doing, and how do we really speed up, fast track all those initiatives so that we have meaningful achievements in the next three years when we start discussing the next framework or how we are moving forward. And I believe having worked with ASEAN several years back, this is really the right place to work with ASEAN. Since 2015, ASEAN countries have really accounted for 58.6% of reported economic losses. That is around 162 billion US dollar and even excluding that excludes the COVID-19 losses. And in terms of deaths and missing persons, 39% of the disaster deaths and missing persons globally is from the ASEAN region. It's a quite substantive number, I must say. The risk is really high. But at the same time, I must say that ASEAN also has shown the leadership in disaster risk reduction. As you know, that ADMAR, which is the first legally binding framework which is brought by ASEAN. It's really a remarkable framework that allowed ASEAN countries to tackle disaster risk. I would really like to highlight in terms of accelerating the implementation in the coming years, three key points. One is we have to really start looking at more towards that how resilience becomes more local. The Sendai Framework implementation shows that we have really made progress, I would say really commendable progress in the implementation of Sendai Framework at the global, regional and national level. We have still a long way to go when it comes to local level resilience. ASEAN has aligned its global, regional and national frameworks well. The Sendai Framework was really reinforced by the admirer. It was again, it was remarkable. I think the work program of 26, 2030 really pushed the Sendai implementation in the ASEAN region. And second, we must move from financing disasters to financing resilience. And this is a critical challenge, I think, which we all are seeing that when it comes to disasters, we are still paying for the damages over and over again. We have to start making it as a practice to really invest in prevention so that we are not spending our hard-earned development money in disasters, in responding to disasters again and again. And that's a critical I think element that will perhaps we have to accelerate as well as take it forward in the post 2030 discussion. Again, in ASEAN region, we have seen the cooperation and the financing is really working. We have supported and worked with Philippines, Indonesia and Lao PDR where they're really looking at how risk information is integrated into strengthening their public finance management and this is again something the world can learn from these countries. And my third point, briefly, is that really enhancing the cooperation and especially regional cooperation. Again, ASEAN has led the way. The cooperation with countries within the ASEAN has been tremendous in terms of disaster resilience. It's not only limited to regional cooperation, ASEAN also has laid or shaped the global disaster related statistics framework, which was recently launched. I also would like to mention Thailand, which supported the UN multi-donor trust fund for tsunami disaster and climate preparedness from last several decades. really put the priority in action in those countries. And this was instrumental, the Tsunami Trust Fund was instrumental for countries to access financing and access to really work on resilience. And this was, again, a phenomenal, I think, achievement from the ASEAN region. I would like to stop here. We should certainly talk about what are still the remaining challenges and gaps. But let me stop, pause here for the next.

Thank you. So may I now give the floor to Ms. Sara Hendrix, the head of, sorry, director of the policy program and intergovernmental division from UN Women.

