ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ASEAN-ERAT

are entirely voluntary. Member-states and the AHA Centre may seek disbursement of monies from the ADMER Fund, and the AHA Centre Executive Director has discretionary power to release up to US$50,000 per emergency event.97 Although the ADMER Fund was intended to provide funding for emergency work, it accounts for only a very modest share of spending on DM; for example, of the AHA Centre’s 2020 monetary flows, only US$36,800 of the total US$4.3 million was from the ADMER Fund.98

ASEAN Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ASEAN-ERAT)

The ASEAN-Emergency Response and Assessment Team (ASEAN-ERAT) is a rapidly deployable response team intended to support an affected state during either sudden or slow onset disasters. The members of ASEAN-ERAT come from the 10 ASEAN member-states and are managed by the AHA Centre. The ASEAN-ERAT may deploy at short notice to provide support to the NDMO of the affected country during the first phase of an emergency. Appointed ASEAN-ERAT members can assist for up to 14 days at a time during crisis or for an extendable period – upon the request from the affected country.99

ASEAN-ERAT can mobilize within 24 hours of receipt of a request for or approval of ERAT support to an affected state. It has three major competencies: assessment, facilitating incoming relief, and coordination. • Assessment – assess and estimate the scale, severity, and impact of the disaster, including the needs of the affected population, and deliver this assessment to the NDMO of the affected state and to other ASEAN memberstates • Facilitation – receive incoming relief supplies or assistance for the affected state

NDMO, and provide operational support for information management, logistics, and emergency telecoms • Coordination – coordinate with AHA

Centre for delivery of regional assets, relief items, and personnel; facilitate coordination between the affected state NDMO and the international humanitarian community; set up, as necessary, a physical space for the JOCCA100

Outside of emergencies, the ASEANERAT can support member-states’ NDMOs in contingency planning, simulation exercises, and technical work to integrate the ASEANERAT into a country’s own emergency response mechanism.

As of 2022, there are 322 ASEAN-ERAT members representing all 10 member-states; 75 ASEAN-ERAT members have been deployed to ASEAN-ERAT missions or emergency response,101 and 30% of deployed ASEAN-ERAT members are women.102 ASEAN-ERAT members come from various government agencies, Red Cross/Red Crescent National Societies, the private sector, civil society, and academia. Members undergo 100 hours of training on ASEAN’s various DM structures, tools, and mechanisms as well as best practices for on-site operations and equipment. Moreover, members regularly participate in national, regional, and global simulation exercises to validate their knowledge and expand integration with the international HADR community.

The ERAT maintains a book of guidelines for members and regularly undertakes an after-action review process to gather lessons learned and document them for incorporation into future processes. Moreover, as the ERAT transforms and professionalizes, it is incorporating various competency levels, i.e., basic, specialist, and leader. ERAT leaders will have undertaken courses on leadership and complex operations.

ASEAN-ERAT is designed to be self-sufficient in logistics and ICT during deployments. Equipment that is standard for deploying teams includes computers, printers, cameras, drones, mobile and satellite telephones, broadband network equipment, handheld navigation devices, and power supplies and cords for all devices.103