东亚峰会是商讨地区战略合作的年度领导人会议。自2005年以来，东盟国家元首与对话伙伴齐聚一堂，讨论当下的挑战和机遇。东亚峰会自成立以来不断扩大，现在包括东盟十个成员国以及澳大利亚、中国、印度、日本、新西兰、俄罗斯、韩国和美国的有关领导。成员资格与国防部长扩大会议类似，但合作重点聚焦在更具战略性的层面，而不是完全以安全层面为基础。
东亚峰会长期参与灾害管理合作。2009年，东盟成员国元首签署了《东盟共同体路线图差安华欣宣言》。宣言确定了《东盟灾害管理和应急响应协议》的中心地位，并宣布支持东盟灾害管理人道主义援助协调中心、《待命安排和标准行动程序》以及东盟区域灾害应急演习等一系列灾害响应组织和机制。领导人宣布将鼓励能力建设，制定进一步的国际响应指导方针。
2011年，澳大利亚和印度尼西亚开始推动精简机制来促进灾害响应。两国发布了《加强灾害快速响应区域合作的切实办法》。该文件确定了需要解决的三组问题，包括信息共享、攻克瓶颈问题、能力建设和促进救灾方面的合作伙伴关系。该文件主张东亚峰会在灾害响应中发挥更大的作用。2012年，东亚峰会举办了多次活动，包括东亚峰会备灾能力建设研讨会（在中国举行）和东亚国家关于建立区域灾害管理框架的研讨会（在印度举行）。其中，2012年东亚峰会备灾能力建设研讨会侧重于备灾方面的政策制定和组织管理，而关于建立区域灾害管理框架的研讨会则侧重于风险管理，尤其是对该地区地震风险的认知。
2013年，东盟灾害管理委员会就东亚峰会在灾害管理方面的合作举行了多次会议。其中，在泰国和越南举行的工作组会议中，与会者就东亚峰会在灾害管理方面的相关活动交换意见。这些会议是与《东盟灾害管理和应急响应协议》伙伴关系会议同时举行的，会上，东盟成员国和对话伙伴表示有意愿为《东盟灾害管理和应急响应协议》工作计划中的相关项目提供支持。此外，会上还讨论了合作框架，并为东盟成员国和对话伙伴的合作项目“牵线搭桥”。在这些较小项目上取得的进展加强了东盟灾害管理委员会和东亚峰会之间的关系。
东亚峰会对灾害响应表现出了极大的兴趣，在2013年的研讨会报告中确定了东盟灾害响应中的关键问题，并表示将尽可能解决这些问题，具体如下：
由于缺乏机构认知和协调，对国际援助的请求或提供可能安排不当或拖延；
需要增进东亚峰会国家对现有国家、区域和协调安排的理解；
匹配需求与援助的方法效率低；
调动和部署人员、设备和物资的时间过长；
受灾国的部门、国家和国际行动者之间缺乏协调，可能导致救灾援助效率低下；
在提供和接受援助方面的经验教训可能得不到吸取，相关政策和程序可能得不到改进；
人员可能不具备灾害医疗援助所需的技能、知识、经验和体能。
2014年3月，在东亚峰会的支持下，印度尼西亚主办了一次救灾演习，名为“明打威群岛演习”，主要针对大地震和海啸场景进行演练，为期5天。共有约3700人参与了这场军民演习，包括东亚峰会的10个成员国、东盟灾害管理人道主义援助协调中心、联合国人道主义事务协调办公室、红十字会与红新月会国际联合会和国际美慈组织，参与者对一场虚拟的8.9级地震以及由此引发的10米高海啸做出响应。过程中的指挥所演习可以对个人能力、国家政策和程序，特别是事件指挥系统，和西苏门答腊、巴东市和明打威地区的应急计划进行评价。这次演习也测试了网络应急行动中心和灾害感知通用操作图像系统。
2014年8月，东亚峰会外长会表示支持制定东亚峰会快速灾害响应行动计划。两个月后，东亚峰会国家元首通过了《东亚峰会关于快速灾害响应的声明》，该声明主张在制定应急计划和标准作业程序、人员培训、演习、采购、维护设备和社区宣传中确定应灾准备工作的优先事项，同时主张为国际救灾和指定国家协调中心的海关、移民和检疫工作建立预先安排（国家协调中心被授权为单一联系点，负责处理援助的请求与提供）。
2015年6月，东亚峰会发布了快速灾害响应工具包文件，以满足《东亚峰会关于快速灾害响应的声明》中设想的条件。该工具包文件由澳大利亚和印度尼西亚的应急管理组织和国家灾害管理组织在东亚峰会参与国的支持下开发而成，内容包括国家协调中心表、快速救灾指南以及东亚峰会国家灾害响应安排这三部分。快速灾害响应工具包文件以《东盟灾害管理和应急响应协议》和《待命安排和标准行动程序》的框架为基础，并与联合国协调系统相互联系。现在评估工具包文件的使用价值还为时过早，而且目前尚未在响应行动中使用。但东亚峰会领导人支持并明确界定了快速灾害响应工具包文件与具有约束力的《东盟灾害管理和应急响应协议》之间的联系，以便东盟成员国和非东盟国家在灾害响应中有一套救灾指导可以参考。
东亚峰会快速灾害响应工具包文件在2015年东亚峰会印度尼西亚-澳大利亚快速灾害响应研讨会上正式推出，参会代表们表示工具包文件简化了东亚峰会参与国的灾害响应工作，并使决策者们做决策的过程更加结构化。
The East Asia Summit is an annual leaders' meeting to discuss regional strategic cooperation. Since 2005, ASEAN heads of state and dialogue partners have gathered to discuss current challenges and opportunities. Since its establishment, the East Asia Summit has been expanding and now includes the relevant leaders of the ten ASEAN Member States and Australia, China, India, Japan, New Zealand, Russia, South Korea and the United States. Membership is similar to the expanded meeting of Ministers of defense, but cooperation focuses on a more strategic level rather than entirely based on the security level.