Thank you so much, dear moderator. and excellencies and distinguished speakers on this panel, as well as colleagues across this room. Allow me first to begin by thanking very much the government of Thailand, of course, ASEAN, and also the UN Office for Disaster Risk Reduction for convening today's important discussion. I also want to congratulate ASEAN on the very recent adoption of the Manila Declaration on advancing disaster resilience agenda towards 2030 and beyond. As we've already discussed here, and as disasters become much more frequent, much more severe, much more complex, this declaration very much reinforces the need to move faster on implementation, to demonstrate accountability, to ensure cooperation that can shape the disaster risk reduction and resilience agenda. We certainly meet at a time when the space for global agreement is becoming harder to find, where the challenges geopolitically are a concern and when overlapping shocks test what any single country can actually manage alone. And I think the challenges we're also facing are happening at the same time when there's an urge to retreat into national solutions. and as a default mechanism. The devastating flash flood in Nepal certainly made these pressures painfully evident, and I think we all stand together in mourning not just the lives lost, but also those who are still missing, and stand with the communities facing the aftermath. Nepal certainly showed all of us across the world how quickly disasters can destroy homes, how quickly that critical infrastructure can be wiped out, how communities can become isolated from each other and essential services fundamentally disrupted, and those hard-won development gains reversed in what was quite literally a single moment. I think it's precisely in this environment that ASEAN's practice of building consensus across such different national contexts and political cycles, why that really matters and matters a lot. This is, I should say, not a modest achievement. It's an important achievement. It's a model with relevance for this region, but well beyond this region, and one that the international system needs to look to and learn from as well right now. UN Women's position has been very clear. Gender equality is an operating condition of resilience. It's not an add-on. It's not something that can just be bolted on to the broader work of resilience. When women's knowledge and leadership and economic security are excluded, we believe that risk is misunderstood in that moment, that resources are misallocated, and that recovery reproduces inequality rather than addressing it. And so recognizing women's leadership and resourcing this and giving women equal power of decisions that determine safety and resilience is not only fair, it's fundamentally how multilateral cooperation delivers for all women and girls. I did want to reflect just briefly on the normative anchor. And certainly here, the ASEAN Gender Outlook for 2024 projects that projects, excuse me, that climate change could push another 2.5 million people in the region into poverty by 2030. And it points to women and girls being at greater risk in that. That risk is exactly what disaster risk reduction and climate resilience has to address directly. And I think this is why ADMR is such a practical instrument and really not only a framework on paper. It has also committed to PGI, to protection, gender and inclusion as a guiding principle for how ADMR is implemented. And it means that PGI, that protection, gender and inclusion is not an outside ask, but it's how the agreement is meant to work, really shaping risk assessment, shaping early warning, shaping preparedness, anticipatory action, response and recovery, very much at every single stage. This is the same commitment the Sendai Framework asks of every region. And so let me be direct about the Sendai Gender Action Plan, which UN Women was very honored and pleased to work together with UNDRR and with UNFPA to help develop. And it was just launched just now two years ago. It sets out nine objectives, 33 recommended actions to substantially increase the gender responsive disaster risk reduction and substantially decrease gender related disaster risk, all with the focus of the year 2030. So there's four years left on this, four years left on that clock. And how we've very much fully operationalized. The Sendai gap is a priority for UN women. It's not one item on a longer list, and this is where our effort will concentrate between now and the end of the framework. In terms of our partnership with ASEAN, I think we're very proud of our strong and enduring partnership with ASEAN. It has helped move gender equality from the margins of disaster risk reduction and climate policy, really into a regional architecture, into regional evidence and implementation. And I'll point very quickly as I close to just four examples here. First, it's very much strengthened regional frameworks. We've got supported integration of gender equality and social inclusion into successive ADMR work programs and into the ASEAN regional framework on protection, gender, and inclusion in disaster management. And the work continues under the new ASEAN-UN Joint Strategic Plan of Action on Disaster Management. Secondly, building coherence across ASEAN's climate resilience and security frameworks. Here, we very much supported member states in developing the regional plan of action on women, peace and security. And this brings emerging security challenges, such as climate change and disasters, into that security agenda. And we've contributed to the gender integration in the adopted ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation and to the development of the ASEAN Climate Change Strategic Action Plan and Environmental Rights Regional Action Plan. And both of those actually are under development. Third, we've been working on data and evidence through our cooperation of gender statistics and the ASEAN Gender Outlook. And all of this is very important to make gender and disaster risk evidence very evident and real across systems. And fourth and finally, we've been translating commitments into operational delivery. We've got a flagship initiative called Empower Women for Climate Resilient Societies. It's a joint program with UNAPP, with UN Environmental Program, and that really much looks at climate finance and low carbon technologies for resilient livelihoods and strengthening women's leadership in disaster and climate governance in ASEAN states. With this, I'll thank you as we have more to discuss in the second round.

Thank you. Thank you. Well, we have heard from two UN agencies. So next, I think it's time to listen to a practitioner. So may I now invite Dr. Parichat Kongkan, advisor of Thailand's Department of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation. You have the floor, ma'am.

