The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has, in recent years, substantively advanced efforts to address emerging protection, gender and inclusion (PGI) issues in disaster management. In line with the vision of One ASEAN One Response, in October 2021 the ASEAN Committee on Disaster Management (ACDM) launched the ASEAN Regional Framework on Protection, Gender, and Inclusion in Disaster Management 2021-2025 (ARF-PGI). This serves as the main PGI strategy to all ACDM working groups for the implementation of the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) Work Programme 2021-2025.

The present Guidelines for Operationalising the ARF-PGI serve as a prioritisation and planning toolkit to support regional bodies working in a cross-sectoral manner on PGI issues in disaster management, and national disaster-management actors, in concrete operationalisation of the AADMER Work Programme 2021-2025. Its objectives are:

• to provide guidance and templates to assist sectoral bodies and AMSs in prioritising and planning the implementation of PGI actions in accordance with national contexts;
• to break down each target action of the ARF-PGI into steps and provide suggested indicators to track progress; and
• to link the users of these Guidelines to further specialised resources in PGI in disaster management.

The main target audience for these Guidelines are ASEAN sectoral bodies, national disaster management organisations (NDMOs), and other organisations working on gender and social inclusion issues at the national level. It also intends to serve as a reference for development and humanitarian agencies, including the UN and civil-society partners. As the ARF-PGI also includes Target Actions relevant to actors in sectors such as social welfare, NDMOs may play coordinating/convening roles in stakeholder engagement for the implementation of the ARF-PGI.