JAKARTA, 23 February 2021 – Today, the ASEAN Secretariat and Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES) jointly launched the Guidelines on Integrating Climate Change Projection into Flood & Landslide Risk Assessments & Mapping during the Project Final Seminar.

These guidelines provide a holistic overview of risk assessment to assist ASEAN Member States’ decision-making and supplement existing flood and landslide risk assessment guidelines, which specifically cover the ASEAN region.

Representatives from the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management, particularly the Working Group on Preventing and Management (WG-P&M), ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre), ASEAN disaster risk management focal points, environmental ministries and project partners joined the virtual launching and participated in discussions on ways to implement the guidelines.

In his remarks, Deputy Secretary-General for ASEAN Socio Cultural Community Kung Phoak emphasised the need for the ASEAN region to invest more in disaster prevention and mitigation strategies, with particular consideration for climate change adaptation.  He urged ASEAN Member States “to adopt the guideline, and look towards the development of a work plan to strengthen institutional policy frameworks on DRR and CCA integration.”

In the same vein, Ambassador of Japan to ASEAN Akira Chiba emphasised that “we have entered an era of unprecedented frequency of disasters. Japan also has suffered countless natural disasters in long history. Taking such lessons, Japan has consistently accumulated knowledge and technology for disaster risk reduction. Japan will continue to cooperate with ASEAN in the area of disaster management.”

The guidelines are part of the ASEAN Disaster Risk Reduction and Climate Change Adaptation (DRR-CCA) Project supported by the Government of Japan, and is jointly implemented by ASEAN and a consortium of knowledge institutions consisting of the IGES, CTI Engineering International Co., Ltd. and Asian Disaster Preparedness Center.

The risk assessment guidelines are expected to benefit line ministries in the 10AMS in ushering resilient climate development as they will help look at the future impacts of climate change much more clearly at the scale they can understand and act.

The ASEAN DRR-CCA project supports the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) Work Programme, and call for urgency to strengthen the climate change readiness of disaster risk reduction systems in the ASEAN region. Phase-1 was completed with support of the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund. A dedicated website and the guidelines are available here.