Thank you for giving me the floor. I have some slide presentation. It's not on yet, but anyway. So, today you may see that I have the title, Advisor of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation of Thailand, but I also work in the field. So, I would like to share with you today my experience working with people with disability on disability inclusive disaster risk reduction program. So as a practitioner, I carry the voice of person with disability. And by person with disability, I mean men, women, and even GLBTQ+ with disabilities. So my message is very simple today. Inclusion is not an extra work. Inclusion is the foundation of resilience. And let me begin with the fact that person with disability up to four times more likely to die in disaster. And this is not because of their disability. It's because the warning system, the evacuation route, the shelter are not designed with them in mind. Now picture a lady, an old lady with disability in rural area, in the flood prone area, caring for her maybe bedridden husband. And she is not facing only one risk. She is facing the risk of aging, the risk of gender, the risk about poverty, and even the geography combined. So we call this intersectional vulnerability. It's not a silo of vulnerability anymore. We have to look at different dimension of vulnerability, and this our data, this kind of thing is not in our data. The data is not seeing her yet. So who knows that she needs help when disaster happens? Good news is ASEAN already has planned. We have ADMIR work program. We have ASEAN declaration for people with disability. We have PGI that you already mentioned. This principle of PGI said that we have to care for people with disability, women, older people, older person and children, they all must be protected. They must lead and they also have to participate meaningfully in decision making. But think again back to that older lady with the husband. She is exactly the kind of leader that this framework envisions. But today, she is still invisible by the data and she is still unsupported by the system. So the challenge is very clear. We have to translate the ASEAN commitment into action, especially at the village level, where disability, vulnerability, and gender and disaster risk and even climate change live together every day. And we are going to see the pattern of aging people because ASEAN is aging. So in Thailand, we try to answer this question through practice. So let me introduce some of the example of the field work that we have been working since the Sendai Framework. First, we co-design with people with disability. You may have heard before that we have to consult persons with disability when we do things, we plan the programme. But we don't consult anymore. We decide with them. We work with them from the very beginning. So when we wrote the Thailand First Manual on Inclusive Shelter Management, we did not write it from Bangkok. We work together with the person with disability and community leaders, boys and girls, and they are the ones who tell us what kind of accessible shelter Lily needs. It's not the roof first and ramp later on. We start from the very beginning together. And second, what we did was we rehearsed, we did not just do the planning, we rehearsed and practised. With UNDP Thailand, we ran evacuation drill in school in tsunami area. And we make sure that students with disability, teacher with disability, and even school personnel with disability will participate in the drill. The plan on paper is not enough. We must practice with real people until safety become muscle memory. And third, we scale up. We move national policy into field practice. We have JC capacity building with government officer, we have Jesse capacity building with rescuers so that when they plan their things, they can have Jesse lens to look at their activities. Let me show you this real drill. It's not post AI photo. It's the photo of the field that I really love to go into. I love to work in the field with people. So, you see the the the photo in the middle, the sign language interpreter, she stand with the DTPM officer. This is a training for deaf people. We know that the warning that shout will never reach people who cannot hear. So I have to train sign language interpreter on the evacuation drill, early warning protocol, so that when there's something happen, they, the sign language interpreter, can connect the dots with person with disability, especially the deaf. And then do you see the map? They are all deaf people drawing the map. That is part of community-based disaster risk reduction, especially for the deaf people, because they say that if we have training, especially for the deaf, It's better for them to exchange the idea and understand the context and be able to solve their own problem because they have their own culture and their own belief and their own limitation. So they were able to complete CBDRM planning, to my surprise as well. But after the training, they were so strong in communication, in understanding the context of disaster management. And you see the photograph of the student touching the fire extinguisher, those are the blind student. And that moment, it sparked not only curiosity, it sparked the courage to be self-resilient too. And the next two photograph of the rescue, we have people with disability participating in the evacuation drill of the military and the government. And We know that lifting the person with disability to safety takes training, it's not just speed. Move faster will not move you anywhere if you have no one to train how to move you. So this is how inclusion looks like in reality in the field. It's not the policy on paper, it's where people work together before the next disaster comes. So my request to this room is very simple. As ASEAN renew the frameworks, let disability be part of the what we measure, not just what we say. And mandates must move beyond aspiration. We must include disability disaggregated target and funded reporting so that we can see who is at risk and who is being reached. And as the new global disaster treaty advance, Please keep persons with disabilities at the table, not just as a token group, but as leaders who can shape the standard in line with CRPD. So I believe that disability-inclusive disaster risk reduction has been practiced across ASEAN countries already, and we already share what we learn from each other because I also work in ASEAN countries as well. We have a group of disability inclusive network that we share what works, what doesn't work and what can be learned from each other. So I would like to call on the government to provide the opportunity, we need opportunity and resources to bring forward what already work in the community, share it, learn from it and scale it across the region, because resilience cannot be built in isolation. We need people to work together, we need people from disability sector to work with disaster management sector so that they can understand each other. And Thailand experience is not a finished business. It's just a test model. And we think that we can share with other countries. And we think that we should work together to make resilient, the real resilient. Okay, that's, thank you, that's from me.

