All posts in Management

The three lines of defence principle is a long and well established concept that has been deployed in a variety of industries and situations.
In the insurance industry the three lines have consisted of the following:
The business the day-day running of the operation and the front-office
Risk and compliance the continual monitoring of the business
Audit the periodic checking of risk and compliance.

In part this approach is the solid foundation upon which firms can protect themselves against a range of potential risks, both internal and external, and to a degree it is an approach that is forced upon them through regulators insistence on external audits as well as on an embedded risk management capability.

As reliable and well proven as the three lines of defence concept is throughout the insurance industry, it is in need of an update. In todays market there is a far greater number of risks and regulations and an ever-increasing level of complexity in business. Simply being sure that every major risk is in hand is a difficult task.

It is not so much the concept of the three lines of defence that needs to be overhauled but the way that these three lines communicate with each other and the relationship between them.

The complexity of todays market affects the risk and compliance function more than any other. In the majority of organisations management of the various different forms of risk operational risk, compliance risk, legal risk, IT risk are all carried out by different teams, creating a pattern of risk silos. This situation leads to a number of negative consequences. The first of these concerns efficiency.

These risk silos each gather their information by asking the business to provide various information relating to their daily tasks and any potential risks associated with them. Because of the silo structure, the business will find itself being asked for this same information on a multiple of occasions. This not only leads to inefficiency due to the duplication of effort, it can also lead to frustration from front office staff and subsequent disinclination to engage with risk management.

Such is this level of frustration that, according to one insurer which recently appointed a new chief executive, when the new head asked his staff what single change would make their life easier he was told to do something about the endless questionnaires and check sheets that they have to fill out to satisfy risk managers and compliance officers.

While frustration among staff is never a positive development, any companys risk management programme depends on getting buy-in from the staff so anything that threatens the success of this programme has to be addressed.

Perhaps more importantly there is also an inconsistency due to the different ways this same information will be interpreted by different risk teams. This disparate relationship between risk teams can also lead to a lack of recognition over potential correlations between various risks. For example, the recent sub-prime crisis that has affected so many banks may have been avoided if there had been more co-ordination and communication between the credit department and those selling mortgages to people with bad credit.
Similarly the 6.4 billion loss at Socit Gnrale was the result of several risk oversights, combining a lack of controls on individual traders as well as a failure to implement various checks on the trading systems themselves. There was also a negligence of market risk factors with risk management not highlighting a number of transactions having no clear purpose or economic value.

Major risk events rarely result from one risk and most commonly involve a number of potential exposures all combining. Consequently insurers need to be more joined up in their risk management and more consistent in the way that risk is reported across the organisation.

For those individuals charged with the responsibility for enterprise-wide risk management, their task is made harder by the inconsistent formats that they receive their risk information. For example, interest rate risk may be reported as a single Value at Risk number, whereas regulatory compliance or operational risk may be expressed through a traffic light format. How is a chief risk officer, or indeed a CEO, expected to rank such disparately expressed exposures?

What organisations are now looking to do is to gather all of the various risk information in a consistent format for their chief risk officers to work from. So having a common framework for this process is crucial.
There are various initiatives in the insurance industry ICAS, Solvency II and, often, the Basel Accord all of which have contributed to the growth of risk and compliance teams. The chief requirement for all of these regulations is capital adequacy, meaning that insurers have to set aside a calculated reserve of capital to cover a number of potential risk scenarios.

However, regulators will say that they are not simply looking for firms to fulfil their most basic regulatory requirement and to set aside a defined sum of money to cover a list of risk scenarios. Instead they are looking for firms to concentrate on the methodology used to arrive at these numbers, and on ensuring that the risk management process is thoroughly embedded throughout the organisation and scenario analyses bring together risk information from all of the various risk silos.

Scenario analysis is one approach that firms are using to meet their regulatory requirements but effective scenario analysis is very much based on the ability to collate and correlate risk information from all over the organisation.

For the internal audit teams, their primary concern is to be more effective and to ensure that they are not simply repeating the work of the risk and compliance teams and are adding value by rigorously testing this work. Such a task requires access to this information and, ideally, to be using the same common framework as the risk and compliance teams so that information can be seen in the correct context.

