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View all search resultsASEAN floods 2025: Governance at a crossroads
The flooding that peaked last month across the region illustrates a fundamental truth: disaster risk reduction is inextricably tied to governance, including economic policies, and ASEAN must tackle climate issues as a collective agenda.
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Flood-affected residents walk along a muddy road in Kuala Simpang village in Aceh Tamiang, North Sumatra on Dec. 2, 2025. (AFP/Iwan Gunadi Batubara)
T
he floods that devastated Indonesia, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand in late 2025 were not simply natural disasters. They were governance failures.
What appeared as torrents of water and mud were in fact the visible consequence of decades of ecological neglect, fragmented policies and a development model that consistently sacrifices resilience for short-term growth.
Extreme rainfall linked to Tropical Cyclone Senyar 95B triggered landslides in Aceh, North Sumatra and West Sumatra, killing more than 400 people and displacing over 180,000. Malaysia declared its worst flooding in 15 years while Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand saw rivers overflow and agricultural lands submerged.
These events were not isolated accidents. They were regional shocks exposing the fragility of governance systems in Southeast Asia.
The problem is not only climate extremes but also policy extremes. Forests cleared for timber, wetlands converted into housing estates and infrastructure built without risk-sensitive planning have stripped ecosystems of their natural buffers. Each country continues to pursue extraction and expansion, fearing loss of competitiveness if it exercises restraint while its neighbors do not. The result is collective vulnerability.
In game theory terms, ASEAN is locked in the prisoner’s dilemma. Every nation knows that restraint, such as protecting forests, enforcing land use regulations and investing in adaptation, would reduce disaster risk. Yet no country dares to act alone. The fear of losing economic advantage drives each to continue exploiting, even as the collective outcome worsens.
This is why the flooding in Indonesia coincided with the floods in Malaysia and why the agricultural losses in Thailand mirror those in Vietnam. Climate change does not respect borders, and neither does ecological mismanagement.