Thank you, Dr. Barichard. So now I'd like to invite Dr. Jeff Schlegelmilch, Faculty Director, National Center for Disaster Preparedness from Columbia Climate School, a perspective from the academia. You have the floor, sir.

Wonderful, thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you to the government of Thailand, the ASEAN partners, the UNDRR, and forgive anyone I may have left out for the incredible privilege of being part of this conversation. You know, when we think about risk, of course, hazard exposure is what we think about a lot, who's getting hit. But it's actually not the whole story. And in fact, it's the least predictive part on how a disaster plays out. At Columbia, we built this climate finance vulnerability index looking at concessional finance and trying to understand who had the most climate risk while also looking at vulnerability and capacity to cope. But also, what was the ability to access finance and financial instruments to help cover that? And one thing we found was virtually no correlation between hazard exposure. And the ASEAN region is a part of that story, where we actually found one country that was in the top 10 of the most ready to respond, despite being among the most hazard-prone. And that's not an accident. right? Because it's not just about the hazard, it's what do we do about it. You've heard about many, many great things that have been done in the presentations before mine. I'll note the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response was the world's first legally binding regional disaster instrument in 2005. The ASEAN Coordinating Center for Humanitarian Assistance in 2011 is a model for global collaboration and regional partnership. The CDREF and AGCF disaster insurance facility and green insurance finance facility, respectively, were launched in 2019, leading the way for how we pay for and underwrite resilience. The 2022 Anticipatory Action Framework commits member states to acting on forecast before impact, which we know consistently saves. And just this year, the CDRF and AHA center agreement, really creating direct financial triggers to disaster, to the release of funds, are again, sort of showing leadership in this space. So I would really sort of play up kind of three priorities. One of them is, you know, the vast majority of spending on disasters is reactive. after the fact. And we know, we know beyond a shadow of a doubt, it's far more effective in saving lives, livelihoods, and economies to spend it ahead of time. A few examples from the region in Vietnam, $1.1 million in mangrove restoration saves about $7.3 million annually in sea **** maintenance. There are estimates that effective early warning systems in Southeast Asia alone could avert $8.7 to $13.1 billion a year. So we should do this, and we should keep doing this, and we should build off of things like the CDRIF program. The Philippines is building a parametric program, one that pays on a measured trigger, which we've seen to be very effective in disasters. There are many, many successes, and of course, I'm just highlighting just a few. The other, I would say, is that somewhere is to treat social capital as infrastructure. Somewhere between Hyogo and Sendai, the role of social capital was diminished in favor of scaling the administrative planning and technical advancements in early warning systems. I'm not saying it's the wrong call, but what I am saying is that in the research that's been done since, we found social capital, and by that I mean the everyday networks of trust and relationship between neighbors, has emerged as one of the strongest predictors and facilitators of response and recovery. It's one of the best investments that we can make that has really grown in the disaster literature. And the third priority, I would say, is own the evidence base. There is a unfortunate reality. Disaster research output right now is concentrated in the United States, Europe, and increasingly China. It's not a capability gap and we are seeing a lot of ground being made. Indonesia has had more than 600 index papers just in the last 10 years. So we're seeing the universities really step up. This is important for reasons that maybe it shouldn't be, but it is. A paper deserving attention that is not published in a peer review journal that is indexed does not exist in the global stock take for the evidence base, the evidence base that influences research agendas from other academic institutions and the evidence base that's drawn on for policy and finance initiatives. The successor to Sendai will similarly be influenced by evidence that is visible. And so keep building that evidence base. Okay. Sometimes I wrote this section and I put my head down. I'm going to get in trouble. Okay. So the sometimes being a non politically aligned academic, I have this wonderful thing called academic freedom. And sometimes with that comes the burden of saying the uncomfortable thing. We all know disasters are getting worse. We know that we're having more bad years than good years, and we need leadership for what's next. That leadership is not going to come from us in the United States. We are relinquishing any right to this role domestically and globally, and the pullback in funding is nothing short of devastating in the near term. But there is a silver lining. The loosening of the grip of the hegemony of the West on epistemologies of disaster risk reduction creates an opportunity for a more representative vision of resilience. And with a clearer view of what works, we can shine a light on good ideas and practices already occurring in order to help scale them while generating insights from voices that have historically struggled to be heard. Sendai takes us through 2030. The consultations that produced it began in March 2012, three years ahead of adoption. On that precedent, we are approaching the acceleration of the process for its successor. As this process unfolds, I encourage the ASEAN region to walk into this process with more than just great ideas and practices that you absolutely have. Bring a draft. Now is the time for courageous leadership. And with all of your efforts, ASEAN is and should be a part of the global leadership that helps build a more holistic, a more just, and a more sustained resilience in our warming world. Thank you.