We are seeing much greater independence and objectivity in the internal audit role, says Simon Rogerson, head of internal audit at Zurich Financial. In an increasing number of organisations the internal audit function is no longer confined to existing within a corner the finance department and has more direct communication with senior management.

The Role of Technology:
According to Rogerson, the use of technology to facilitate the evolution of the three lines of defence is a new development in the insurance industry. Because it has been hard to clarify the different lines of defence and their relationships, it has been difficult to build a business case for a new system and to build the necessary workflow around these different roles.
The situation is exacerbated by the presence of separate legacy systems in the business, risk and audit departments. Everyone is aware of the weaknesses in their own systems but this knowledge does not always translate across the three lines of defence. This leaves most insurers with two choices. The first is to go back to the start and design a new all-encompassing system from scratch. The second choice is a system that supports common processes and reporting while allowing each function to continue using specialist solutions that suit their own needs.

I think the successful firms will be those that recognise there are different functionalities in these different spaces but they are all able to communicate with each other in a common language and through common systems, says Rogerson. Observations can be shared and specific risk issues can then be discussed through an email exchange and summary reports can be automatically sent out to managers.

For internal auditors a lot of their work is manually-based, says Rogerson. But technology would enable us to do these things quicker and more accurately. The system would also enable us to make certain risk issues generic so that where a risk is identified in one office or department we can then alert all the relevant risk managers in other departments and offices to see if this risk has been recognised and if there are processes in place to manage this risk. By automating this identification of risk, it enables insurers to take a smarter, more efficient and more global approach to the internal audit function.

For risk managers it is about simplifying the process. They have a limited set of resources and want to make as much use of them as possible. In order to achieve this, it often means involving the business in carrying out much of the risk process controlled risk assessments through recording any losses or the breaches where these losses occur. By conscripting the services of their business colleagues, risk managers are able to concentrate on the value-added side of their work and their role.

There are also some wider benefits to the organisation from such a system and the principle behind it. The more that front-office staff is exposed to the mechanics of the risk management process, rather than being repeatedly petitioned for the same information from multiple parties, the more they are aware of its importance and their role in it.

Decades ago, total quality management was a fashionable concept in many organisations. The frailty of this concept was that in having a dedicated management team in this area, the rest of the business could assume that quality was no longer their problem but someone elses. This same misconception could be applied to risk and compliance, unless the business is kept well-informed of the risk management process and their own role within this process. Therefore it is important to make everyone realise that risk is their problem too.

Executive summary
Previous findings have suggested that human resource management practices and beliefs play important roles in the management of businesses today especially when it comes to planning, recruiting and motivating employees to commit themselves for the organisation. Comes to issues of Therefore, there is a unique relationship between the human resource management practices and techniques employed by an organisation and its overall performance. Certain sets of human resource practices are critical for any organization restructuring and if they are not implemented, they will lead to poor performances.. This paper will examine various functions of human resource management in relations to APS business objectives and evaluate the human resource management aspects of the company.

introduction
Strategic human resources management, alignment with mission achievement, strategic alignment these terms are some of the phrases, which are being used to explain the latest, evolving function of human resources management (HRM). Different people will give different meaning for these terms. Consequently, it is imperative to ascertain from the starting what we are really talking about. Human resources management alignment implies integrating decisions concerning employees with decisions regarding the outcomes a business is attempting to reach the objective of the company in relations to its business targets. (Hunger Wheelen, 2003) This report will address strategic human resource management in APS Company. The report will take a critical evaluation of the human resource and offer the best strategy to follow.

A critical evaluation of the role of strategic human resource management in contributing towards the success of APS

With human resource rising as the primary asset of an organisation, human resources (HR) management are being faced with new challenges to come up with strategic approaches that can add value to the organisations when sourcing for new employees. To address this issue the human resource have to formulated strategies that will add value to an organisation in pursuit of identifying, recruiting, developing and retaining highly talented employees who can take the company to new heights and provide a competitive advantage to the company (Armstrong, 2006)

Recruitment and retention
Beardwell Holden (1997) states that; employee recruitment is very important in an organization. It consists of administration, performance and staffing. All these are interrelated activities that are carried out in an organization. Management and staffing activities help in ensuring that employees with right or desired skills are recruited. The employees have also to be in the right numbers desired by the organization. Employee recruitment aims at ensuring that employees are at the right place at the right time. Human resource manager in this case is concerned with ensuring that employees perform their best. Best recruitment processes insure that the organizations get the best staff that can improve and add value to the company. The human resource has to provide better employment terms to retain employees who are experienced in the organization. This will highly help the restructuring processes. (Beardwell Holden, 1997)

