Introduction

Much has changed in Asia's security environment as new security challenges emerge. This change can be clearly seen in the health security arena where new patterns of communicable and non-communicable diseases are significantly shifting the regional and global health agendas. Emerging types of diseases pose serious challenges in the ability of national and regional health systems to address them and to promote a healthy regional community.

The goal of promoting health security is particularly critical to a region that faced one of the most serious health threats in modern times. In 2003, the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS), an unknown highly pathogenic infectious influenza virus, caught the region by surprise. What started as an infectious disease outbreak in China's Guangdong province quickly evolved into a global health crisis which spread across the globe and reached as far as North America and Europe. Since then, much attention has focused on preventing the outbreak of highly pathological influenza pandemics and spread of similar virulent viruses like the avian influenza strains of H1-H5N1, and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

While regional and global efforts have been focused on dealing with novel trains of influenza pandemic, new concerns about climate related health risks are also gaining more attention globally. From the increase in numbers and greater geographical spread of waterborne diseases like severe diarrhoeal diseases, typhoid and cholera to vector-borne diseases like Zika and Lyme disease as a result of rapidly changing climate, worries about the capacity of national health systems to deal with these growing risks to human health. In 2016, Zika emerged as the most recent infectious disease to be declared by the World Health Organization (WHO) as a “public health emergency of international concern” (PHEIC). For developing countries, particularly those in the tropics, health concerns are further compounded by the steady rise of endemic communicable diseases like dengue and malaria that now have longer transmission season due to climate change. Added to these new trends in human health risks are also the changing patterns of infectious diseases like tuberculosis which are drug resistant, as well as the rising threat of antimicrobial resistance.

Simultaneous Disasters in Southeast Asia: Is Risk Outpacing Resilience?

Since Southeast Asian leaders signed the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) in 2005, the region has prioritized developing national and regional disaster management capabilities to respond to disasters. However, the recent back-to-back disasters that occurred between July and August 2018 tested the response capacities of national governments and the humanitarian community. Parts of Myanmar, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and the Philippines battled floods of varying severity induced by seasonal monsoon rains, tropical storms and a dam collapse on a tributary of the Mekong River. Meanwhile, Indonesia's Lombok Island, West Nusa Tenggara was hit by multiple earthquakes and aftershocks between 29 July and 19 August. The ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) reported that at the peak of these disasters, over 588,000 people were displaced and more than 5.2 million people in Southeast Asia were affected. Against the backdrop of recent disasters generating simultaneous responses, this chapter makes key observations on Southeast Asia's ability to meet the immediate needs of disasteraffected communities while building greater disaster resilience for the future. It assesses the (i) institutionalization of disaster management in ASEAN; (ii) localization of disaster response; and (iii) opportunities for financial risk management for building disaster-resilient communities.

ASEAN in the Eye of the Storm—Institutionalization of Disaster Management in ASEAN

In assessing current and future disaster management capabilities, this chapter focuses on the floods in Laos and Cambodia after the collapse of a saddle dam of the Xe Pian-Xe Nam Noy hydropower project, floods in Myanmar caused by heavy monsoon rainfall and a breached dam in the Bago region, and the earthquakes and aftershocks in Lombok, West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. It identifies the evolution of a regional mechanism to respond to disasters grounded in the legallybinding AADMER. This agreement was ratified by all ASEAN member states and came into force in 2009 and represented ASEAN's regional commitment to respond to disasters. Its objectives are to provide effective disaster management mechanisms and to have ASEAN member states “jointly respond to disaster emergencies” through regional cooperation. AADMER's most significant contribution has been to institutionalize disaster management within and between ASEAN member states.

Marine Environmental Degradation: An Increasing NTS Threat

The importance of oceans and seas for mankind is increasingly recognized by the international community. The inclusion of an ocean-related goal into the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), namely SDG 14 “Life below Water”, is a move to this end. Further development of this momentum has been seen in 2019, with important international meetings convened to discuss necessary policies and initiatives for saving the marine environment. Among the many meetings, the first Ocean Conference convened by the United Nations (UN) in June 2017 in New York was the most high-profile. This was followed by the High-level Political Forum (HLPF) for Sustainable Development in July 2017, during which the protection of marine biodiversity in the high seas was discussed amidst a host of sustainable development issues. These high-level events have successfully shaped the perspectives of the policymakers, increasing global attention towards the health of ouroceans. During the Ocean Conference this year, the UN, governments, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), regional institutions, the private sector, the scientific community, and other stakeholders offered more than 1,400 voluntary commitments, pledging to take action in saving our shared marine environment.

