Asian Transformations in Action - Api-fellowships.org

PERSISTENT PROBLEMS, PROMISING SOLUTIONS AND BENEFICENCE45In accordance with the guidance issued by theNational Coordinating Board (through the NationalCoordinating Board Secretary Decree No. 2, 2001),Indonesia’s grand strategies in coping with disaster andrefugee problems are as follows: (1) emergency responsephase, (2) empowerment phase, (3) reconciliationphase, and (4) relocation phase. The measures to handlerefugees or internally displaced persons (IDPs) are asfollows: (1) emergency/search and rescue, (2) datacollecting, (3) emergency assistance, and (4) people’sinvolvement.According to Puji Pujiono, former director of the UNOffice for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs(OCHA) in Kobe, more effective management ofdisasters would significantly improve human security inIndonesia. 1 To this end, a coherent policy frameworkwith more effective downstream implementation wouldbe a prerequisite. The existing disaster managementpolicy framework is fragmented and scattered, outdatedand lacking in coherence. Devastation from a stringof major calamities in combination with the dawningof new democracy, local autonomy, and regional/international frameworks compel a paradigmatic shiftin the disaster management policy framework.Furthermore, based on my own observations whilejoining volunteering activities to assist Aceh tsunamivictims from December 2004 to January 2005 andYogyakarta earthquake victims in June 2006, thevictim services program in Indonesia is unorganized,unintegrated and not well-planned. Besides the factthat before 2007 Indonesia did not have the DisasterManagement Act, the prevailing disaster managementpolicies before 2007 were not adequate to cope withdisaster response activities. Badan Koordinasi NasionalPenanggulangan Bencana dan Penanganan Pengungsi(National Coordinating Board for Disaster Managementand Refugee Handling), which coordinates disastermanagement and has branches in all provinces andregencies in Indonesia, could not integrate andcoordinate the disaster countermeasures since theBoard was equipped with only limited jurisdiction,had poor facilities, was understaffed, had a low budgetand had unclear policies. Therefore, when a disasteroccurred, the victim service providers and caregivers,either coming from the common people, NGOs, orgovernment bodies, ran their activities on their ownwithout coordination among one another.Polices and victim services in Japan’s disastermanagementJapan is located in the circum-Pacific mobile zonewhere seismic and volcanic activities occur constantly.Although the country covers only 0.25 percent of theland area on the planet, the number of earthquakesand the distribution of active volcanoes is quite high.Also, because of its geographical, topographical andmeteorological conditions, the country is subject tofrequent disasters such as typhoons, torrential rains andheavy snow.In Japan there is much damage to lives and propertydue to natural disasters every year. Up until the 1950s,there were numerous large typhoons or large-scaleearthquakes which claimed the lives of more than1,000 people (Suzuki 2006). However, due to theprogress of countermeasures such as the promotionof national land conservation projects, improvementsin weather forecasting technologies, the completionof disaster information communication systems andthe preparation of disaster management systems, thenumber of deaths and missing due to natural disastersshows a declining tendency.When a disaster occurs, it is important for localresidents to take the initiative in performing urgentlyrequired activities such as fighting fires, fighting floods,search and rescue and evacuation in order to helpdisaster management activities proceed smoothly. Forthis reason, residents aware of the need for solidarityin community establish local voluntary disastermanagement organizations. These organizations preparematerials and machinery in the region, and practicedisaster management drills, among others. As of April2001, about 57.9 percent of the households wereparticipating in local voluntary disaster managementorganizations.Various groups, including the Japan Red Cross Society,work as volunteers. To encourage these groups,the national government and local governmentspromote the preparation of a learning environment bydisseminating pertinent information through publicrelations, education and the preparation of an activitybase.Disaster management drills are conducted in orderto confirm and verify the capability of the disastermanagement system of each organization to smoothlycarry out the required activities should a disasteroccur. In the case of an emergency, national and localgovernments must immediately collect and analyzeinformation on the state and scale of the damage andexchange this information with relevant persons andorganizations. After this, a system for executing a disasteremergency response is established. The contents of theAsian Transformations in ActionThe Work of the 2006/2007 API Fellows