ADELINA KAMAL

Adelina Kamal is an independent analyst in the fields of humanitarian action and disaster management. Her work spans the intersections of disaster resilience, humanitarian action, human rights, conflict transformation, and peacebuilding. She is the Co-Founder and a Steering Committee Member of the Southeast Asian Women Peace Mediators (SEAWPM), and serves in multiple international advisory and governance roles. Adelina is currently a member of the Advisory Panel on the Future of Humanitarian Action, convened by ODI Global and the Network for Empowered Aid Response (NEAR). She is also a Voting Board Member of the Melbourne-based Centre for Humanitarian Leadership Executive Committee, a member of the Advisory Group of the London-based Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Humanitarian Policy Group, a Trustee of the Board of the Geneva-based Humanitarian Exchange and Research Centre (HERE), and an Early Member of the Association of Indonesian Society for Amnesty International and Chairperson of its Annual General Meeting. In recognition of her contributions to peace through international dialogue and cooperation, Adelina was awarded the Ambassadors’ 75 Peace Award in 2024, jointly conferred by the United Kingdom and Indonesia.

Prior to these diverse global roles, Adelina led the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance (AHA Centre) as its first female Executive Director in 2017-2021, facilitating ASEAN’s collective responses to major disasters. Under her leadership, the AHA Centre was awarded the Asian of the Year by the Straits Times Singapore. Prior to this role, Adelina spent over two decades at the ASEAN Secretariat where she played a primary role in developing the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) and laying the foundations of the AHA Centre in its formative years. Adelina was also central to ASEAN’s response to Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar in 2008 where she led ASEAN’s first large-scale humanitarian response operation on the ground, and served as the only female member of the high-level Tripartite Core Group that coordinated international assistance.

Adelina contributes to the academic and research communities as a regular guest lecturer at the University of Indonesia’s Master’s Programme in Disaster Management. She was affiliated with the Singapore-based ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute as an Associate Senior Fellow in 2022. She has authored numerous research-based articles on humanitarian assistance and disaster management, and regularly shares her insights at conferences, webinars, and podcasts.