ASEAN committee simulation
by Merle Must
The Hamburg Model United Nations participants of ASEAN committee worked on the topic “Cooperation in rapid post-disaster recovery”. Small group of 13 delegates wrote a resolution to act more efficiently together in the future during for example floods or droughts. This issue needs to be addressed because Asian countries have lately suffered from major disasters, like the flood in Thailand, but haven’t been capable to act together as fast and efficiently as needed. In addition to this, the climate change could cause even more disasters in this area in the future.
Thai political blogger and freelance foreign correspondent Saksith Saiyasombut visited ASEAN committee and gave a lecture on post-disaster recovery issues.
After this, ASEAN delegates worked on finding ways to prevent the catastrophes and act straight after these. The representative of Lao People’s Democratic Republic brought out that the communication and the development of whole Asia region are key points in both topics.
The guest speaker Saiyasombut also stressed the need for well-established communication, because otherwise more people could suffer in crisis. For example, in addition to flooding or drowning, people have died because of electrocution, because the government wasn’t able to inform them about this danger on time. This could be prevented with a proper informing system, because the deaths weren’t directly caused by the catastrophe.
Therefore, ASEAN found that one of the key points in resolution has to be establishing better communication in and between countries. China wants to establish a communication system, which allows governments to pass information to regional level quickly. The China delegate emphasized that it is important to let people know what exactly is happening after crisis to decrease the amount of victims. For instance, it is essential to know which areas are dangerous and should be avoided.
China also stressed that ASEAN states should be more coherent during the times of crisis. They should put their political and historical differences aside and cooperate to give aid and speed up the recovery process of damaged states.
Countries also found that they should create a special fund that can support the aid that is already coming from other organisations, like United Nations. The observing state Timor-Leste emphasized that funds should be transparent too.
ASEAN has established a Committee on Disaster Management, which coordinates regional activities focused on disaster management. Among these are Regional Programme on Disaster Management and Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response, but ASEAN should also create new or follow-up programs. Laos also brought out that ASEAN should take use of existing programs by making them function better. The alliance already has trained organisers and experts, so they could put their expertise into use.
The chairs Nele Jeschke and Hamida Bakhshi emphasized that all delegates were working together and following diplomatic principles, like listening each other. Foremost, they were taking guidance from ASEANs motto “One Vision, One Identity, One Community.”
