Regional Workshop on Protecting and Promoting Rights in Natural Disasters in South-East Asia: Prevention and Response

The workshop was a joint venture by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, the All India Disaster Mitigation Institute, and the Center for Security and Peace Studies at Gadjah Mada University. It was organized with the aim of discussing The IASC Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters, the practical guide to fill this gap. The Operational Guidelines, published by the Brookings-Bern Project on Internal Displacement, were formally adopted by the Inter-Agency Standing Committee in June 2006 and include a list of easily accessible principles and guidelines for humanitarian actors to promote a human rights based approach in disaster response and relief.

Over the course of two days, the workshop brought together key players in the field including Red Cross/Red Crescent representatives, government representatives (responsible for disaster relief and disaster risk reduction), major national NGOs and civil society representatives, key UN actors and key international NGOs who discussed good practices in terms of regional, national and local monitoring mechanisms of humanitarian response in natural disasters as well as specific recommendations to strengthen policy and action for rights protection at the local, national and regional levels. The objectives of the workshop were:

• To introduce and raise awareness of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s (IASC) Operational Guidelines on Human Rights and Natural Disasters;
• To discuss the added value of a rights-based approach to humanitarian response in natural disasters with an emphasis on the national and regional context;
• To discuss good practices in terms of regional, national and local monitoring mechanisms of humanitarian response in natural disasters;
• To generate specific recommendations to strengthen policy and action for rights protection at the local, national and regional levels.

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