Training and development
Each employee requires more learning in order to improve his /her skills, no matter how best a candidate is, he/she can not be 100% percent qualified. Thus, the human resource management should implement learning management system (Beardwell Holden, 1997)

In general the human resource management is supposed to come up with training and education programs for its employees. Training can be termed as systematic enhancement of knowledge, skills and attitudes of the needed by an employee in order to perform a given task. Development is the growth of an employee in terms of capability, understanding and awareness. In an organization training and development is important in order to;

1. Develop a workforce that can perform higher-grade assignments

2. Increase efficiency, effectiveness and standards of performance by the employee

3. Keep the employees informed

4. Provide the usual training of new recruited workforce

Employee performance management
The most important aspect of human resource management practice is employee evaluation. The performance of any organisation is determined directly by the performance of the employees. It is possible to monitor the evaluation if the employees of any company via the use of human resource evaluation systems. These systems are done continuously with a view to retaining useful employees. Some organizations, because of their soft approaches, have incurred huge losses due to the fact that most employees are joy-riders in the organisation. These employees are considered a liability to the organisation because they contribute very little for the productivity levels. This means that their cost benefit ratio is high (Hunger Wheelen, 2003)

Regulatory compliance
In the recent days, human resource management practices have extended its functions to include regulating employees in the organization. The human resource management will have to ensure that employees comply with the company rules and regulations. In addition the manager will also have to ensure that good working relations do exist between the employees. In case an employee breaks the company rules or regulations, then the human resource management has to take steps in disciplining the employee so that he/she can comply. If the employee persist being disobedient to the company rules, then the human resource management can sack him/her if that the only step that remains to be undertaken. Complying with company rules is directly related with improving production. (Hunger Wheelen, 2003)

Compensation and benefits
Workers need to be compensated for their performance in order to encourage them to keep up or improve on that performance. The moment the human resource establishes the performance of the worker, managers should reward to commensurate with the worker’s achievement. These will ensure maximum production and effectiveness of the worker; current compensation programs should include a mix of basic pay, equities and variable pay. (Hunger Wheelen, 2003)

Employees need to be motivated in order for the company to get the best out of them. An employee who is well motivated will easily stay in the organization and be more productive. For this to occur human resource have to attend to the financial and psychological needs of the workers by rewarding them well. Hunger Wheelen (2003) observers that, better conditions for service and financial rewards are examples of measures applied to motivate employees within the organisation while in some, it could be in terms of annual, leave, insurance or shorter working periods. The human resource manager of the organization needs to come up with good employment policies that are desirable to the employees. It is important that the workers when paid accept their pay package as “fair and just” in order for them to be motivated. (Hunger Wheelen, 2003)

Propose a strategy you would propose for managing HR in APS showing how it aligns to the published goals

Sound Manpower planning
The best method in which APS Company can directly improve its performance in successfully in relation to its objectives and missions, is through Manpower planning

Human resource management main function is manpower planning. As observed in APS organization, it lacks proper planning in its human capital which has been it undergo costly penalties. Having the right staff, in terms of numbers and skills is a task that the human resource may strategies well. When it comes to sourcing the human resource must source well so that it can get the maximum benefits from its workforce. The human resource has to understand that overstaffing is a waste and expensive to the organisation and does not add any value to the organisation but, instead reduce the competitive advantage of the organisation. (Armstrong, 2006)

In planning of the workforce, an assessment of current and future needs of the organisation has to be taken into account, compared to the available resources together with future predicted resources. Then appropriate strategies can be undertaken to balance demand and supply of the work force. Thus, before sourcing for more workers, the human resource has to take analyse the current workforce profile in terms of numbers, ages, skills, experience, gender, flexibility, forecast capabilities, etc. the human resource then can adjust this for say 2 or 5 years ahead so as to amend for normal employee turnover, retirements and staff movement in accordance with the business plan in relation to the corresponding time frames. (Armstrong, 2006)

The result from this will give the human resource a lot of information on how to come up with sourcing plans that will be able to add value to the organisation. The human resource will have a well “though out” and sound sourcing demand programme for different dates in future which then, can be compared with the rough supply programmes. The evaluation will then show the steps that have to be taken when sourcing in order to strike a balance. (Dainty, 2000)When human resource undertake such workforce planning program it will save the organisation a lot of money at the same time add competent staff to the organisation who can take the organisation to new heights and surpass the set targets.

