Post-Nargis Needs Assessment and Monitoring: ASEAN's Pioneering Response

Abstract

Just after Cyclone Nargis struck the coast of Myanmar on 2 and 3 May 2008, the Secretary-General of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Dr Surin Pitsuwan, called on all Member States to provide urgent relief assistance through the framework of the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER). A few days later, the Government of the Union of Myanmar agreed to work in coordination with the ASEAN Secretariat to assemble and deploy an ASEAN-Emergency Rapid Assessment Team (ERAT), made up of Government officials and disaster management experts from ASEAN Member States. In the first ever such mission for ASEAN, the ASEAN-ERAT was deployed to Myanmar from 9 to 18 May 2008. Its report was submitted to the Special ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting on 19 May 2008 in Singapore. At the meeting, the Foreign Ministers agreed to establish an ASEAN-led coordinating mechanism to “facilitate the effective distribution and utilisation of assistance from the international community, including the expeditious and effective deployment of relief workers, especially health and medical personnel.” The result was a two-tiered structure, consisting of the ASEAN Humanitarian Task Force for the Victims of Cyclone Nargis (AHTF), and a Yangon-based Tripartite Core Group (TCG), consisting of ASEAN, the Government and the United Nations (UN), to facilitate day-to-day operations and oversee coordination. The constructive solution that was worked out, that of a tripartite structure involving ASEAN, the UN and the Government, turned out to be not only a successful formula for ensuring access, but also an effective forum for achieving a close and productive relationship with the authorities. This did not exist to the same degree before Nargis. As a result, there was significantly more humanitarian space in the Delta than in any other part of the country, and the TCG played a key role in securing this. This is relevant for Myanmar, as it paved the way for access for information collection in a country where otherwise little was known. All assessments and monitoring exercises were conducted with full access permitted by the Government. This was almost unprecedented for Myanmar. This book documents the types of assessments and monitoring exercises that were carried out under the auspices of the AHTF and TCG, including the deployment of the ASEAN-ERAT; the Post-Nargis Joint Assessment (PONJA) consisting of the Village Tract Assessment (VTA) and the Damage and Loss Assessment (DALA); the Periodic Review (PR) monitoring assessments that followed the PONJA; and the Social Impact Monitoring (SIM) studies. It also includes a section on the Recovery Information Accountability System (RIAS), which tracks funding streams from pledges to outputs received during the Post-Nargis and Regional Partnership Conference (PONAC) on 25 November 2009.