Press Releases

1. The Governments of the UK and Japan will co-host a seminar from 20-22 January 2016 in Manila, the Philippines, on Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief (HA/DR) – an important issue in South East Asia.

2. The seminar aims to build capacity among ASEAN member countries in this area by facilitating sharing and learning best practice from each other. Participants will be the community of HA/DR experts from ASEAN governments and civil society. There will also be observers from the Australia, Canada, China, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand and the US.

3. As major donors and partners for ASEAN, the UK and Japan are working to build deeper understanding and capability in ASEAN – both between governments and other organisations. Both countries contributed to assisting the Philippines during the international response to Typhoon Haiyan in 2013. At the recent 8 January UK-Japan Foreign and Defence Ministers meeting(“2+2”) in Tokyo, both countries confirmed that they would deepen cooperation, in South East Asia. They noted this seminar as an example of our first such joint capacity-building collaboration in this region.

4. The output of the seminar will complement ongoing work in the region, for example, Disaster Relief efforts in the ARF(ASEAN Regional Forum) framework.