Developing human resource strategy
Faced with the need to add value to the organisation, human resource need to come up with a more coherent and focused approach in sourcing practices. According to Armstrong (2006) to develop such strategy, two issues have to be addressed.

1. What type of workforce does the organisation need in order to manage and also run the organisation so has to meet the organisation strategic business goals?

2. Which type of workforce programs and schemes must be planned and implemented so as to attract, develop and retain a workforce that can compete effectively?

For these questions to be answered the human resource has to address four key areas of an organisation these are;

* The sourcing culture of the organisation; norms, beliefs and the management way of the organisation has to be structured in manner that it encourages sourcing or recruitment based on merit alone and on any other factors

* Human resource has also to address the organisation structure; this will define proper job descriptions, reporting lines in the organisation and job descriptions.

* The workforce; the human resource has to address the issue of level of skills, management abilities of individual employees and staff potential

* The human resources will have also to address its systems; the human resource should have a workforce focused mechanism that will deliver a plan of workforce selection, training, communication, career development and rewards.

If the human resource need to add value to the organisation in terms of quality and better services then, it has to retain its workforce, reward them, carry out appraisal, open communication systems and then re-examine the organisation human resource management plans. These strategies will ensure that the APS is able to get and retain a workforce which will drive the organisation to new heights. (Armstrong, 2006)

Provide a critical analysis of the tools you use for this environmental analysis to show why these are important to APS

An environmental analysis of the company
They are several tools, which a company can employ when analyzing its environment both internal and external. The most common are STEP or PESTEL analysis procedure. McGahan (2004) This analysis is worth because it determines whether the organization will be fairing well or not. For the purposes of this paper we shall use PESTEL marketing tool to analyze the APS

PESTEL analysis
PESTEL analysis is used to investigate the vital factors, which affects an industry and the influence they have on a particular company or companies operating in that particular industry. PESTEL is means political, Economic, Social, Technological and Legal factors. Political factors entail government policies, which are related to the industry, this includes tax policies, regulations and laws, tariffs and restrictions and other factors. The economic factors include the wider economic performance for example economic growth, exchange rates, interest rates and inflation. Social factors on the other hand relates to cultural issues which includes health, population growth, demographics, changes in consumer behaviors and other aspects. Technology factors include the adaptation of new available technology and new ideas such as automation, information technology and rate of technology change. Legal factors comprises of legal procedures, licensing, product legal descriptions and other legal factors. (Grant, 2005)

Political factors whereby the company have to deal with the political interferences that may be practiced by the government. According to research, political systems of nations affect the conduct of businesses, for example, some countries practice collectivism while others practice capitalism political systems. For instance in UK, the government practices capitalism in that it allows factors of production to be privately owned and the government performs only limited duties that the private sector cannot perform unlike in collectivism and communism that stresses collective goals. Therefore, APC Company has no restrictions and hence we can conclude that it enjoys good external political environment. (Grant, 2005)

Economical factors which mainly deals with financial forces in the economic environment. Such factors include foreign exchange rates, currencies and global monetary systems like the use of Euro currency, inflation, counter trade, balance of payments, monetary policies, and fiscal policies among others. After carrying out careful analysis of these factors APS Company can determine if the economic factors of the country it is operating in are favourable or not. The economic factors have a significant impact on the market segment of and share of the company. (Kotler, 1996)

Social factors are other factors that the company has to consider before formulating its marketing strategies in relation to the society aspects. Forces within the society such as religion, family, social structure and education may influence positively or negatively the way APS Company will market its products. Social factors affect our attitude, opinions and interests on the way we view products from certain companies. (Kotler, 1996)

Technological factors are another key factor to given consideration before going getting products on the market. Many companies because of the concept of globalization are now experiencing advanced technologies. Globalization has taken centre stage and now many firms have increasingly utilized the use of e-commerce or Internet marketing. The technology of production has continued to develop leading to more premium brands being produced by the company to fulfil the new demands of the customers that keep changing with time. (Hollensen, 2004)

Legal factors are other factors that must be analyzed before entering into a market. The way the company operates in terms of operating rules of law for example how APS Company will have to cope the legal rules in the a country more importantly because it avoids conflicts and will enhance the success of the organization. The company has to be ethical in its practices.

