The 11th ASEAN Strategic Policy Dialogue on Disaster Management (SPDDM 2026) was held in Singapore on 19 August 2026, under the theme “10 Years of One ASEAN, One Response: Re-envisioning ASEAN’s Collective Response to Disasters”. Convening senior officials from ASEAN Member States, the AHA Centre, regional institutions and international partners, the dialogue centres on accelerating the shift from reactive disaster response to anticipatory, proactive disaster risk governance, in alignment with the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) and the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction 2015-2030.
There is a long-standing technical collaboration between IRDR and the ASEAN disaster management community. Past IRDR data and analytical products have supported operational risk monitoring and emergency response work of the AHA Centre, delivering actionable risk evidence for Southeast Asia’s multi-hazard contexts.
IRDR’s Executive Director, Prof. Saini Yang, participated in this dialogue. In her remarks Prof. Yang introduced the Hazard-Dependent-Vulnerability Initiative, led by IRDR’s International Centre of Excellence for Risk Education and Learning (ICoE-REaL), to the participants. This initiative seeks to advance context-specific vulnerability assessment across hazard types, a priority closely resonating with ASEAN’s push for tailored early warning and anticipatory action.
Productive exchanges with ASEAN officials and the AHA Centre explored potential next-step cooperation, including harmonised risk metrics, joint capacity-building programmes, science-policy dialogues and co-development of vulnerability assessment tools. IRDR stands ready to leverage its global science network to co-deliver practical, region-tailored solutions that advance ASEAN’s collective disaster resilience agenda.
