AI eyed to improve disaster response

Artificial intelligence (AI) may help in improving data collection for disaster response as suggested during an online meeting of Southeast Asian policymakers and experts.

“It’s time to explore AI for data collection, analysis and distribution of social protection,” said Santosh Manivannan, chair of the ASEAN Working Group on Climate Change (AWGCC), during the ASEAN Knowledge Exchange on Loss and Damage and Comprehensive Risk Management, organized by GIZ under the ASEAN European Union-German Climate Action Program and as part of ASEAN Climate Week 2026.

The suggestion hopes to address planners’ lack coherent, accessible datasets spanning global, regional, national and local levels — a problem that hinders timely decision-making and fair distribution of support after disasters.

“Across ASEAN, capacity to respond to loss and damage varies widely,” said Sao Samphors, vice chief of the Office of Cambodia’s Ministry of Environment. “Some countries have advanced climate-data systems and adaptive social protection; others are still building basic institutions. That gap is what puts people at risk.”

Dr. Vong Sok, head of Environment Division from the ASEAN Secretariat, urged countries to use existing ASEAN platforms including the AWGCC and ACDM, to harmonize approaches and pool resources.

“We already have the institutional architecture; now we need to operationalize it for loss and damage,” he said.

Experts called for concrete regional tools: a minimum standard metric to document loss and damage using existing platforms like the ASEAN Disaster Information Network, and a dedicated ASEAN coordination mechanism on loss and damage that could tackle technical and legal issues from sea-level rise to planned relocation.

“Defining the scope of loss and damage at the regional level will help align national policies and unlock support,” said senior researcher P. Raja Siregar of the Resilience Development Initiative.