Critically evaluate the ethical requirements for managing human resources within APS and show why this particular area is of paramount importance within a counselling firm.

Ethical norms are the moral standards that help us judge good from bad or right from wrong and living morally. They involve articulating the good habits or character that we should have, the consequences of our behavior on us and others and the duties that we are supposed to follow. As company, treating employees ethically implies being fair to them in all aspects of human management. Basically, ethics and ethical conduct is about being professional and transparent. The NCDA code of ethics has been formulated as a guide to counselors. The code of ethics offers defined principles, which can be used in different situations and settings. The code serves both the careers professional counselors and those who are getting services from the counselors so that they are in a position to understand their responsibilities and rights as consumers. (Grant, 2005)

Ethical requirements stipulates that the Employee’s relations which are the relationship that exists between the employee and the employer. Or processes by which employees and their companies contract of work needs to be fair to all parties.. A good working relationship is required from both parties to maintain high production in the working place. For the employer to have a good relationship with his employees, the employer has to avoid disagreements with the employees. This can be achieved through, both parties honoring their agreements and the company offering better working terms can achieve this. In conuselling company ethical practices are more important because they will ensure that employees are also in a position to be ethical with the clients of the company. (Grant, 2005)

Counseling is very important in this 21st century when many people want information about personal development and enhancement. However, it is important the a company observe ethics in the profession so that they can offer better services for their clients. Ethics dictates that proper and professional ways be followed when the career counselor in performing his/her duties. (Grant, 2005)

Conclusion
Human resource management (HRM) practices are vital tools for any organisation. To manage the most important asset for any organisation-its human resource-requires extensive research, commitment, financial base and implementation strategic practices. All issues affecting the workforce will be affecting the organisational performance directly. It has been found that issues of recruitment and retention, training and development, employee performance management, and other human resources aspects ar of grave concerns and are usually addressed through effective human resource management systems and are important in strategic processes of any organization.

Employee planning and strategic human resource management have a challenge of coming up with strategic human resource managemnt ways that can add value to the organisation. The human resource has a function of delivering strategy insights in the organisation so as to enable the organisation to be more effective in sourcing, evaluating and motivating employees in this increasingly unstable business environment. In addition the human resource has to continue providing administrative services which are dependable, responsive and cost effective to the needs of the organisation.

Appendix

Chart 1: consultancy industry growth

The Chart compares different types of counselling consultancy and their growth over a span of five years. As shown in the graph, the consultancy services have been on an increase. Source (Hooves, 2007)

A SWOT analysis

In reviewing the SWOT analysis: which are strength, weakness, opportunities and threats; the APS Company can be seen to have these aspects;

Strength; immerse capital in terms of human and financial; also have a well-developed marketing share and aggressive marketing team.

Weakness; current weakness may be inability to have effective management structures which have led to poor management and high turnover of staff.

Opportunities; there exists new opportunities in the market which have not been exploited, the company can exploit those markets. Also, the company can create new products and services for the industry as there is still need for more products.

Threats; APS Company is facing threats from new entries in the industry that are creating tough competition in the industry.

Reference:

Armstrong. M. (2006): Handbook of Human Resource Management Practice, 10th edition, (Kogan Page) London,

Beardwell, I. and Holden, L (1997): Human resource management; a contemporary perspective; London; Financial Times

Dainty, A (2000): Improving employee sourcing within construction organisations, Proceedings of the ARCOM 2000 Conference; Glasgow; Vol. 1

Grant, R.M. (2005): Contemporary Strategy Analysis; Blackwell Publishing Ltd., Oxford (U.K

Hoovers.com. (2007) Retrieved 10 February, 2008 on the World Wide Web: http://www.hoovers.com

Hunger, J. D Wheelen, T (2003): Essentials of Strategic Management, New Jersey, Pearson Education Inc

Kotler, P. (1996): Human Resource strategies; 4th European Edition Prentice Hall. Harlow (UK)

Legge, K (2004): Human Resource Management: Rhetoric and Realities, Anniversary Ed. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan,

McGahan, A. (2004): How Industries Evolve – Principles for Achieving and Sustaining Superior Performance”. Harvard Business School Press, Boston

Video Source: Youtube

The most important resource in a company is the human resource, which is considered to be the heart and soul of an organization. Efficiently managing your workforce will assure higher productivity in your business. The increasing need for cost-effective processes and methods to resolve the inefficiencies in an organization has made businesses realize that the need of the hour is workforce management.

