Project News

The Phase 2 ARCH project has resumed activities with the first PWG1, PWG2, the second joint PWGs, and the first ASEAN Academic Network on Disaster Health Management (AANDHM), at last after two and a half years of COVID-19 pandemic restriction that prevented the project from operating any in-person meetings, training, and exercise.

These meetings are crucial to accelerating our project operations, aiming to discuss the project's trajectory and make decisions for a thorough implementation plan of the project.

Over 50 people who are representatives of PWG1 and PWG2, as well as the academic/education institutes or the person in charge in the education section at the health-related Ministry, consisting of ASEAN Academic Network on DHM (AAN-DHM) from all ASEAN Member States, JAC members and representatives from JICA Human Development Department, and ARCH2 project team members both from Japan and Thailand, have all gathered in these meetings for the discussions.

We found once again that face-to-face interactions could overcome some of the drawbacks of online communication in terms of improving mutual understanding or avoiding misunderstandings.

For the ARCH project, which requires careful consideration for opinion exchanges and balancing the perspectives of policy or aims among 10 ASEAN Member States (AMS), an in-person meeting is important. Additionally, it enables the project to have direct talks or covert negotiations with particular counterpart nations or important individuals outside of the official sessions.

Finally, we made significant progress in these meetings that would not have been possible without a thorough debate, and we were able to reawaken the project's goal of building the ASEAN region's capacity for Disaster Health Management.

The sessions resulted in agreement on a number of measures for improving the ASEAN region's capacity for Disaster Health Management that have been supported by the ARCH project, and an active debate was noted among the AMS delegates for future development.

PWG1 meeting: 5th September 2022

• Progress on the integration of the EMT Standard Operating Procedure (SOP), which was developed by the ARCH Project into the ASEAN Standard Operating Procedure for Regional Standby Arrangements and Coordination of Joint Disaster Relief and Emergency Response Operations (SASOP).
• Progress on the ASEAN Collective Measures (ACM) and Workshop for seeking the challenges

At the PWG1 meeting, we primarily discussed the integration of EMT SOP into SASOP, which has been tentatively endorsed by the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management (ACDM). We are currently awaiting the next inspection step in the ASEAN Regional Disaster Emergency Response Simulation Exercise (ARDEX) for testing this integrated SASOP, and we shared the challenges for working on ACMs throughout the brainstorming in the workshop for realizing immediate, effective, and quality control.

Joint PWGs meeting: 6th September 2022

• Progress towards the establishment of the ASEAN Academic Network on Disaster Health Management (AANDHM) and the ASEAN Institute on Disaster Health Management (AIDHM).
• Hosting of the 5th Regional Coordination Drill (RCD).
• Proposal of the Peer Review of National Policies and Strategies, and Human Resource Development Systems on DHM.
• Update information on ASEAN Regional Training Course in Japan: Knowledge Co-Creation Program(KCCP)on DHM.
• Workshop on the Public Health Emergency (PHE).

In the Joint PWGs meeting, we discussed: progress toward the establishment of the ASEAN Academic Network on DHM, the ASEAN Regional Coordination Drill for the acceptance of I-EMT, the proposal of the Peer Review on the national policies/strategies and human resource development, and the updated information of Regional Training in Japan (so-called KCCP: Knowledge Co-Creation Programme). Additionally, the project conducted a workshop to discuss what a DHM practitioner can contribute to a Public Health Emergency (PHE) in order to address the project's activities for its challenges.

PWG2: 7th September 2022

• Scope and strategy for the ARCH2 Project Training Programmes
• Updates and further plans for standardized training curriculum development on DHM: Basic Disaster Health Management (B-course), Coordination training for EMT (C-course), and ASEAN Regional Coordination Drill (RCD).
• ASEAN Academic Activity Workshop for promoting the research activities on DHM.

The primary goal of the PWG2 meeting was to share the status of the development of a standardized curriculum on disaster medical response, particularly the basic training program for those interested in disaster medical response (B-course) and the coordination training program for those corresponding with emergency operating centers (EOC). This was done to improve domestic coordination capacity in each AMS country so that they can manage incidents that occur in their nation, including the context in which they occur (C-course). The project intends to hold these two courses next year; the B-course will be held in Thailand in the early part of 2023, and the trial C-course is scheduled to run on KCCP in Japan in 2022. These two courses are virtually finished with their development. Malaysia expresses interest in the upcoming RCD, which is set for next year, and preparation and coordination have already started.

AAN meeting: 8th September 2022

• Updates on the ASEAN Academic Network on DHM (AANDHM) and the ASEAN Institute on DHM (AIDHM)
• AANDHM Management System and Structure
• Non-ASEAN Members of AANDHM
• ASEAN Academic Conference 2023
• ASEAN Academic Journal
• Academic Advisory Working Group (AAWG)
• Promotion of Joint Research Activities on DHM

On the last day of the event, the first AAN meeting was organized to go over everything that needed to be accomplished in the academic activities as part of the ARCH2 project, including the organizational structure to activate the academic network, management methods, and procedures, as well as the specifics of activity plans. Indonesia will host the 2nd ASEAN Academic Conference (AAC) in November 2023, and planning and coordination will commence as soon as possible.