The Philippines knows the loss and cost of disasters. In October 2023, a magnitude 7.4 earthquake struck Mindanao, affecting more than 1.6 million people, damaging over 113,000 homes and displacing more than 92,000 residents. Infrastructure damage reached P1.3 billion, while agricultural losses were estimated at P29.8 million, according to the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (NDRRMC) through the Office of Civil Defense (OCD).
Such disasters can quickly and profoundly reverse decades of development gains. Beyond destruction and damage, their impact on sectors such as health, education and transport, as well as on tightly connected supply chains and rapidly growing urban areas, can turn one shock into cascading social and economic disruption. Repeated shocks, often intensified by climate change, are also stretching communities, local capacities and financing resources.
Resilience is therefore not only a humanitarian or environmental imperative. It is increasingly an issue of economic security, sustainable development and regional stability.
The ASEAN Ministerial Conference on Disaster Resilience, held in Metro Manila on September 15 to 16, provided an important opportunity to strengthen regional cooperation and exchange experience on disaster risk reduction and management. Across Southeast Asia, countries face similar pressures: denser cities, exposed coastlines, climate-related hazards, and economies linked through food systems, logistics, labour mobility and trade. A disruption in one place can affect livelihoods, prices, services and supply chains beyond the area first hit, including across borders.
The Philippines brings considerable experience to this regional conversation, starting with its institutional architecture for disaster risk reduction and management. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, supported by the Office of Civil Defense, provides a platform for coordination across national government agencies, local governments and other partners. This structure gives the country an important basis for aligning preparedness, response, recovery and long-term risk reduction.
This institutional framework is matched by an evolving policy setting. The National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Plan provides the overall framework, while its Midterm Review and the Accelerated Disaster Resilience Action Plan, or ADRAP, offer an opportunity to accelerate coordinated and accountable implementation, sustain momentum, focus collective efforts, and further connect resilience with public finance, infrastructure, land use, social protection and local governance.
Science and technology can change how countries see, anticipate and manage risk, in the Philippines and across ASEAN. Hazard mapping, early warning platforms, geospatial data and interoperable digital systems can help make risk visible before losses occur, identify exposed communities, guide contingency planning and support faster decisions during emergencies. The development of a Digital Readiness Strategy Operational Plan with the Office of Civil Defense, the Department of Science and Technology and other government agencies can help unlock the growing role of digital systems in resilience. When these tools inform budgets, infrastructure, land-use decisions and local preparedness early enough, they can help prevent risk from becoming loss.
The local level is where this agenda is tested and sustained. Local governments make many of the decisions that determine how risk is managed: where development takes place, how infrastructure is built, how communities are informed and how essential services continue during emergencies. Through the Strengthening Institutions and Empowering Localities Against Disasters and Climate Change, or SHIELD Programme, supported by the Australian Government, UNDP is working with national and local partners country-wide to connect risk-informed planning, science-to-practice tools and local resilience financing. It has supported local governments in using climate and hazard information for investment decisions, preparing bankable resilience proposals and developing tools that help identify public, private and blended sources of financing. This experience can be relevant to other countries in Asia and the Pacific, including ASEAN Member States, as they seek to connect local risk reduction, science and financing more effectively.
For ASEAN, resilience is increasingly a regional development issue because risks move across borders through people, markets, infrastructure and ecosystems. Strengthening national systems, using science more effectively and investing in local preparedness can therefore contribute not only to safer communities, but also to more stable and connected regional development.
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Christophe Bahuet is a United Nations Development Programme resident representative in the Philippines.