The Origins of the ASEAN Community’s Humanitarian Component

Abstract

The birth of the ASEAN Community in 2007 has strengthened a long ignored part of ASEAN, i.e., humanitarian assistance and development. The three major pillars of the ASEAN Community have either direct or indirect influence on the institutional expansion and capacity building of ASEAN’s humanitarianism-related tasks. The direct influence is usually derived from the ASEAN Political and Security Community and the ASEAN Social and Cultural Community, while the indirect influence can rest on the advance of the ASEAN Economic Community. Meanwhile, leaders of ASEAN also work with extra-regional state and non-state actors to ensure the positive humanitarian development within the region of Southeast Asia. Yet, due to the principle of non-interference and the lack of resources, ASEAN’s early effort — mainly in capacity building — has apparently been less effective after the brief study of three cases.