Thank you. Well, I think we have heard all the presentations and I think we have about five minutes, but I think we can extend a little bit, maybe five to 10 minutes until our time is up. Maybe I just come back another round, brief exchange. First, back to you, Mr. Mohan. you have mentioned gaps and lessons learned in implementation of the Sendai Framework. And as we enter the final years of the Sendai, what are the key priorities for accelerating the implementation and what lessons from ASEAN experience could help advance these efforts?

Thank you, Chair. In interest of time, I will just mention one challenge, which is is sort of still bothering me in terms of how we get over that. There are many other challenges as I think colleagues already mentioned, I think, which other colleagues probably touch upon. But just the whole issue of data, I was really happy to see how Thailand uses sex and age disaggregated data. It's really critical to have those data and those capacity, not only having data but capacity to analyze those data. We have seen in the last almost, I would say, two decades, 20 years, we have been working with countries on having disaggregated in sex, age, and disability, disaggregated data through our initiative called, it was called Desinventar, but now it's called Delta Resilience. And I think in the last 20 years, we have seen that a number of countries have really collected data on it. And there are quite a bit of, I think, availability of data, I must say, on those aspects. But when it comes to really use of those data and use in decision making for those who are in the front line, those who are in responding to disasters or making decisions and choices on where to invest in risk reduction, this is still, there is a felt gap. And perhaps as we move along, The whole discussion around the artificial intelligence, how do we use really this data and make some meaningful analysis so that we can really get the absorption capacity of national disaster management authorities or those institutions who are dealing with disaster risk reduction more capable of making meaningful choices, meaningful decisions, and make investments where it is needed, a priority. I think that's really important to focus in the coming years, and it's not going to end perhaps within 2030. The effort has to still go on because data will always remain the power as well as the challenge to keep it, keeping it updated, keeping it, you know, used. Especially here, I think I would really like to highlight again, it was presented already on the disability data. When we did a survey in 2023, we found that 84% of population with disability didn't have any preparedness plan for themselves in terms of how to access shelters, how do they act when there is a warning. This is significant. I think we are really missing out on a large population of people with disability who will not be able to act when there is a disaster and this is, I think, something on a priority basis we are taking with countries. I think this is where getting the data into a disability disaggregated data becomes really key, that you need to understand what population is being affected by what kind of hazards and how do they really react to that. There are also other agencies, I would say, who have lot of data analysis. I think the Excellency Minister from India mentioned CDRI, the Coalition for Disaster Resilient Infrastructure. They have data around the whole, I think, globe on infrastructure. What type of infrastructure and what is their exposure to what kind of hazards? This is there. I think that can be a global public good which can be used by all countries. We perhaps don't need to keep creating new data systems to start collecting data. I think there are a lot of data initiatives are there, there are data systems are there. It's now really important that how do we connect them, how do we make meaningful decision making information out of those data. Because data itself will not probably help, I mean if we can only make sense of those data then only we will be able to address. So I will not go more into other challenges. There are others, but I think this is one key thing we wanted to highlight.

