Latest Humanitarian Forum Indonesia Updates

In May, HFI held a strategy planning meeting to define programmes for the upcoming two years. The event was attended by board members, supervisory board members and the council.  The meeting was also attended by the Director of The Humanitarian Forum, James Shaw Hamilton. In his speech, he talked about the development of local humanitarian forums in several countries and also praised the progress of HFI. An important outcome of the meeting was the need to strengthen HFI’s human resources and to give priority to members’ coordination and networking.

PKPU has officially become a member of HFI’s network. Find out more about PKPU here.

On 25th May, HF Indonesia participated in the fourth meeting aimed at formulating accountability guidance in humanitarian aid management in Indonesia. 

HFI has identified a need for training in disaster communication. Due to the vast outreach of Social Media, untruths and misquotes can spread like wildfire, causing the population to panic. To address this issue, on 26th May HFI is organising a Communication workshop, with a panel of experts on Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics from national agencies and politics commentators.

Earthquake and tsunami in Japan, wave on its way to Indonesia

An 8.9 magnitude earthquake has triggered a massive 10m (33 feet) tsunami wave, and it is on its way to the neighbouring countries, such as the Phillippines and Indonesia. The local communities need to prepare themselves in order to withstand the force of the natural disaster.

Read the updates page of the events here.

HFI works towards new standard for NGO accountability in Indonesia

Humanitarian Forum Indonesia together with Public Interest Research and Advocacy (PIRAC), held a focus group discussion with the theme “Accountability in Disaster Funds Management”.

The focus group discussion looked at how Media, non-faith and faith-based NGOs assess their standard of accountability in humanitarian work, for example in responding to disaster, helping the refuges, distributing aid for disaster survivors etc.

This discussion is a continuation on the field research that has been done a couple of months ago in four provinces (Aceh, Yogyakarta, West Sumatera and West Java).

“This focus group discussion aims to map and hear what the ladies and gentlemen’s perspective is on accountability, based on what we have done so far. We want to see this as the data for the next step in formulating a standard of accountability in humanitarian fund management in Indonesia,” Hamid Abidin, Director of PIRAC said in his opening speech.

Humanitarian Forum Indonesia was represented by Sudibyo Markus, who opened the event by saying: “This is great opportunity for humanitarian actors in Indonesia to unite their perspective on accountability and to work towards their awareness in accountability.”

The event, attended by participants from both faith and non-faith based NGOs and Media, is only the beginning to a series of focus group discussions on formulating a draft for a standard and mechanism of accountability in humanitarian management of funds in Indonesia.

The series, supported by the Ford Foundation, will culminate with the promoting, disseminating and training of the agreed accountability standard.

Presenting PASTI in the Smart House Management Workshop

UNESCO organised a workshop in West Sumatera between 6th and 8th January 2011 with the theme "Smart House Management throughout Sumatera". The event was attended by officials from West Sumatera Education Quality Control insurance (LPM), participants from Indonesia Wife Minister Association (SIKIB), , Indonesia National Committee for UNESCO (KNIU) and the delegation of Smart Houses around Indonesia.

At this event, HFI were invited to share their expertise and offer a training regarding the PASTI tool (Preparedness Assessment Tool for Indonesia). PASTI is a tool aiming to assess the preparedness to deal with disaster hazards in a given region.  PASTI was created by the HFI and UNESCO in 2009, to answer the need for disaster risk reduction programmes in Indonesia as the country is prone to various natural disasters.


The programme above is also called "Smart Indonesia", being aimed to promote the national movement on how to manage "Smart Houses" as part of a government support programme for disasters risk reduction.  A "Smart House" is a regional centre of information and activities in reducing disaster risks. The Houses are being built in many provinces in Indonesia.

The other speaker at this event, prof.  Arief Rachman is an important national figure in education. His speech was on how to manage effectively a Smart House and how to make everyone coming to a Smart House enjoy their learning experience. He said that such programmes should be set up in other parts of Indonesia, especially in the most prone disaster areas.

Humanitarian Forum Indonesia remains committed to making Indonesia a more disaster resilient country via capacity building and empowering local communities.