In Southeast Asia, where water bodies account for over two thirds of the region's area, these voluntary commitments, if translated into policies, may have important implications. The South China Sea (SCS), an important body of water in the region, has attracted growing international attention in recent years for maritime disputes involving several claimants, which include Brunei, the People's Republic of China, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, and Vietnam. Marine environmental protection has been overshadowed by maritime disputes in regional and international security discourses. For instance, between 2009 and 2016, the number of news reports that covered the maritime disputes was 8,795 as compared to 25 news reports on environmental protection.

The same tendency to prioritize territorial disputes was also observed in official discourse. For instance, in the Chairman's Statement of the 30th ASEAN Summit in Manila in April 2017, the SCS was the first issue of the section on regional and international issues, followed by maritime security and cooperation that included maritime environment.

Introduction

Most of the new nuclear projects are now taking place in Asia. The growth of the nuclear power industry, since the Fukushima nuclear accident, has been pivoting from Europe towards Asia, with China leading the growth of nuclear power. In 2018, nearly two-thirds or 37 of nuclear reactors being constructed globally were located in Asia, across nine countries, 20 of which were in China. China currently accounts for more than half of the world's new nuclear power investment. In 2018, only the United States and France operated more nuclear power plants (NPPs) than China. China's nuclear power production may exceed that of the United States, which has led the world in nuclear power generation for over half a century, sometime before 2030. In South Korea, two new reactors are being completed, after President Moon Jae-in had initially ordered halting the construction in 2017, but later changed it as a result of a governmentconvened citizens’ jury that voted 59.5 per cent in favour of completing the units. In Japan, after the 2011 Fukushima nuclear accident, 9 out of its 54 operable nuclear reactors have been restarted while 18 reactors are being considered to be re-opened within the next twenty years.

Meanwhile, several Southeast Asian states are studying the option to include nuclear energy in their future and long-term power generation sources to boost their energy security and reduce their greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuels. The Pre-Feasibility Study on Nuclear Power in Southeast Asia (2018) by the ASEAN Centre for Energy foresees that nuclear power will be added to Southeast Asia's energy mix between 2030 and 2035. The study identifies five ASEAN member states—Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines—as frontrunners in the race to establish civilian nuclear energy programmes in the region. They have achieved some milestones in this field with their advanced legal and regulatory frameworks, nuclear energy infrastructures and the required human resources and organization in place.

While Vietnam cancelled its first NPP project in 2016, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines are in the process of building up their human resource capacity and amending legal and regulatory frameworks.

Introduction

Over the past decade, Southeast Asia was close to halving its undernourishment from 18.1 per cent of its population in 2005 to 9.7 per cent in 2014, or a reduction of 41 million people undernourished from as much as 101.7 million undernourished in 2005. This was largely from the successful initiatives that increased per capita income and reduced poverty across the ASEAN member states (AMSs). However, regional statistics show a potential reversal in these trends: over the past three years, Southeast Asia's undernourishment increased by 3 million from 2014 to 2016.

This coincides with the global situation, wherein global undernourishment increased for the first time in a decade from 2015 to 2016, by 19.8 million people, followed by an increase of 20.2 million from 2016 to 2017. It runs counter to the trend of falling global undernourishment which the world achieved in pursuit of the Millennium Development Goals, from 14.2 per cent in 2005 to 10.6 per cent in 2015.

These statistics are fuelling fears that the region, and the world over, could be seeing a new era of increasing food insecurity. This chapter therefore critically reviews the state of the region's food insecurity, focusing on the issue of increasing undernourishment, alongside an assessment of the national and regional gaps in addressing this issue. It then provides recommendations on how these mechanisms can be tweaked to better respond to this non-traditional security (NTS) threat.

Food Security Framework and Measurement of Undernutrition

Food security is defined by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) as a “situation that exists when all people, at all times, have physical, social and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food that meets their dietary needs and food preferences for an active and healthy life”. Following this definition, the framework adopted by the NTS Centre in studying food security distinguishes four key facets. The first is food availability, whether there is sufficient food to meet demand, at the global, regional, country, and subregional/subcountry levels. This is primarily affected by factors which affect the production side, in terms of crop yields and land allocation for agricultural purposes.

WE, the Heads of State and Government of the Member States of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), Australia, the People's Republic of China, Republic of India, Japan, Republic of Korea, New Zealand, the Russian Federation, and the United States of America on the occasion of the 13th East Asia Summit (EAS) in Singapore, on 15 November 2018;

EMPHASISING that the East Asia Summit, with ASEAN as the driving force, will continue to be a Leaders-led forum for dialogue on broad strategic, political, and economic issues of common interest and concern, with the aim of promoting peace, stability and prosperity in East Asia;

NOTING the common aspiration to achieve the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its focus on people, planet, and prosperity, peace and partnership, not only for this generation but for generations to come, with concern over the health of oceans and marine biodiversity which form an integrated and essential component of the Earth's ecosystem and are critical to sustaining it;