Thank you. Back to you, Ms. Henriques. Just one quick question. How do you think can women's leadership strengthen disaster risk governance and local resilience? In Thailand, a lot of women are at the forefront of being first responders at local communities.

I think that's exactly it. I do think that to accelerate implementation between now and 2030 and to build that courageous leadership that a fellow panelist has just highlighted, we do need to make women's leadership, which is already what is happening in communities, in societies, but particularly if we are going to make localization real, then the decisions, the resources, and the accountability needs to move closer to the actual people and institutions facing risk. And we need to look at women's leadership that is naturally occurrent in those communities and lift it up and enable it to be connected in meaningful ways to disaster risk reduction planning and operations. Women's rights organizations, women's led organizations in civil society are already amongst the first to respond. They're already in communities, they're already in many ways kind of standing ready at the front lines, delivering services even before a disaster strikes. And their knowledge needs to shape preparedness and response and recovery. And here, I'll draw from the presentation that was already made on disability inclusion to say it needs to be done through meaningful participation, not just through consultation, but to actually co-design, I think is the language you used, in planning and decision making and also in resource allocation. I think here, responsibility without power and resources is risk transferred to those who are already carrying too much risk in the first place. So women's leadership needs to be fully strengthened, resourced, and supported with their role in decision making. And I think that that's critical that we also just building from the last points that Mr. Mahanty has made. that we also ensure that we've got the right data behind this and the right evidence as well. Women can very much bolster the ability to collect sex, age, and disability disaggregated data. And when that's done through citizen generated data, I think it enables the ambitions of the Sendai framework and the gender action plan to become more than just commitments on paper, but to really be realized in more vibrancy and concreteness in terms of translating data to actual indicators, budgets, reporting lines. and ensuring that local governments actually turn this disaggregated data into risk assessments and budget decisions themselves. So in essence, women's leadership matters, but needs to be resourced, needs to be supported, and women need to be enabled to be in those positions of decision making and power. Thank you.

Thank you. Oh, sorry. Thank you. Maybe one last word from you, Dr. Barichard, because the next event organizer is opening the door.

I think in terms of person with disability that I work with, we need opportunities and really a real commitment from political leadership and, of course, resources. and understanding. That's it.

Dr. Jeffrey.

Yeah, I think, you know, there's a lot of talk of infrastructure and money and finance and trying to figure out if we can come up with an overly complicated vehicle to suddenly unlock all this private wealth. And I think at the end of the day, it really comes down to the most basic things. Are neighbors empowered to help each other? Are we investing in social capital? And I think a reinvestment on that front helps to facilitate some of the most cascading from the bottom up in the way that we talk about but have trouble actually envisioning.

Oh, thank you. I think we have to wrap up and I really appreciate your participation at the World Sight Event today. And today, our discussion has highlighted that resilience is not just about responding, but also investing in preparedness. And I think that's what Thailand and ASEAN will be trying to achieve. And we look forward to working with UN agencies, academia, and also our external partners on, on, on the way forward on, on, on this particular matter. So again, um, thank you very much and, and, uh, have a good, um, day. Thank you.