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SEED

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SEED by Corporate Citizen Foundation

Swift Emergency Evaluation Deployment (SEED) 

Recognising that the Asian region plays host to 70% of the world’s natural disasters, the CCF has established the Swift Emergency Evaluation Deployment (SEED) as the acute disaster first responder in the event of natural catastrophes.  SEED brings together reputable and experienced corporations to commit their assets for disaster response.  Assets and expertise such as general aviation aircrafts (Pacific Flights Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ST Aerospace), mobile manual-powered water filtration systems (Golden Season), along with healthcare (Thomson Medical), civil engineering (HSL Constructor) and media coverage (MediaCorp), would allow for early access and appropriate intervention at disaster sites, and adding value to the humanitarian eco-system.

The SEED/CCF will work with its ASEAN contacts and the individual affected country’s national disaster management agencies to facilitate the logistics and administrative requirements including air traffic clearance for SEED.

 SEED’s Value Proposition 

As in most major disasters e.g. Asian Tsunami in Aceh (2004), Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar (2008), the S.E.A. floods in Thailand (2011), Typhoons Ketsana (2009) and Haiyan (2013) in the Philippines, the greatest challenge for local and foreign humanitarian players is to obtain accurate information on the actual ground situation including the scale of devastation, the size of displaced and stranded communities, the exact scope of needs of the survivors and accessibility into the affected grounds.   Most times, humanitarian players have to second-guess what and how much aid to bring in.  This poses high risks of bringing in wrong types of aid, and even if it is right, may be duplicating each other, either which, leads to waste of resources.  In short, the early, first-hand and accurate intel that SEED would fill the prevailing gap of lack of sufficient and clear information on the ground situation, which will add value to incoming response teams in future disasters to make informed decisions. Hence, the SEED’s slogan – Bridging the First Mile.

International and regional aid agencies, as incoming responders, would benefit from the intelligence (processed ground information) that would be brought out by SEED through its official media partner, MediaCorp.

ASEAN Community 2015 

The CCF would be in line with the ASEAN Charter’s purpose to promote an open, inclusive and transparent people-oriented ASEAN.  The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) enshrines the active participation of all stakeholders including non-governmental organisations, private sector, and local communities as a key to effective disaster management, even as the primary responsibility to respond to disasters and implement measures to reduce disaster risk falls on individual Member States.

The CCF seeks to support the ASEAN vision of disaster resilient nations and safe communities by 2015, through sustainable community development programmes.  In tandem, the CCF also seeks to support the Phase 2 (2013-2015) activities of the AADMER Work Programe – to further strengthen disaster management capacities, mechanisms, and systems.

At the ASEAN Foreign Minister’s Meeting in Bagan on 17 January this year, Myanmar’s Foreign Minister U Wunna Maung Lwin shared that, as the current ASEAN chairman, she is set to formulate inter alia:

  • to promote SMEs as prime movers of ASEAN’s economic development in 21st century;
  • to promote sustainable development, and
  • to promote resilience in addressing crisis and disaster.

CCF Launch with AHA

(top) (foreground, from left) Executive Director of ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on Disaster Management (AHA Centre), Mr Said Faisal, Deputy Prime Minister, Minister for Finance and Chairman of the International Monetary and Financial Committee of the IMF, Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam, and CCF Chairman, Mr Lim Choo Leng officially launched the Corporate Citizen Foundation on 31st October 2014.

(above) Mr Said Faisal commended the corporate initiative which is in line with the One ASEAN response – involving the public, people and private sectors.

SEED Pioneer Partners 

For acute disaster response, the pioneer SEED partners are:

Pacific Flight Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of ST Aerospace

Lear jets for air access into disaster-stricken areas.  Priority standby and preferential pricing for hire of aircrafts and pilots.

Golden Season

Mobile and manual-powered water solutions to support the most critical area of needs (water) at disaster-stricken areas.

HSL

Civil engineering personnel to evaluate the usability of coastal structures (jetties/wharves) as possible sea access for incoming responders and aid supplies. Also to activate, where necessary, network of local assets to establish landing facilities for coastal access into disaster stricken areas. 

MediaCorp

Provide a disaster reporting team, which includes hostile environment trained correspondents, digital field producers, camera crew and drones.

The disaster reporting team provide early, first-hand and accurate ground information from disaster-stricken areas to the region and the rest of the world through its multiple media platforms – TV, radio, print, and digital.

  • “At Pacific Flight Services, we are acutely aware of the tight race we are running in times of natural disasters. Within two hours of activation, we are able to convert our aircraft into flying ambulances, complete with a two-person medical team… we are confident of working closely with the partners involved to ensure swift and efficient deployment for SEED operations.”

    Loke Geok Wan, General Manager, Pacific Flight Services
  • “CCF is a platform for private corporations to exercise our corporate citizenry more proactively, constructively and collectively.  In short – to do good, better, together.”

    Chairman Lim Choo Leng, CCF
  • “MediaCorp will commit its reporting resources, expertise and experience to ensure audiences around the region get accurate, contextual and timely reports from ground zero of natural disasters. These reports will hopefully help governments, humanitarian agencies and the public at large have a better grasp of the situation at ground zero and make informed assessments of the assistance critically needed.”

    Walter Fernandez, Editor-in-Chief, News, MediaCorp

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