Asia

Context

The Asia-Pacific remains one of the world’s most disaster-prone regions, with frequent natural disasters such as earthquakes, droughts, tsunamis, floods, landslides, tropical storms, and volcanoes affecting millions of people every year. Many countries in the region are vulnerable to extreme weather events resulting from climate change.

Risks and vulnerabilities are higher than ever due to a multitude of factors, such as continued population growth, migration to urban areas, growing inequalities and exclusion, increased exposure to urban mega-disasters and pandemics, chronic conflicts including terrorism and a continuing influx of refugees and IDPs to Asia.

The ongoing conflicts and regime change in some countries in the region has further exacerbated the existing situation, increasing the need for humanitarian support and strengthening staff capacities due to massive brain-drain in several countries.

Our activities in the region

The HLA Asia Regional Centre has supported three major humanitarian responses in 2022: Afghanistan, Myanmar and Pakistan.

The Centre currently provides face-to-face and online trainings for humanitarians in Nepal, Bhutan, Cambodia, and Bangladesh.

Topics include Education in Emergencies, Safeguarding, Child Protection in Emergencies, Mental Health and Psychosocial Support, Psychological First Aid and Gender Based Violence.

Pakistan flood response 2022: working in partnership to strengthen local capacity

Learner spotlight: Meet Azhar

Learning with Kaya: Meet Shariful

Shariful is from Bangladesh, he works with the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) as a Community Engagement and Accountability (CEA) Officer.

Providing Humanitarian Essentials training for frontline staff in response to the Rohingya crisis

In August 2018, there were an estimated 919,000 Rohingya refugees in Cox’s Bazar. The enormous scale of the influx put unprecedented pressure on the Bangladeshi host community and their existing facilities and services.