Achieving Sustainable Resilience by Localising Global Commitments

Local disaster resilience strategies will be more effective if they can be integrated with a number of global commitments related to disaster risk reduction. Therefore, localising global commitments related to development goals becomes crucial.

This emerged as the result of preliminary findings from a study highlighting the localisation of global commitments in supporting sustainable resilience related to the Aceh tsunami disaster in 2004. The results of the baseline study conducted by the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB), supported by SIAP SIAGA Program, became the main topic of the Seminar on Localising Global Commitments for Sustainable Resilience: “An Integrated Approach”, which was held in Jakarta on May 13, 2024.

The seminar presented a number of speakers, divided into two sessions, namely the presentation session and the panel discussion. In the presentation session, the speaker was the Associate Policy Analyst Expert of the Directorate General of Regional Administration Development of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Fredrick Simatupang, followed by the presentation of the results of the baseline BNPB study by Lu’lu Muhammad as one of the members of the study team.

As for the panel discussion session, the panelists included the Secretary General of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (Planas PRB), Naibul Umam Eko Sakti; Head of the West Nusa Tenggara Provincial Village Government, Population, and Civil Registration Community Empowerment Office, Ahmad Nur Aulia; Country Manager Local Governments for Sustainability (ICLEI), Arif Wibowo; Manager of the Environmental Development Pillar of the SDGs National Secretariat, Rachman Kurniawan; and Putri Rahayu Ratri from Mercy Corps Indonesia (MCI).

Opening the seminar, the BNPB Deputy for Systems and Strategy, Raditya Jati, said that sectoral egos still influence the implementation of the sustainable resilience concept. Each individual or group still wants existence. When in fact, what needs to be achieved is common existence. Sectoral egos need to be abandoned because efforts to achieve sustainable resilience require the role of all sectors at every level. “To create a common platform, we need to look at the indicators on one level. It is necessary to sharpen the concept of sustainable resilience through measurable indicators, inclusive platforms, and clear frameworks and working tools,” he said.

In the presentation session, Fredrick Simatupang, the Associate Policy Analyst Expert at the Directorate General of Regional Administration Development of the Ministry of Home Affairs, suggested sectoral egos are the cause of problems related to disaster management at the regional level. According to him, post-disaster rehabilitation and reconstruction aspects at the regional level tend to be challenging because the focus is more on settlement and public works sectors. “Actually, this is included in basic services. In Law 23/2014, the regional budget is prioritised for basic services (disasters). However, we do not have strong data as a reference to make Indonesia resilient,” said Fredrick.

A member of the BNPB study team, Lu’lu Muhammad, in his presentation on the initial results of the study, explained that we must acknowledge the existence of sectoral egos, which can be seen from the many different thematic forums, such as disasters, climate change, SDGs, and others. Moreover, there are many stakeholders at different levels as well. That way, sectoral egos do not only occur in the government but also in other stakeholders. “And this causes the community to also be compartmentalised,” he said.

When actually, we need collaboration without the accompanying sectoral egos at various levels, including at the global level. Global collaboration is important because currently, disaster risks are increasingly diverse on a wide scale, for example, the impact of climate change. In this regard, Lu’lu added that currently there is no single framework that can overcome disaster problems globally. For this reason, Indonesia needs to integrate three global agreements related to disaster risk reduction to encourage holistic cooperation and adaptive implementation to achieve resilience. These three global agreements are the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR), the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

By integrating the global agreements’ principles and objectives, governments at various levels can strengthen their efforts in managing disaster risks, mitigating the impacts of climate change, and promoting inclusive and sustainable development. “The challenges are related to coordination, resource allocation, different priorities, and the need for policy transformation. Therefore, it is necessary to have a collaborative and integrated implementation to overcome systemic barriers,” he said. In line with the integration process, we must also continue to promote localisation efforts. “Localisation is crucial due to the differences in characteristics from one region to another,” added Lu’lu.

Shared Platform

In the panel discussion session, the Secretary General of the National Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (Planas PRB), Naibul Umam Eko Sakti, conveyed that Indonesia already has a relatively complete development planning tool that harmonises the SFDRR, SDGs, and Paris Agreement. However, its implementation efforts are often constrained by the lack of coordination due to differences in sectoral interests. For this reason, there are at least five aspects that need to be considered in localising disaster risk reduction programs. These aspects are overlap and poor coordination, the lack of local awareness and ownership, limited capacity and resources, diversity of local contexts, and the lack of accurate data and information.

According to Umam, harmonisation of disaster management policies can be a solution. Efforts to harmonise these policies need to be made in a participatory manner by adopting existing experience. For example, the handling of Mount Marapi lava floods can replicate the handling of Mount Merapi lava floods. Therefore, there needs to be coordination between decision-making and technical handling.

The Manager of the Environmental Development Pillar of the National Secretariat of SDGs, Rachman Kurniawan, explained that the SDGs have several principles that intersect with the principle of disaster risk reduction. One of them is the principle of no one left behind. Therefore, it is important to promote DRR strategies to adopt other principles in the SDGs. This adoption can be applied in the development of indicators, programs, activities, and program monitoring and evaluation. “This means SDGs have the opportunity to be used as a platform for integrating various development issues, including in increasing sustainable resilience achievement, which is in line with global commitments and national and regional development agendas,” he said.

He added that gathering information from technical actors on the field, such as local governments, village governments, and the community, is crucial. The challenge is limited resources and the possibility of conflicts of interest. However, this can be addressed with understanding and assistance in choosing a decision support system.

Meanwhile, Putri Rahayu Ratri from Mercy Corps Indonesia conveyed the importance of assistance for village governments in implementing programs and budgeting based on prevailing guidelines. “We can do this by, among others, promoting activities that demonstrate linkage with disaster aspects, sustainable resilience, and the economy in which the community has implemented in their daily lives,” she said.

In her closing remarks, Kate Smith from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) of Australia underlined the importance of aligning global regulations, such as SFDRR, SDGs, and API, so that they are coordinated and involve various sectors. “(Furthermore), Indonesia needs to seek to localise these global commitments to increase the capacity of local resources. Localising global commitments in DRR will increase resilience,” she concluded