RSIS Virtual Roundtable on “COVID-19 in Asia: Reflections One Year On”
Abstract
A year since the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, several challenges remain for the region and the wider global community to deal with. Among these include pandemic fatigue given continued social distancing measures and lockdown/circuit breakers, rising economic and social cost, vaccine access against vaccine nationalism and vaccine diplomacy, as well as the level of regional cooperation in ASEAN, ASEAN Plus Three and the East Asia Summit.
This Roundtable examines these issues while reflecting on some of the lessons learnt and best practices, and how the region can be better prepared for future pandemics.
About the Speakers
Dr. Mahmood is a medical professional with more than two decades experience managing crises in health, disasters, and conflict settings. She is currently the Special Advisor to the Prime Minister of Malaysia on Public Health and began her mandate in April 2020. She is also a member of the Government of Malaysia’s Economic Action Council.
Her previous appointments include the Under Secretary General for Partnerships at the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), Chief of the World Humanitarian Summit secretariat at the United Nations, and Chief of the Humanitarian Response Branch at UNFPA. She is the founder of MERCY Malaysia a southern based international humanitarian organization.
Dr. Mahmood has held many Board positions in NGOs and INGOs and is the recipient of numerous national and international awards for her work. In 2020, she was appointed a Senior Fellow of the Adrienne Arsht-Rockefeller Foundation Resilience Centre.
Dr Ferdinal Moreno Fernando is currently the Assistant Director and Head of the Health Division of the Human Development Directorate (HDD), since 2011, under the ASEAN Socio-Cultural Community Department (ASCCD) of ASEAN Secretariat.
Under his purview is the facilitation, coordination, initiation and management of the implementation of the ASEAN Post 2015 Health Development Agenda and its Work Programmes focused on Health Priorities involving promoting healthy lifestyles; responding to all hazards and emerging threats; strengthening health systems and access to care; and ensuring food safety.
Prof Yanzhong Huang is a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, where he directs the Global Health Governance roundtable series. He is also a professor and director of global health studies at Seton Hall University’s School of Diplomacy and International Relations, where he developed the first academic concentration among U.S. professional international affairs schools that explicitly addresses the security and foreign policy aspects of health issues. He is the founding editor of Global Health Governance: The Scholarly Journal for the New Health Security Paradigm.
Dr. Huang has written extensively on China and global health. He is the author of Governing Health in Contemporary China (2013) and Toxic Politics: China’s Environmental Health Crisis and Its Challenge to the Chinese State (2020). He has also published numerous reports, journal articles, and book chapters, including articles in Survival, Foreign Affairs, Public Health, Bioterrorism and Biosecurity, and the China Leadership Monitor, as well as opinion pieces in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, and the South China Morning Post, among others. In 2006, he coauthored the first scholarly article that systematically examined China’s soft power. He testified before U.S. congressional committees many times and regularly is consulted by major media outlets, the private sector, and governmental and nongovernmental organizations on global health issues and China. He is a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, and a board member of the Institute of Global Health (Georgia).
Mr. Endy M. Bayuni, is an Indonesian journalist with 38 years of experience. He is senior editor and advisor to the Board of Directors of the English-language news media The Jakarta Post, having served as editor-in-chief in 2004-2010 and in 2016-2018. He writes opinion articles on wide-ranging topics — including Indonesia’s politics and foreign affairs, political Islam and the changing media landscape — which are published in The Jakarta Post and regional publications, including Nikkei Asia Review and Strait Times. Since May 2020, he has served in the independent Oversight Board for Facebook. He is the executive director of the International Association of Religion Journalists (IARJ).
Mr Bayuni is a recipient of the East West Center Senior Fellowship at Washington DC in 2010, the Nieman Fellowship at Harvard University in 2003-2004, and the Jefferson Fellowship at the East West Center of the University of Hawaii in 1999. He is a member of the Multilateral Biosecurity Dialogue led by the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. He received his Bachelor of Arts degree in economics at the Kingston University in UK in 1981.
About the Chairperson
Mely Caballero-Anthony is Professor of International Relations and Head of the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. Prof. Caballero-Anthony teaches courses on non-traditional security in Asia and security governance, and has served as the Secretary-General of the Consortium on Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia since 2008. Her research interests include regionalism and multilateralism in Asia-Pacific, global governance, human security and non-traditional security, nuclear security and conflict prevention. She is also currently board member of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation (APLN). From 2015 to 2017, Prof Anthony was Vice President at-large of the Governing Council of the International Studies Association (ISA) and is a member of the ISA’s Global South Task Force. In 2015, she was a visiting fellow at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs. From 2013 to 2017, Prof Anthony was a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters, and served at its chairperson in 2016. From 2011 to 2012, she was Director of External Relations at the ASEAN secretariat, and was a member of the World Economic Forum Global Agenda Council on Conflict Prevention. She has published extensively on a broad range of security issues in Asia-Pacific in peer-reviewed journals and international academic press. Her latest books, both single-authored and co-edited, include: Negotiating Governance on Non-Traditional Security in Southeast Asia and Beyond, An Introduction to Non-Traditional Security Studies, and Asia on the Move.
