Private sector invited to play a bigger role to enhance disaster management in ASEAN
According to H.E. Le Luong Minh, Secretary-General of ASEAN Opening Remarks at the ASEAN Strategic Policy Dialogue on Disaster Management (SPDDM), which was held on 19 August in Singapore, “The private sector, as one of the key stakeholders, plays a vital role in realising the vision of a disaster-resilient ASEAN Community. As disasters have a direct impact on businesses and their customers, it is important that the private sector becomes more involved in disaster management, especially through their business continuity plans as well as innovation to respond to disasters and reduce disaster losses”.
One key highlight of SPDDM 2016 was the convening of the CEO’s Talk, where three CEOs/Senior Executives – who are considered as champions in change and innovation – gave their views on how the participants should embrace change and innovate as means of enhancing disaster management cooperation in ASEAN.
The event was attended by about 120 participants, comprising of Heads of the National Disaster Management Offices of all ASEAN Member States, Ambassadors of ASEAN Dialogue Partners and other countries, relevant UN agencies, business leaders and CEOs of private sector entities, representatives from the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response Partnership Group (APG), civil society partners, youth networks in ASEAN, and academia.
SPDDM 2016 was jointly organised by the ASEAN Secretariat, Singapore Civil Defence Force and Corporate Citizen Foundation.
Press-release at the official ASEAN web-site