Workforce management is all about assigning the right people with the right skills to the right task at the right time. The amount of work may vary from day-to-day; therefore, balancing work volume and resources to achieve a desired quality of service is the essence of workforce management.

In todays day and age, technology has made our lives much easier. The introduction of workforce management software has helped in automating tasks such as maintaining accurate time records as well as organizing, planning and delegating work to employees. It tracks resource allocation and deadlines, allows employee feedback on projects and assignments, manages contact information and notes, retrieves stored information, and analyzes and monitors entire projects, allowing you to remotely manage your company and maximize your business output.

Workforce management systems can include field Service Management Software (also known as field force automation), which optimally plans and dispatches field service technicians and their well-stocked vehicles to a customer’s location in a timely manner in order to achieve their service commitments. Field service management forecasts work orders, optimally allocates resources (people, parts, vehicles) within the predefined zones and enables easy communication among the resources in real time.

Many field service management software integrate with other software and accounting programs like QuickBooks, SAP, Oracle, Microsoft Dynamics, etc. The solution mainly acts as a mobile system that connects the field worker with the back-end.

These solutions provide performance-based tools to support corporate management, frontline supervisors, store managers and workers across manufacturing, distribution, transportation, and retail operations. It ensures that your workforce is as productive as possible, and it reduces labor costs, improves customer service, computes incentives and resolves issues faced by employees.

A few years ago, industry analysts predicted that the market for these types of software would experience dynamic growth. Today, workforce management has become an important strategic element in corporate management. It helps finds the right balance between cost-efficiency, employee satisfaction and customer service.

The role of college is not limited to imparting quality education instead entire campus need to be managed. In the present times, this goal can be achieved with proper selection of college software from Delhi.

Standards of learning enhance as the academics at college level which further demands introduction of advanced facilities within the campus. This in turn can be rightly attained with the help of proper planning in terms of management of entire college covering the nitty-gritty for better yield. It denotes the usage of advanced ERP solution for managing all the tasks of college has to be invested on by the authorities. On a factual note, it can be asserted that academic management is among primary needs of learning institute in order to improve experience of learners, faculty members and all the staff members.

Since, the manual processes of college management could not contribute to easier functioning of all the departments within the campus, the academic management system Delhi is worth considering. This system is enabled with high end technological mechanism with single platform integrating multiple modules. Admission, student management, attendance procedures and other tasks can be nowadays easily handled by using the push buttons’ of the interface. This is just one of the countless merits of this software which has specifically designed for managing academics and its components. Let us now take a look at prominent features which make this system of managing college reliable:

Proved to be cost saving solution for all the colleges: Every college has administrative and other targets those have to be attained without crossing its pre-defined limit of budget. Thus, this significant trait is served by academic management software Delhi due to its cost effective structure. Besides, to complement the business goals, this software supports a solution of customization. In fact, on the basis of custom needs of a college, the software can comprise of varied modules and additional specifications also get personalized under this provision. Hence, the accessibility of this software can be made compliant with management of learning institute.

Modules are simple to comprehend and implementing on them is easier: There are different modules for separate department and maintaining them properly is pivotal for attracting profitable as well as error free outcome. Therefore, the college management software Delhi has been designed to include all the modules those can be easily operated. Apart from this, these modules range from hostel management, transport management, examination management, fee management and payroll management to other variants those might be requested in personalized version. Data security improves to a larger extent: Keeping confidential administrative or other data which has limited accessibility to the officials within college secured is now very convenient with this software for college. To cut it short, the academic management system Delhi has an attribute which enables the authorised officials to keep their documents protected by password. This can indeed be accomplished with the help of setting up of user ID in the system of the official so that he can access it by entering credentials. It is a sure-shot way to keep official documents safe without being tampered.

