KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 (NNN-BERNAMA) —\u00a0The borderless nature of epidemics such as COVID-19 makes regional cooperation and policy coordination imperative, said Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)\u00a0Secretariat executive director\u00a0\u00a0Dr\u00a0Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hence she described the information-sharing session to be held at the virtual meeting of APEC Emergency Preparedness Working Group (EPWG) tomorrow, during which volunteer economies would present their practices in response to COVID-19, as \u201cessential\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIf carried through, this exercise would translate to unilateral developments in best practices-based policies which were found in many member economies. The best-case scenario is that these are applied multilaterally across the region,\u201d she said in the APEC Bulletin released today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sta Maria noted that positive outcomes should not end there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cInternational forums have been criticised for being talk shops, but discussion today would lead to outcomes tomorrow. In this case, the desired outcome is better resilience as a region against the next disaster,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to her, this means building capacity to immediately deploy emergency services and maintain them over long periods.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe should (also) make certain our economies have the ability to cushion even the poorest citizens and smallest businesses from economic fallout, the wherewithal to keep institutions functioning and to keep trade going and food and supplies flowing,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sta Maria said APEC, comprising 21 member economies, needed to be quick in implementing economic policies and decisive in its use of reconstruction resources.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to her, APEC economies have the most varied and extensive experience in dealing with calamities, from earthquakes to wildfires, super typhoons and pandemics.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cAs a non-binding, informal and flexible organisation, the APEC forum was designed to be a test kitchen for creative solutions. It would therefore be an ideal contributor to any conversation about an effective multilateral response to unexpected crises,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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KUALA LUMPUR, July 20 (NNN-BERNAMA) —\u00a0The borderless nature of epidemics such as COVID-19 makes regional cooperation and policy coordination imperative, said Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC)\u00a0Secretariat executive director\u00a0\u00a0Dr\u00a0Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria. Hence she described the information-sharing session to be held at the virtual meeting of APEC Emergency Preparedness Working Group (EPWG) tomorrow, during which volunteer economies would present their practices […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":62991,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[288,300,318],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84319"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=84319"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84319\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/62991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=84319"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=84319"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/namnewsnetwork.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=84319"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}