Southeast Asia is region where so many differences exist from languages, religions, to political systems. But despite those differences, Southeast Asian determines to live with each other harmoniously. That determination reached a concrete result when ASEAN was officially established on 8 August 1967 in Bangkok with 5 founding countries which are Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand.

Since the establishment of ASEAN which stands for Association of Southeast Asian Nation, Southeast Asian countries keeps proving that their solidarity is not just words, but real actions. In the past, the countries across Southeast Asia had shown this by helping each other out when unfortunate events occurred and here are some of them.

Asian Financial Crisis (1997 - 1998)

The infamous Asian Financial Crisis was started when Thai baht collapsed. After that, the domino effect started and then multiple countries were also severely affected such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines. The results of the crisis were extremely damaging, ranging from unemployment, economic downturns, inflation to social instability such as the deadly riots in Indonesia in 1998.

In order to help manage the situation, ASEAN decided to take some action such as sharing the recovery efforts where ASEAN members collaborated together so stabilize the financial systems, and implementing economic reforms. ASEAN also reached out to Japan, South Korea and China to formed the "Chiang Mai Initiative" to deal with the crisis by creating an arrangement of multilateral currency swap.

Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004)

On 26 December 2004, a massive earthquake which reached 9.1 on the Richter scale created a monstrous tsunami which ravaged several ASEAN countries with Aceh (Indonesia) as the region hit with the worst damages. Soon after the disaster struck, ASEAN countries quickly scrambled to offer assistance by sending rescue teams, financial aids, and medical supplies to Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand but specifically Indonesia.

The huge disaster which took the lives of more than 230,000 people, spurred ASEAN to create a new department which is called the AADMER which stands for ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response in 2005. The AADMER was created specifically to improve the coordination among the members so they would be when future disasters happen.

Cyclone Nargis (2008)

The creation of AADMER was proven to be a correct decision because just 4 years later, one of ASEAN members, Myanmar, was hit by a massive cyclone called Cyclone Nargis. The disaster cause more than 130,000 people died, particularly in the region of Irrawaddy Delta, Myanmar. Not only that, millions were also forced to be displaced since they lost everything they had.

Shortly after the disaster, ASEAN countries, specifically Thailand and Malaysia, quickly mobilized their resources to help providing humanitarian assistances. Even though at the time, Myanmar was quite reluctant to receive any foreign aid, ASEAN country members were extremely important in coordinating and making sure that the affected region and people received the needed aids.

COVID-19 Pandemic (2020 - present)

The global pandemic of COVID-19 severely affected Southeast Asian countries and damaging multiple aspects such as economies, social services, and straining the already unstable healthcare systems. To respond, ASEAN countries worked together by creating ASEAN COVID-19 Response Fund which facilitate multiple important things such as securing medical supplies, promoting research and treatments, and coordinating cross-border collaboration.

After the vaccines were successfully developed, ASEAN countries also worked together in securing them for Southeast Asians. Important initiatives such as the ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand Vaccine Initiative. ASEAN also worked together with global organizations such as Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance to make sure that the vaccines could reach the Southeast Asian populations evenly.