To sum it up, the ERP solution powered by technologically advanced system full of modules meant for college management is necessary for all the learning campuses.

Academic management system Delhi designed and developed by HR Software Solutions incorporates the facilities of management of resources though College Management Software Delhi.

A new milestone has been reached by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the evolution of disaster management for the region. Recently, the Philippines Senate ratified the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER), and with that the agreement is expected to enter into force by the end of 2009. The ratification marks a significant highlight in ASEANs collective efforts to build a disaster-resilient community by the year 2015. The agreement binds ASEAN member states into legal responsibilities to promote regional cooperation and collaboration in reducing disaster losses and intensifying joint emergency response to disasters in the ASEAN region.

Margareta Wahlstrm, the UN Secretary-Generals Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction described the agreement as the first of its kind in the world, an agreement that oblige Asian states together to address disaster risk reduction and improve their preparedness for response. It also provides for the establishment of an ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) to undertake operational coordination of activities under the Agreement. Since the signing of the AADMER agreement in 2005, ASEAN has put into place measures for standard operating procedures, training and capacity building, disaster information sharing, communication network, and rapid assessment team. Cyclone Nargis which affected Myanmar last year became a test bed for ASEAN coordinating mechanism and its role as the humanitarian bridge between the international community and the affected population.(i)

The ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management (ACDM) was established
in 2003. Its formation elevated the institutional mechanism which has existed since the 1970s and comprised of experts group. The ACDM consists of heads of national agencies responsible for disaster management of ASEAN member countries. With the objective of having disaster-resilient nations and safer communities, ACDM developed an ASEAN Regional Programme on Disaster Management (ARPDM) which provided the framework for cooperation for the period 2004-2010. This regional programme consequently became the platform for cooperation and collaboration with ASEAN Dialogue Partners and relevant international organizations. Its regional strategy on disaster management identified priorities encompassing response action plan, capacity building, information sharing and communication network, partnership with pertinent stakeholders, funding support, and generating public awareness including activities for disaster risk reduction. The programme , launched in May 2004 became the structure for concerted regional cooperation in disaster management in the ASEAN region fitting in well with the regional strategy for disaster reduction.(ii)

In the aftermath of the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, ASEAN leaders held a special meeting to strengthen measures for emergency relief, rehabilitation, reconstruction and prevention. The meeting adopted a declaration of action in these areas notably of mobilizing the international community to support national relief emergency programme. Of significance was the call for the development of a regional instrument on disaster management and emergency response, the establishment of tsunami early warning system for the Indian Ocean and the Southeast Asian region, and implementation of preventive measures including public awareness and capacity building. (iii)

An interesting feature in ASEANs evolution of disaster management was the tacit acceptance by member states for the utilization of military together with civilian personnel in disaster relief. The establishment of a centre to coordinate regional disaster response was also agreed upon and is now ongoing.

The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) which was signed by the member countries in July 2005 in Vientiane, Lao PDR, established the mechanisms for achieving substantial disaster risks reduction and emergency response. A salient feature of this accord is that the agreed framework for disaster risk reduction is based on the Hyogo Framework for Action (HFA) 2005 -2015: Building the Resilience of Nations and Communities to Disasters.

ASEAN conducts annual disaster simulation exercises to enhance the
capacities and capabilities of member countries in joint disaster management operations. These simulation exercises organized in conjunction with contingency planning workshops facilitated the implementation of the AADMER and also the development of the ASEAN Standby Arrangements and Standard Procedures (SASOP) for regional disaster management. (iv)

The logical progression in its evolution apparently is broadening regional cooperation in disaster management and this is borne in the agenda of the fourth East Asia Summit (EAS) held in Hua Hin, Thailand.

References:-
(i) Press Release. ASEAN Disaster Management Agreement to Enter into Force by End of 2009. ASEAN Secretariat, 16 September 2009.
(ii) Association of Southeast Asian Nations. The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response.
(iii) Association of Southeast Asian Nations. ASEAN Standby Arrangements for
Disaster Relief and Emergency Response
(iv) Association of Southeast Asian Nations. ASEAN Disaster News Watch. 6 September 2006. ASEAN to test regional emergency response and humanitarian assistance capacities in a simulated flood disaster in Cambodia.

Note: The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is composed of Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Viet Nam.