Just like 2015, expect the unexpected in 2016: Panel

Channel NewsAsia’s Perspective panel says Asia and the world must learn from unexpected events such as disease outbreaks and natural disasters to be more prepared.

Samantha Yap, Channel News Asia

Looking back at the lessons learned from 2015, Asia and the ASEAN community must be prepared for a series of “what ifs” – from diseases outbreaks and natural disasters – to brace themselves for 2016.

At a recent taping of Channel NewsAsia’s Perspectives panel on Dec 14, Sir Liam Donaldson, Chancellor of Newcastle University (UK) and Chair of the World Alliance for Patient Safety, said that we must learn to expect the unexpected.

He referred to the Ebola and MERS outbreaks in 2015 that affected the global community, and which tested the resilience of healthcare systems in various countries, including South Korea.

Looking at the year ahead, Sir Liam said: “There are things that we can do to prepare (for emerging infectious diseases) ranging from having the most advanced laboratory services to pick them up early to ensuring that when we do detect them we get to the source quickly and we contain the spread.”

Mr Mick Sharp, Chief Operating Officer of International SOS and Control Risks, said unexpected events that have major effects and which are inappropriately rationalised – which he considers “black swan” events – will rarely come around.

Mr Sharp is confident that from what the global community has learnt in the past year, many situations, from international terrorism to natural disasters, are actually foreseeable.

But he warned that they can be managed only through good information and communication.

“(Black swan events) generally relate to late and evolving or prevailing threats. This is where proper assessment comes in, in terms of the actual situation,” he said.

“From a state’s perspective, it’s a matter of intelligence,” he added.

Joining Mr Sharp and Sir Liam on the panel discussion were Mr Herizal Hazri, Country Representative, Malaysia, The Asia Foundation; and Professor Alfred Huan, Executive Director, Institute of High Performance Computing (IHPC) and Graduate Academy, Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR), Singapore. The panel was filmed in front of an audience at the Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT) Campus.

THE ASEAN ECONOMIC COMMUNITY

The panel also touched on subjects such as technology, global security, policymaking and the outlook for ASEAN.

Regionally, with the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) in action in 2016, panel members said that it will be interesting to see if an ASEAN sense of community begins to form.

Mr Hazri believes the challenge for ASEAN governments is to be more people-centric, which will help create a more solid, effective AEC with clear directions and foresight.

“I think collaboration is key especially in ASEAN,” said Mr Hazri. “I think it’s very important when we talk about ASEAN and its approaches that we should not talk about as an abstract. If we talk about a ‘people-centric ASEAN’, what does that really mean to normal people and normal communities? I think that’s where the issue is.”

“Until and unless the people can feel the benefits of being part of an ASEAN community then only you can build a community,” he added.

With the AEC goal of creating a single market with free flow of capital, services, products and skilled workers, the key component, according to Prof Huan, is the flow of talent as workers move from country to country.

“I believe that talent needs to be mobile, otherwise it gets stifled,” said Prof Huan. “To allow that mobility, each government has to ensure that going forward that the talent stay vibrant, dynamic and continue to flow around and benefit the economies.”