East Asia peak will participate in disaster management cooperation for a long time. In 2009, the heads of ASEAN Member States signed the cha'an Huaxin Declaration on the road map of the ASEAN community. The declaration established the central position of the ASEAN agreement on disaster management and emergency response, and announced support for a series of disaster response organizations and mechanisms, such as the ASEAN disaster management Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Center, standby arrangements and standard action procedures, and the ASEAN regional disaster emergency drill. Leaders announced that they would encourage capacity-building and develop further guidelines for international response.
In 2011, Australia and Indonesia began to promote streamlining mechanisms to promote disaster response. The two countries issued practical measures for strengthening regional cooperation in disaster rapid response. The document identified three sets of issues to be addressed, including information sharing, overcoming bottlenecks, capacity-building and promoting partnerships in disaster relief. The document advocates that the East Asia Summit should play a greater role in disaster response. In 2012, the East Asia Summit held many activities, Including the East Asia Summit disaster preparedness capacity-building Seminar (held in China) and the seminar of East Asian countries on the establishment of regional disaster management framework (held in India). Among them, the 2012 East Asia Summit disaster preparedness capacity-building seminar focused on policy formulation and organizational management in disaster preparedness, while the seminar on the establishment of regional disaster management framework focused on risk management, especially the understanding of earthquake risk in the region.
In 2013, the ASEAN Disaster Management Committee held several meetings on the cooperation of the East Asia Summit in disaster management. At the working group meeting held in Thailand and Vietnam, participants exchanged views on relevant activities of the East Asia Summit in disaster management. These meetings were held in parallel with the ASEAN disaster management and emergency response agreement partnership meeting, at which ASEAN Member States and dialogue partners expressed their willingness to support relevant projects in the ASEAN disaster management and emergency response agreement work plan. In addition, the meeting also discussed the cooperation framework and "matchmaking" for cooperation projects between ASEAN Member States and dialogue partners. Progress on these smaller projects has strengthened the relationship between the ASEAN Disaster Management Committee and the East Asia Summit.
The East Asia Summit showed great interest in disaster response. In the 2013 seminar report, it identified the key problems in ASEAN disaster response and said that it would solve these problems as much as possible, as follows:
• requests for or provision of international assistance may be improperly arranged or delayed due to lack of institutional awareness and coordination;
• the need to enhance the understanding of EAS countries on existing national, regional and coordination arrangements;
• inefficient methods of matching needs and assistance;
• excessive time to mobilize and deploy personnel, equipment and materials;
• lack of coordination among sectoral, national and international actors in affected countries may lead to inefficient disaster relief assistance;
• lessons learned in providing and receiving assistance may not be learned and relevant policies and procedures may not be improved;
• personnel may not have the skills, knowledge, experience and physical strength required for disaster medical assistance.
In March 2014, with the support of the East Asia Summit, Indonesia hosted a disaster relief exercise called "mindawai islands exercise", which mainly focused on the scenes of large earthquake and tsunami for five days. About 3700 people participated in the military civilian exercise, including 10 member countries of the East Asia Summit, the ASEAN disaster management Humanitarian Assistance Coordination Center, the United Nations Office for the coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies and Mercy Corps International. The participants responded to a virtual magnitude 8.9 earthquake and the resulting 10 meter high tsunami. The command post exercise in the process can evaluate individual capabilities, national policies and procedures, especially the incident command system, and emergency plans in West Sumatra, Padang city and mindawai region. The exercise also tested the network Emergency Action Center and the disaster sensing General operating image system.
In August 2014, the foreign ministers' meeting of the East Asia Summit expressed support for the formulation of the East Asia Summit rapid disaster response action plan. Two months later, the heads of state of the East Asia Summit adopted the statement of the East Asia Summit on rapid disaster response, which advocated that the priorities of disaster preparedness should be determined in the formulation of emergency plans and standard operating procedures, personnel training, exercises, procurement and maintenance of equipment and community publicity. At the same time, it advocated that the customs Advance arrangements for immigration and quarantine work are established (the national focal point is authorized as a single point of contact to process requests and provide assistance).
In June 2015, the East Asia Summit released the rapid disaster response toolkit document to meet the conditions envisaged in the East Asia summit statement on rapid disaster response. The toolkit document was developed by emergency management organizations and national disaster management organizations in Australia and Indonesia with the support of EAS participating countries. It includes three parts: national focal point table, rapid disaster relief guide and eas national disaster response arrangements. The rapid disaster response toolkit document is based on the framework of the ASEAN agreement on disaster management and emergency response and the standby arrangements and standard operating procedures, and is interlinked with the United Nations coordination system. It is too early to assess the use value of toolkit documents, and they are not yet used in response actions. However, EAS leaders supported and clearly defined the link between the rapid disaster response toolkit document and the binding ASEAN agreement on disaster management and emergency response, so that ASEAN Member States and non ASEAN countries can refer to a set of disaster relief guidance in disaster response.
The EAS rapid disaster response toolkit document was officially launched at the 2015 EAS Indonesia Australia rapid disaster response seminar. Participants said that the toolkit document simplifies the disaster response work of EAS participating countries and makes the decision-making process more structured.
