Documenting Lessons for Local Disaster Resilience

Flash floods that struck areas in the upstream region of Jeneberang River, South Sulawesi, in 2004 have left valuable lessons for the communities affected. The incident, which claimed 33 lives and hundreds of livestock, and damaged settlements and infrastructure, became the starting point for Kaharuddin Muji and his colleagues to establish the Sabo Jeneberang community network in 2005.

This community aims to improve preparedness among residents to face future disaster risks through education, simulation exercises, and conservation activities.

This story is a snippet of one of the inspirational stories in the book The River Community Speaks, published in 2023 by the National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB) and supported by the SIAP SIAGA Program. It also illustrates the power that local communities have to initiate disaster risk mitigation and management interventions with an approach that suits their region’s context.

People living in disaster-prone areas may experience daily anxiety about the possibility of natural disasters. For those who live at the foot of a volcano, the possibility of an eruption is a daily concern. In addition, when the rainy season arrives, some of the general public may consider it a blessing, but for those who live along the river, floods can strike at any moment and wash away their homes and belongings. The same is true for those who live in coastal areas, where factors like landslides or earthquakes can create a tsunami risk.

It is this situation that encourages local figures to take action. Unfortunately, according to the Preparedness Director of BNPB, Drs. Pangarso Suryotomo (known as Pak Papang), these stories of local initiative and good practices are not been well documented.

This became one of the motivations that encouraged Mr Papang and the SIAP SIAGA Program to create a book series describing the solutions and good practices of local communities in building resilience to disaster threats and climate risks in their neighbourhoods.

From Local to Inspiration and Innovation

Through the Community-Based Disaster Risk Management Program (PRBBK), Pak Papang sees many examples of interventions initiated by local communities that have successfully contributed to building resilience.

‘The results of this work are mostly conveyed through seminars. However, we (BNPB) do not know exactly how they exist. So, we thought documenting their stories in the form of books would be valuable’, explained Mr Papang.

This idea was followed up by tracing communities around volcanoes in 2022. The search resulted in the finding that many inspirational figures have succeeded in making locally driven solutions to reduce risk and increase resilience, but sometimes these go unnoticed or underappreciated by the local government in their area.

BNPB believes that these local actors have an important role in improving local resilience and disaster risk management. ‘They live there, and of course, they are well known by the people there, so they have the ability to mobilise the local community. Their words are more likely to be heard. Outsiders may not be able to do this. Local context is very important in building local resilience and managing disaster risk’, said Mr Papang. In building resilience, their role is not limited to disaster management but can touch on the welfare aspects of the people in the area. In this context, welfare is not limited to aspects of people’s livelihoods but how their basic needs can be met through local community initiatives.

Pak Papang explained that lessons learned from local communities which are documented in books can be disseminated to to inspire other regions, both at a national and international level.

This documentation effort also aims to stimulate other actors and communities to tell their stories and share their experiences.  This hopefully can create a knowledge exchange process so that lessons learned can be replicated in and adapted by other regions.

BNPB, supported by the SIAP SIAGA Program, has published 2 books to date. The first book, Living with Volcano in Our Backyard, contains stories from communities in volcanic areas in was published in May 2022. The second, entitled The River Community Speaks, tells inspiring stories about the resilience of river communities and was published in October 2023. The next book that will be published during Disaster Risk Management Month (DRR Month) in October 2024 will document stories from communities living in coastal areas in building local resilience in facing disaster risks and climate change.

Impactful Stories

Stories of innovation and good practices in building resilience do not stop once the books are published. This knowledge dissemination has a continued impact in the form of lessons learned being adapted in other regions.

For example, the community living in Mount Semeru in East Java Province has conducted a comparative study with the community living on Mount Merapi, particularly from the PASAG Merapi Community, whose story is told in the book The Volcano Community Speaks.

Almost all of them are well adapted to the new knowledge. The people of Mount Semeru have learned various practices of volcano resilience from the community living in Mount Merapi. Many communities based in river areas have learned from the river community in Sulawesi, whose story is told in the book The River Community Speaks. Even so, the implementation is tailored to the context in their area’, said Mr Papang.

These stories of good practices have not only been shared through the books. Community initiators have also participated in activities that enabled them to tell their stories directly to their audience and network.

One such activity was during the 10th World Water Forum event, held in Bali from 18 to 25 May 2024, which was attended by people from the river-based communities described in the book The River Community Speaks. They participated in the discussions in the forum and contributed to the global-level agreement as an output of this forum.

Looking at the success of documenting community-based good practices, Mr Papang conveyed that BNPB plans on developing the fourth book after the book on coastal communities is published. ‘The fourth book will focus on stories of strengthening disaster mitigation in mountainsides, rivers and coasts. It is important to tell these stories because they will highlight how local communities are able to create their own early warning and disaster mitigation systems for when disasters do occur’.