NOTING with concern the high and rapidly increasing levels of marine plastic litter and the expected increase in negative effects on marine biodiversity, ecosystems, animal well-being, fisheries, maritime transport, recreation and tourism, local societies and economies, and the urgent need for strengthened knowledge of the levels and effects of microplastics and nanoplastics on marine ecosystems, seafood and human health;

RECOGNISING the adverse impact of climate change, ecological changes and natural disasters, among other factors, and the importance of ensuring the integrity of all ecosystems, including oceans, and in this effort, recognising the importance of relevant multilateral environmental agreements;

WELCOMING the 5th Our Ocean Conference which was held in Bali, Indonesia, on 29-30 October 2018 which recognised the urgent need for collective and coordinated actions to address the challenge of marine debris in the region;

EMPHASISING the importance of sustainable lifestyle, consumption and production patterns to advance the reduction of marine plastic debris;

FURTHER EMPHASISING the importance of measures of resource efficiency, including circular economy, product lifecycle management, sustainable materials management, and reduce, reuse, recycle (“3R”) approaches, as appropriate;

RECOGNISING that the efforts on environmentally sound plastic waste management contribute to the prevention and reduction of marine plastic debris;

Introduction

The Southeast Asian region provides a good test bed to examine how non-traditional security (NTS) issues have been governed. Over the past two decades, the region had experienced a number of crises that have had significant impact on the security agenda of states and the nature of multilateral security and development cooperation that have evolved within and beyond Southeast Asia. Among the most consequential crises that have occurred were the Asian financial crisis in 1997, the health emergencies caused by SARS epidemic in 2003 and H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza in 2005, the catastrophic devastations brought on by large-scale natural disasters like Typhoon Haiyan in 2013, the multi-faceted impact of the transboundary haze in 2015 and the escalation of the Rohingya refugee issue in 2017. While these security problems are typically non-military in nature, they are referred to as NTS issues since they are found to gravely threaten the survival and well-being of states and societies. There is increasing and disquieting evidence that the impact of NTS issues like climate change and its attendant threats, forced migration, and emerging infectious diseases, among others, threatens the lives of countless vulnerable communities and risks the future progress upon which societies across the world depend on. To be sure, these kinds of issues have seriously challenged regional stability, peace and security. More importantly, these concerns have raised questions on how security is governed from the national, regional and even to the global level, and consequently brought to scrutiny the kinds of policies and institutions that have been developed to address them.

The impact of NTS has led a number of scholars in Southeast Asia and other subregions in Asia to examine why and how certain issues should be securitized, and analyse how they pose a threat to state and human security. Many of these studies have also proposed measures on how governments and regional institutions like the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) could deal with NTS threats more effectively.

The Parties to this Agreement,

REAFFIRMING their parties commitment to the aims and purposes of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) as set forth in the Bangkok Declaration of 8 August 1967, in particular, to promote regional co-operation in Southeast Asia in the spirit of equality and partnership and thereby contribute towards peace, progress and prosperity in the region;

REAFFIRMING ALSO the objectives and principles of the Declaration of ASEAN Concord I of 24 February 1976, inter alia, declaring that within their capabilities Member Countries shall extend assistance for relief of Member Countries in distress, and the Declaration of ASEAN Concord II of 7 October 2003 where ASEAN shall, through the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community, intensify co-operation in addressing problems associated with, inter alia, disaster management in the region to enable individual members to fully realise their development potentials to enhance the mutual ASEAN spirit;

REAFFIRMING ALSO the provisions of the Vientiane Action Programme 2004-2010 to pursue the comprehensive integration of ASEAN towards the realisation of an open, dynamic and resilient ASEAN Community by 2020 as envisioned in the Declaration of ASEAN Concord II through the action plans of the ASEAN Security Community (ASC), the ASEAN Socio- Cultural Community (ASCC) and the Recommendations of the High-Level Task Force on ASEAN Economic Integration;

RECALLING the Declaration on Action to Strengthen Emergency Relief, Rehabilitation, Reconstruction and Prevention in the Aftermath of the Earthquake and Tsunami Disaster of 26 December 2004, adopted at the Special ASEAN Leaders’ Meeting on the Aftermath of Earthquake and Tsunami held in Jakarta on 6 January 2005;

RECALLING ALSO the ASEAN Declaration on Mutual Assistance on Natural Disasters of 26 June 1976, which calls on Member Countries to, inter alia, co-operate in the improvement of disaster management capacities, and in case of calamities, to extend assistance as may be needed upon the request from an affected Member Country;

RECALLING ALSO the ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution of 10 June 2002, which provides the cooperative framework to prevent, monitor, mitigate and respond to trans-boundary haze pollution in the overall context of sustainable development;