Contingency Planning : Set to Prepare Volcano Hazard

Contingency Planning : Set to Prepare Volcano Hazard

DRR Training on Banyumas: Toward Reslient from Disaster Attack

DRR Training on Banyumas: Toward Reslient from Disaster Attack

HFI and UNESCO present PDATES: Continuing Teaching and Learning in Emergency Situations

After working together intensively for more than four months, finally HFI and UNESCO have finished creating PDATES: the Preparedness Disaster Assessment Tool in Education Sector. PDATES is a device to assess the damage caused by disaster to the ability to provide education. It takes the form of a guidebook which helps measure damage in education facilities and offers proposals to make the teaching and learning process run as well even in emergency situation.

The unique book complements existing tools in Indonesia used in assessing the damages of disaster affect. Mostly, existing devices in this country assess the general damage caused by disaster: houses, public facilities, and so on. None of them specifically deal with damage to the education sector. PDATES assesses the needs, challenges, and the possibilities of carrying on with teaching and learning in emergency period. We’re working to save children’s education and to heal the traumas caused by losses of life, home and so on after disaster strikes.

Education is the right of every Indonesian. It’s also vital not to lose a generation of educated citizens because of a disaster like the Padang Earthquake; ignorance is a deadly enemy to prosperity, but educated citizens are a vital part of creating a stable, sustainable future for our country. And often after a disaster has struck, school provides children with an important routine in the face of chaos. So to give people the support they need, we must keep the teaching and learning in every situation.

The PDATES book will be given free to a thousand schools in Indonesia from elementary level up to senior high schools. It can also be expected to enhance Indonesian teachers’ knowledge about disaster risk reduction.

Several senior government and humanitarian departments who deal with disaster and education, including the ministry of national education and National Agency for Disaster Reduction in Indonesia, have given a very positive response to this book.

We hope that the PDATES will be very helpful and meaningful for the progress of the disaster risk reduction effort in Indonesia.

Reviewing Disaster Risk Reduction Policies in West Sumatera

After the Earthquake in 2007, the Government of West Sumatera made many policies in disaster risk reduction which were supported by national government, NGOs, INGOs and other important actors. The first earthquake made the West Sumatera Government aware that their territory is at high risk of earthquakes followed by tsunami for the forseeable future. And so, many policies have been formed and disaster risk reduction programs instigated to reduce the loss of life and damages.

But when a second earthquake hit Pariaman West Sumatera in 2009, the damages and loss of life were still at a high rate. 1,117 people were killed, and thousands more heavily injured. Meanwhile the total lost of infrastructure damages - civilian houses, public facilities, government building - has reached nearly 3 million USD.

The question is, how could the second earthquake have still made such a huge loss of lives and damages when the West Sumatera Government had implemented its disaster risk reduction programme since 2007? How effective were the policies of disaster risk reduction, and the Government programs for rehabilitation and reconstruction 2009-2011?

HFI, in collaboration with Oxfam GB, is accordingly conducting research in West Sumatera. The team, consisting of five researchers, is reviewing the disaster risk reduction policies in West Sumatera regarding the rehabilitation and reconstruction action plans. The research started at the end of February and will end in April 2010.

We expect this research to present a clear picture about the problems in implementation of disaster risk reduction in West Sumatera so far, and to monitor its progress. The report should also be able to give some recommendations in Reconstruction and Rehabilitation action Plan in West Sumatera going forward. It’s the hope of the HFI team, and of our partners, that in the event of another earthquake, this research will mean we’ll see a significant reduction in damage and loss of life.

THE CHALLENGES OF ASEAN IN INSTITUTIONALIZING DRR

In collaboration with the Indonesian Secretary of the Association of South East Asia Nations (ASEAN), HFI recently held a one-day workshop on Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and the ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER). This workshop highlighted the needs, gaps and challenges on institutionalizing DRR in ASEAN.

What came to light from the sessions was that there is a lot of confusion when DRR programmes are put in to practice in ASEAN member states: confusion about coordination, capacity and available information.

Dr. Marqueza L. Reyes, ASEAN-UNISDR Technical Advisor for DRR, stated in her speech that the challenges in institutionalizing DRR include the need for more decentralized policies and frameworks in member states: increasing coordination and capacity across ministries and levels of government; integrating DRR into climate change adaptations measures; risk identification; assessment and monitoring, integrating DRR and recovery, and making DRR actors central to any relief work. “Those are the objective fields we want to get input from this workshop for,” she said.

Adelina Kamal, Head of Disaster Management and Humanitarian Assistance Division of ASEAN Secretariat agreed. In her speech, she suggested that confusion in the DRR field in ASEAN countries stems from discussions about ways to unify coordination among ASEAN state members across the region. She further pointed out that ASEAN tended only to engage on emergency response after disaster had hit. “We want to ensure ASEAN plays a role in entire disaster management actions, both before (by planning Disaster Risk Reduction) and after disaster hits (emergency response, reconstruction and rehabilitation). The NGO and INGOs perspectives are what we need in this case” Adelina said.

The session closed with recommendations from participants from both NGO and INGOs. The recommendations should be considered by ASEAN when forming any policies and follow-up actions regarding DRR issues. The most prevalent recommendations from participants for ASEAN are:

• to determine the objective field for ASEAN in implementing DRR. ASEAN should determine who DRR is for: is it for state members or societies?
• unifying DRR among ASEAN state members.
• Institutionalizing mechanisms and procedures for DRR in ASEAN
• Involving the society in DRR to make it become bottom up rather than top down approach.

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.