National Action Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction: A great step forward for Indonesia

As the ‘country of a thousand islands’, Indonesia is well known to be prone to disaster. So many disasters affect Indonesia: earthquakes, landslides, floods, volcano eruptions, tsunamis and so on. The disasters have caused so many losses, both of lives and material resources.

During the rainy season, so many areas are submerged by floods and attacked by landslides. Even in Jakarta, the capital city, floods have left people in misery, often forcing them into emergency camps. This problem has happened every year for as long as we can remember. And experts predict that for the coming years, Indonesia has the potential to be struck again with the full gamut of earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis.

As a result of this dismal forecast, the National Agency for Disaster Reduction (BNPB), supported by those NGOs incorporated in National Platform (an agency which HFI helped to create) launched a national action for disaster risk reduction 2010-2012, in Jakarta on 22 February 2010. This launch was covered by national media and attended by government elements and NGOs.

The launching ceremony was opened by the Ministry of National Development, Armida Salfiah Alisjahbana and the speech of the head of National Agency of Disaster Reduction, Syamsul Ma’arif.

The National Plan for Disaster Risk Reduction 2010-2012 is a national program – a legal foundation for institutionalizing DRR in to local and national government. The program will engage both society and business actors by building coordination rules in implementing DRR at local and national level.

This is such an important step for recovery and risk reduction in Indonesia. With good planning and cooperation, we can look forward to a more stable future.

HFI pushes forward on Disaster Assessment Tool

Forum Groups Discussion Post Disaster Assessment Tool

Disasters can strike communities suddenly without warning. And when they do, they bring panic and disorder. Houses are destroyed, public facilities are damaged, people become refugees and live in emergency tents, local government ceases to function.
Meanwhile, economic activity also comes to a halt.

At such times, the volunteers from the affected area and from outside the region need to know what is happening, so they can take quick and appropriate action.

One of these quick actions is identifying the extent of damage: the number of houses destroyed, number of survivors, the emergency needs of survivor, etc.
Another action needed after a disaster is to ensure the continuation of education and teaching-learning process for students. This needs to happen as soon as possible - both the actual learning process and the more practical efforts to repair damaged school facilities.

To make this happen, we’re continuing with the Forum Group Discussions on the Post Disaster Assessment Tool for the Education Sector – a tool for gathering all the information relating to the school and the existing resources at the site of the disaster (outlined in our post of 25th January).

The fields of study of these assessment tools are: access to education services and school facilities, availability of teaching staff, community participation, education supporting facilities, coordination and policies.

The meeting took place in Jakarta, and involved participants from NGOs and government delegates. Following this discussion there’ll be a meeting to discuss the system and working mechanism for settlement in making this assessment tool.

Discussion in Pariaman: "Aligning the roles of Religious and Tribal Institutions in the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Period”

Those of you who follow the news pages on www.humanitarianforum.org will have read about the work we're doing in Padang to combat the clashes between NGOs and local communities. We're continuing this work in West Sumatera, where the relationships between local communities and INGOs have suffered from misunderstandings.

The people of West Sumatera are by and large deeply religious people. Sumatera Barat’s culture is influenced by Islamic doctrine and the majority of groups in that province are Muslim. Sumatera Barat civilians are generally thought of as conservative in nature when it comes to religion related issues. But as the period of rehabilitation and reconstruction progresses, there has been rising conflict between local people and humanitarian agencies working in the area.

Once the citizens of Sumatera Barat suspected some international NGOs of attempting to persuade earthquake victims to change their religion, it began to hinder cooperation with International NGOs, and in some villages, even led to the expulsion of the organisations in question. As a result, the remaining national and international organisations have had to work out new programs and activities, with the added struggle of working with a very cool and defensive response from the people of West Sumatera.

In West Sumatra itself, Community leaders have a strong influence to mobilize the public. We believe they have a very big role to play, both in society generally and in terms of reconstruction programmes. They are better placed than any other actor to provide the community with information disaster risk reduction. So it's vitally important that they're given the understanding and knowledge about the dangers of disaster and disaster risk reduction, to be submitted to the public.

So, how can we bring community leaders together with NGOs, so West Sumatera can recover and rebuild as quickly and efficiently as possible?

Well, we've been working on just that. HFI, in cooperation with other organisations such as Yayasan Tangul Bencana Indonesia (YTBI), World Vision, Muhammadiyah, and Dompet Dhuafa, held meetings and workshops to mediate with every stakeholder - NGOs, community leaders, local government and local religious leaders.

Through these meetings we're working to unite every party involved in rehabilitation and reconstruction and to accelerate the recovery of West Sumatera without any obstacles.

In addition to conflict resolution forums, our workshops and discussions are also intended to train community leaders and local governments in disaster risk reduction. West Sumatra is the area adjacent to the source of disaster. Many experts confirm that West Sumatra has a high potential for Earthquake and tsunami attacks.

This workshop is the third time Workshop held by the HFI in West Sumatra with the same theme. Previous similar workshops held in the city of Padang and the City Pariaman. Read more about our work here