ASEAN Leaders’ Declaration on Disaster Health Management (ALD on DHM) (2019-2025) was adopted by the ASEAN Summit in November 2017 to strengthen the DHM system at national and regional levels, and the Plan of Action (POA) to implement the ALD on DHM was endorsed by the ASEAN Health Ministers Meeting in August 2019. Knowledge Management (KM) is one of the five priority areas in the POA with the relevant targets including the regional academic network establishment, organization of regional academic conferences, publication of the ASEAN academic journal on DHM, and so forth. The ARCH Project Phase2 (ARCH2), which started in January 2022, focuses on aiming to support implementation of this POA.

The ARCH2 will support the establishment of the ASEAN Academic Network on DHM (AAN-DHM) and the ASEAN Institute for DHM (AIDHM). In addition, the ARCH2 will support the promotion of academic activities on DHM which shall be conducted under the AAN-DHM in collaboration with the AAN member institutes and AIDHM.

Terms of Reference (TOR) of AAN-DHM was endorsed by the 15th ASEAN Health Ministers Meeting in May 2022. Afterward, the National Focal Point (NFP) institutes for the AAN were nominated among all ASEAN Member States (AMS). The first meeting of representatives of the NFP was held in September 2022 to discuss several areas such as governance of the AAN-DHM, the organization plan for the ASEAN Academic Conference (AAC), and the publication plan of the ASEAN Journal. Simultaneously, the TOR of the AIDHM was prepared for further discussion of its establishment.

The AAN has already been established to initiate the preparation of its academic activities. The AAC on DHM is scheduled to be held in November 2023 in Indonesia as the first regional event for accelerating academic activities toward enhancing KM on DHM in the region under the AAN-DHM.