Lina Gong – författare

This book offers a timely and accessible exploration of how humanitarian work is changing across one of the world's most diverse and crisis-affected regions. Set against a backdrop of shrinking global aid budgets, growing humanitarian need, and weakening of long-standing Western leadership, Humanitarian Policy and Action in Asia brings Asian perspectives to the centre of debates about the future of humanitarianism. Drawing on contributions from leading scholars and practitioners, the volume examines how humanitarian policy and practice are shaped by new technologies, regional institutions, state interests, and local traditions. Case studies range from disaster management reforms in Southeast Asia and humanitarian engagement in Afghanistan and Myanmar, to China's evolving role as a humanitarian actor and the growing importance of South–South cooperation. Together, they challenge the assumption that humanitarianism is driven solely from the Global North and highlight Asia's long history of supporting crisis-affected communities. Clear, wide-ranging, and grounded in real-world experience, this book shows how a more multiplex and polycentric humanitarian system is emerging—one that places affected communities, regional voices, and local knowledge at its heart. It is essential reading for students, researchers, and practitioners in humanitarian studies, international development, and Asian studies. It will also appeal to policymakers and NGO professionals working in crisis response, disaster management, and regional governance. The chapters in this book were originally published as a special issue of Journal of Asian Public Policy.

This collection offers insights of the international humanitarian system, considering what constitutes humanitarianism in Asia-Pacific, and how it shapes policy and practice in the region and globally. It adds to the conversation on reforming the global humanitarian system by providing the space to share perspectives on humanitarian action from our place in the world. The authors answer these questions by focusing on a range of issues from national to sectoral perspectives to relations between ‘traditional’ and ‘emerging’ players, concluding that the dynamics of the humanitarian system from the perspectives of the Asia-Pacific are rooted in their localized experiences and built outwards. The first significant trend is that understandings of humanitarianism in the Asia-Pacific are primarily shaped by the experience of disasters at home. Second, national governments play a dominant role in humanitarian affairs in the region. Finally, the humanitarian landscape in the Asia-Pacific constitutes a diverse yet under-appreciated set of actors. This book is based on the RSIS Conference on Asia and the Humanitarian World held in 2019 in Singapore. It is relevant to students, scholars, practitioners and policymakers with an interest in humanitarian assistance, disaster management, strategic studies and international relations in Asia-Pacific.

Non-traditional Security Issues in ASEAN examines the current state of governance of non-traditional security challenges confronting the ASEAN region. The book takes an issue-specific approach to investigating how ASEAN states and societies govern many of the pressing non-traditional security issues, such as climate change, food security, environmental protection, humanitarian assistance and disaster response, health security, nuclear security, and human trafficking and forced displacement.With non-traditional security as an established concept in the policy and scholarly communities in ASEAN, this book moves beyond securitisation and focuses on capacity-building, regional cooperation and institution for dealing with non-traditional security challenges in the region. Through the development of a comprehensive analytical framework that establishes the process of governing non-traditional security problems, the editors put together chapters that identify some of the major gaps and challenges in the governance of many pressing challenges in ASEAN.Non-traditional Security Issues in ASEAN provides a systemic evaluation on the governance of the most pressing challenges in the region. The authors analyse the ways in which particular issues are addressed at national and regional levels and by different stakeholders. In spite of the differences among various non-traditional security issues, the analysis of the chapters converge on three core themes for enhancing governance, which include engagement of multiple actors, effective enforcement of national and regional laws and regulations, and better coordination between different actors. As such, Non-traditional Security Issues in ASEAN contributes to policy making by highlighting the key agendas that call for actions and adds nuances to scholarly discussion on governance by bringing in a non-traditional security perspective.