An assessment of Indonesia's response to natural disasters

By Ffion Bright

The image of Indonesia as a “laboratory for disaster experts” (National Agency Presentation on Disaster Management in Indonesia, 2023)  is far from an exaggeration. The country’s hazardous position on a patchwork of tectonic plates paired with 128 active volcanoes (James, 2008), is a dangerous combination even before considering the growing effects of El Niño and heavy logging on forest fires in Indonesia’s traditionally tropical islands. As such, this paper will outline and assess the current procedures and efforts taken to mitigate the disastrous effects of Indonesia’s ever-increasing collection of natural disasters on both a domestic and international level. 

Regionalised, asymmetric domestic handling

Considering that Indonesia is the world’s largest archipelago to form a single state, it is unsurprising to see the country’s domestic approach to natural disasters take both a centralised and local outlook. Indonesian law number 24 of 2007 effectively legitimises the powers of the entities and confirms their responsibilities in such catastrophes. Both the legal basis and the policies built onto it show an interconnection between central government and periphery action which is inherent to Indonesia’s policy on natural disasters.

Badan Nasional Penanggulangan Bencana (BNPB) is the National Agency for Disaster Countermeasure, its main work focuses on policy creation and coordinating disaster relief. A pertinent aspect of BNPB’s programmes is to implement community-based projects. For instance, the ‘Family Disaster Resilience’ project educates citizens on natural disaster response whilst emphasising sharing knowledge in the family and advocating for family units to implement their new knowledge into household mitigation. Other projects are designed on a community level. In Bogor, for example, preparation is being implemented with the people’s lifestyle at heart, by increasing the presence of disaster information on public transport to reflect the urban city’s high population of commuters. 

A further characterising element of Indonesia’s domestic policy towards natural disasters is the priority placed on the environment, a principle that is deeply rooted in the nation’s history as evidenced by oral accounts and local practices. Most notably, prior to the integration of the Islands that now make up Indonesia, people’s response to natural disasters was heavily based on the belief that these events were the physical manifestation of power and thus represented the coexistence and connection between the natural and the supernatural. In daily life, this meant that such events corresponded to shifts in political power movement, a reasoning that was readily employed by Sukarno, whose birth year coincided with a major volcanic eruption (Kramer, 2023). 

Through an understanding of how the catastrophes were perceived, we can contextualise risk reduction mechanisms that long outdated the government's modern solutions. Pertinent examples of this can be seen in both risk recognition and protective responses. In Aceh Tamiang, records show a long tradition of observing ants moving their eggs to higher ground to monitor rising river levels; and in Pidie Jaya, they employed a night watch in heavy rain to sound the alarm in the village in case of landslides. 

In a modern context, though, such mechanisms are insufficient, as the erosion of traditional knowledge and the blooming of technologically based mitigation illustrate a call for a new form of local practices that reflect this new dynamic.  Such efforts are arising in Indonesia’s use of vegetation for disaster mitigation, the additional roots from the afforestation bind the soil together to discourage landslides and the vegetation can act as a barrier, as seen in the mangrove forest that became the fortress that protected Kabonga Besar Village in Donggala, Central Sulawesi blocking a tsunami caused by the 7,4 RS earthquake in 2018 (Emerald Insight, 2019)

Indonesian policies are rightly regionalised to suit the archipelago, however this approach is not without flaws based on unequal knowledge and implementation throughout the islands. This was violently illustrated in the technically moderate 5.6 magnitude earthquake of 21/11/2022 in Cianjur and Java, which killed more than 320 people and injured thousands. These disproportionately severe effects can be accounted for as state failure to ensure central policies are thoroughly and equally implemented on a regional level with awareness programmes only for coastal areas and in the case of megathrust earthquakes. Thus failure to formulate inclusive regional policies remains a risk that often leaves inlanders vulnerable, a contributing factor to claims that “many Indonesians are experiencing a life that is as dangerous and hazardous as in war-torn parts of the world” (Vitchek, 2023)

A simple call, however, for more policies to fill these problematic holes neglects to recognise the constraints of the Indonesian economy. Between 2014 and 2018, approximately 1.7% of central government spending was related to natural disasters, three times the original budget (World Bank 2021). This was recognised by Sri Mulyani Indrawati, the current Minister of Finance, as a threat to other priority sectors such as education, health and subnational governments (Worldbank, 2021), and as such, it made way for international partners to aid in financing and play a major role in Indonesia’s approach to mitigation and managing natural disasters.

A Flawed Equalising Solution Found in International Support

With increasing global awareness of Indonesia’s hazardous setting from mass communication of drastic events, such as the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami, many states are looking to aid the Republic of Indonesia by sharing infrastructure and funds.

One such country is Japan which will prioritise Indonesia in its sharing of its disaster alert system to South East Asia next summer. This technology totals $12 million in worth and has the ability to transmit crucial disaster information collected by Japanese meteorologists, domestic fire and disaster management agencies and local governments to smartphones, websites, TVs and radios (Nikkei Asia, 2023). This project will be funded by Japan’s official development assistance and will be of vital importance in correcting information asymmetries in the diverse communities of Indonesia that were so evident in the analysis of domestic policies. 

In terms of post-disaster support,  the international community’s help is evident both on an institutional level with the World Bank’s January 2021 US$500 million lending operation for natural disaster response and COVID-19 recovery (Worldbank, 2021) and through individual aid organisations presence on the ground following disasters. This cannot be seen, however, as a perfect solution, as illustrated following the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami when individual aid organisation’s actions overlapped and thus limited each other and the influx of money entering the country with the arrival of relatively wealthy aid workers resulted in considerable inflation meaning access to basic necessities decreased for many mourning, impoverished Indonesians. Increased engagement from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in this field can help to address many such issues. 

Whilst there did exist a degree of unity in ASEAN's response to natural disasters since the 1976 declaration on Mutual Assistance, the need for a collective response has only become all the more prevalent with natural disasters such as the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami and 2008 Cyclone Nargis which made way in 2005 for AADMER and in 2011 for AHA centre. 

The ASEAN Agreement on Disaster Management and Emergency Response (AADMER) in 2005 bound the states together to promote regional cooperation and collaboration in joint response to natural disasters. Whilst various iterations of the AADMER framework have since evolved, the 5 priority programmes of risk assessment and monitoring; prevention and mitigation, preparedness and response, resilient recovery and global leadership (ASEAN DRR-CCA, 2021), can be seen at the heart of all evolutions and the AADMER should be understood as the foundation for ASEAN’s current natural disasters policy.

The goals of the ASEAN Coordinating Centre for Humanitarian Assistance on disaster management (AHA Centre) can be understood from their 2014 declaration of ‘one ASEAN one response’,  which established the basis for fast responses through mobilisation of resources and strong coordination between ASEAN nations in the face of natural disasters. This declaration also established the AHA centre as the “primary ASEAN regional coordinating agency on disaster management and emergency response”.

This engagement is sedimented in projects such as InAware 2014, which is the result of AHA Centre collaboration and Pacific Disaster Center and is an adaptation of an early warning and disaster monitoring platform that aids the government on a local and state level from quick, critical analyses to what happened, to what severity and what action should be thus taken. This technology has been widely applied in Indonesia, covering 273+ million of the population and notably 13 provincial offices, such a large subscription highlighted 4,700+ hazards being reported and monitored over the infrastructure in 2021 alone (US AID, nd). This shows the continued need for international support in correcting the inequalities in domestic policy.

There exist, however, limitations to the outsourcing of infrastructure as demonstrated by the Web Emergency Operations Centre (WebEOC). WebEOC allows states to monitor the live situation on the ground and ASEAN member states can post requests or offers of aid- an impactful tool given the previously examined critics of the international response in the 2004 aftermath. However, WebEOC’s measly budget, with only $5.8 million on creation, means at best that its mission is ambitious and at worst that it’s not realistic. The financial stability of such a tool is further threatened by the fact that only $300,000 of this budget is provided for by ASEAN member states (Hughes, 2015). In the context of Si Hui Lim and Md Saidul Islam’s point that “as disaster management strategies and technology become more costly, the attempt to spread the disaster burden among participant nations may not be well received among economically developed nations” (SM. Islam et SH. Lim, 2015) raises the question of the long-term viability of infrastructure so dependent on foreign funding, especially at a time when Western economies face their own domestic problems with rising inflation in the context of the Russo-Ukrainian war. 

In conclusion, Indonesia’s policies and infrastructure towards natural disasters are in constant evolution. On a domestic level, we see the challenges of the divided geographic reality of the state are partially accounted for by the empowerment of local actors, as presented by the continuation of traditional knowledge alongside contemporary projects targeting the modern reality of each environment as seen in Bogor, but still challenged by regional dissymmetry of knowledge and infrastructure. On an international level, we see this being partially addressed with increased accessibility to knowledge and infrastructure, notably Japan’s sharing of alert technology and InAware, yet there remains the problem of the long-term feasibility of such aid and Indonesian self-sufficiency. All in all, this paper thus outlines the problem of Indonesia’s domestic policy being incomplete without international support and further nuances of the evolving notion of sovereignty and cooperation in a globalized world. Ultimately whether this is a temporary arrangement whilst the nation establishes greater economic resources remains to be seen, however, what must be of note for policymakers now is the current, precarious balancing act between dependence on foreign powers and insufficient protection in self-sufficiency.

References

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