What it is
The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response is the region's central legal framework for disaster cooperation. It establishes commitments on disaster risk reduction, preparedness, response, regional assistance, standby arrangements, and cooperation among ASEAN member states.
Governance function
AADMER regionalizes disaster management without replacing national responsibility. Its governance function is to coordinate assistance, preparedness, and response across ASEAN, while leaving protection, registration, social assistance, land, housing, and recovery responsibilities largely within domestic systems.
Who is included
Populations affected by disasters within ASEAN member states, including people displaced or at risk of displacement by sudden-onset hazards, may benefit indirectly through national and regional disaster response mechanisms.
Who is left out
People affected by conflict, persecution, development projects, slow-onset livelihood loss, or protracted post-disaster displacement may be weakly covered if their situation no longer fits emergency disaster response categories.
Where continuity breaks
Continuity breaks when regional emergency response ends before displaced households are connected to housing, land, livelihoods, social protection, civil registration, and local development planning.
Why it matters
AADMER shows the strength and limits of regional disaster governance in Southeast Asia. It can mobilize cooperation for emergency response, but it does not itself solve the governance problem of whether disaster-displaced populations remain included after the emergency phase. The political economy archetype is regional emergency cooperation with national implementation dependency.
Governance coding table
| Political economy archetype | Regional cooperation with national implementation dependency |
|---|---|
| Responsibility | ASEAN member states carry primary responsibility. The AHA Centre, national disaster management offices, line ministries, and local authorities support coordination and implementation. |
| Eligibility | Eligibility is framed through disaster impact and national determination of disaster response needs rather than displacement status or long-term vulnerability. |
| Financing | Financing depends on national disaster budgets, ASEAN cooperation mechanisms, external support, and humanitarian or development assistance. AADMER does not itself create household-level financing entitlements. |
| Data systems | Disaster information systems, national disaster loss and damage data, AHA Centre coordination systems, needs assessments, and local records shape implementation. |
| Delivery system | Delivery runs through national disaster management agencies, ASEAN coordination, emergency response teams, local governments, humanitarian actors, and sectoral public systems. |
| Portability | Portability is limited where assistance and registration are tied to place of disaster, evacuation site, or local authority jurisdiction. |
| Accountability | Accountability is primarily intergovernmental and administrative. Individual complaints or enforceable claims depend on domestic law and national disaster systems. |
| Time horizon | Preparedness, emergency response, and recovery, though operational emphasis is often strongest during the emergency and early recovery phases. |