Aggravated by technological, socio-economic and geopolitical factors at regional and global levels, crises in the future are predicted to grow significantly in magnitude and frequency. Such possibilities give rise to the need to transform humanitarian action. Organisations with humanitarian roles and responsibilities will need to develop new expertise, capacity and partnerships to deal with the future crises – in other words, developing a humanitarian futures mindset. Apart from addressing the immediate humanitarian concerns and drawing from lessons from past experience, humanitarian futures call for an anticipatory and adaptive approach to preparing for future scenarios that will be likely see the concurrence or interface of different types of hazards at higher intensity and frequency.
Jointly hosted by RSIS and the Changi Regional HADR Coordination Centre, this forum will bring together over 120 local and overseas participants from the military, government agencies, think tanks and academia, private sector, philanthropy, local civil society, International NGOs and International Organisations, diplomatic community, young leaders, and students. This forum seeks to facilitate actors involved in humanitarian settings in reviewing their experiences as well as inform humanitarian preparedness, planning and response to crises in our immediate and long-term future.

Mely Caballero-Anthony is Professor of International Relations and holds the President’s Chair for International Relations and Security Studies. She is also Head of the Centre for Non-Traditional Security (NTS) Studies at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
Prof. Anthony’s research interests include regionalism and multilateralism in Asia-Pacific, human security and non-traditional security, nuclear security, conflict prevention and global governance. 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 (New York: Columbia University Press, 2018), An Introduction to Non-Traditional Security Studies, (London: SAGE Publications Ltd, 2016), Asia on the Move (Japan: JCIE, 2015), and Human Security and Climate Change (London: Routledge, 2014).
Prof. Anthony has led a number of global and regional research projects on international security and global governance. In 2017, she co-chaired the Global Reflection Group on the ‘Monopoly of the Use of Force- 2.0’ that brought together 21 scholars from Asia, Africa, Europe and the Americas that examined the nature of security provision in times of uncertainty. She was also the principal investigator of the MacArthur Asia Security Initiative (ASI) project of Internal Security Challenges in Asia and Cross-Border Implications and was Co-Chair of the Second Murdoch Commission on Food Security, Trade and Partnership in Asia.
Prof Anthony has served as the Secretary-General of the Consortium on Non-Traditional Security Studies in Asia since 2008. From 2015-2017, she was Vice President at-large of the Governing Council of the International Studies Association (ISA) and is currently member of the ISA’s Global South Task Force. She had held visiting fellowship at the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University in 2015. From 2013-2017, Prof Anthony was a member of the UN Secretary-General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters (ABDM) and served at its Chairperson in 2016 and currently member of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network on Nuclear Non-Proliferation (APLN). She was also Director of External Relations at the ASEAN Secretariat from 2011-2012.

Ambassador Ong Keng Yong is Executive Deputy Chairman of the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS) at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. He is concurrently Director of the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies (IDSS) and Head of International Centre for Political Violence and Terrorism Research (ICPVTR) at RSIS. Mr Ong continues to hold the position of Ambassador-at-Large at the Singapore Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He is also Singapore’s Non-Resident High Commissioner to Pakistan and Non-Resident Ambassador to Iran. Mr Ong has been the Chairman of the Singapore International Foundation (SIF) since 2015.
Mr Ong was High Commissioner of Singapore to Malaysia from July 2011 to October 2014. He served as Secretary-General of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), based in Jakarta, Indonesia, for five years from January 2003.
He was Singapore’s High Commissioner to India and concurrently Ambassador to Nepal from 1996 to 1998. From September 1998 to December 2002, he was Press Secretary to the then Prime Minister of Singapore, Mr Goh Chok Tong. From 2008 to 2011, he served as Director of the Institute of Policy Studies (IPS) in the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore.