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Community-based
disaster management has yet to become a popular notion in Indonesia. As a
country prone to hazard, Indonesia must develop community-based disaster
management, which has been pioneered in many countries. It is also
important to incorporate gender perspective in disaster management, an
idea that has not been touched on by Indonesian policy makers.
The Great
Hanshin Awaji Earthquake in 1995 hit the city of Kobe and other parts of
the Hyogo prefecture in Japan, resulting in deaths and damaged property.
Immediately after the earthquake, many people were rescued from the
debris by their neighbors and relatives. Statistics show that 85 percent
of the victims self-evacuated or were rescued by their neighbors. The
idea of the local community as the primary actor in disaster management
was sparked.
Community-based
disaster management (CBDM) was realized when the United Nations Center
for Regional Development established its Hyogo office to carry out
research and information dissemination activities for the implementation
of the Hyogo Framework of Action, which was adopted at the UN World
Conference on Disaster Reduction in 2005.
However,
there has been no significant progress in the implementation of CBDM in
Indonesia. It is widely perceived that disaster risk reduction is the
responsibility of the government and rescue bodies. It is important for
the community to get involved in vulnerability and capacity assessment.
Let the
people come up with a collective understanding on what they deem as
vulnerable conditions and critical resources for coping. The local
populations have local knowledge of vulnerabilities and are repositories
of any traditional coping mechanism suited for their own environment.
When all
agencies, including international donor organizations, have left, it is
the local population that strives to rebuild their community. In the
Philippines, the Municipality of Guagua, in the Province of Pampanga, the
Pampanga Disaster Coordinating Council has vigorously pursued structural
and non-structural measures to address the devastating effects of
volcanic lava or mudflows after the massive eruption of Mount Pinatubo in
1991.
The
government needs to popularize this strategy across Indonesia. According
to the 2010-2015 national disaster management plan, the National Agency
for Disaster Management (BNPB) will establish 1,100 disaster-prepared
villages in 33 provinces. That number is far below the need as there are
hundreds of thousands of areas that are prone to droughts, earthquakes,
tsunamis, flooding and erosion. Regional and local parliaments as well as
regional governments have to promote regional legislation and training
regarding CBDM.
It is also
important to incorporate gender perspective in disaster management
programs. Women and children are important points of concern for policy
makers and national disaster bodies. Currently, BNPB has no tangible
activities regarding women and children. Oxfam reported that female
casualties in the 2004 Aceh tsunami were 30 percent higher than male. In
the North Aceh district, 70 percent of the casualties were female.
Disasters
affect both males and females, but social patriarchy has worsened women’s
suffering. Women, who are traditionally assigned to domestic tasks, are
rarely involved in disaster prevention activities. Women in Aceh were
barely able to swim during their evacuation attempts. After the
Yogyakarta earthquake in 2006, many women were found dead in debris
hugging their children.
Research by
the faculty of social and political sciences, Christian University of
Indonesia, found that many women experienced trauma after they had lost
their homes and economic assets as a result of flooding. To gather
information, researchers directly observed the affected areas and
conducted interviews with village leaders in Kampung Pulo and Cawang,
East Jakarta.
After the
floods occurred, the community received rice, clothes, bags, and instant
food but none of the donors or government agencies helped with the local
community’s economic recovery. Women, who mostly operate small
businesses, are in need of cash to reestablish them. In Pleret, Bantul
and Kinasih, Women Solidarity created a lending cooperative that gives
women start-up money to establish their own businesses after their homes
were severely damaged by an earthquake.
Micro-finance
institutions (MFIs) could play a big role not only in disaster recovery
but also in disaster risk reduction and response, both for men and women.
A case study in Hatiya, Bangladesh (Parvin & Shaw, 2013) showed that
there are skill development training programs offered by MFIs that
include training and capacity-building for disaster recovery and
preparedness.
MFI’s credit
could be used for disaster response to carry out shelter construction,
home rebuilding and to create provisions to ensure safe water and food
supplies. It is inspiring that an overwhelming majority of MFI’s clients
are satisfied with the support services that MFIs provide and acknowledge
that they have contributed to disaster recovery and preparedness.
Therefore,
the government must realize that local communities are the first to be
affected by disasters. Enhancing the capacity of local communities will
accelerate the creation of communities that are sustainable and
well-prepared for disasters. ●
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