Empowering Local Actors at The Frontline of Disaster Management

Positioning local people or communities as actors in the frontlines of disaster management is not a new concept. Although only briefly, this practice is enshrined in the Sendai Framework 2015–2030, functioning as the only universally recognised international instrument that guides various countries in their disaster risk reduction efforts. In this framework, a country’s resilience can only be achieved with actions and partnerships that delegate roles and responsibilities in building resilience down to the local level.

Localisation efforts were also strengthened through a humanitarian reform agenda known as the Grand Bargain, introduced at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit. This agreement encourages the involvement of local actors in accessing funding and carrying out humanitarian action in the field through partnerships with donors as well as national and local governments. This agenda promotes capacity building and community leadership in managing humanitarian action, including disaster risk reduction, according to needs and capacity. Hence, such involvement does not only focus on community representation during disasters but also its inclusion and participation in the development of disaster risk management policy on a wider scale. Almost a decade since both of these instruments were agreed upon, this local resilience is becoming increasingly evident and was even referred to adapt during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Learning from the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic, which restricted people’s mobility within regional boundaries, meant that local resilience became a requirement for the continuation of daily life. At the family and village level, community members relied on collective action and social capital in managing self-quarantine and in fulfilling food and other basic needs caused by the disconnection of networks and supply chains. Countries directly relied on community behaviour in protecting the health of their citizens and to build national resilience, demonstrating the importance of the community’s role in providing appropriate humaitarian action.

These good practices were recorded in a learning synthesis carried out by the SIAP SIAGA Program entitled: “Because Resilience is Local” in 2022. The report summarises lessons learned and identifies the impact of localising COVID-19 management in the Indo-Pacific region as the basis for future sustainable resilience. However, the report concludes that the localisation structure at the time was limited to the pandemic management context and did not apply to disasters in general. A more general-purpose locally based preparedness system will be needed to form the backbone of effective disaster response.

Two years since the report was published, the SIAP SIAGA Program continues to support the Government of Indonesia in their efforts to promote localised disaster resilience efforts in line with its global commitments, including the Sendai Framework. It is hoped that the government can provide policies that support grassroots participation in disaster risk management. Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement are also important instruments to guide the integration of local participation in responding to the challenges caused by disasters. In the last decade, the frequency and intensity of hydrometeorological disasters in Indonesia have increased significantly as a result of climate change. Accordingly, lessons learned about the potential of local people, who are often on the frontline of disaster preparedness and response and are the most knowledgeable of their contexts and communities,  should be emphasised more in advocacy efforts and as part of the disaster risk management system.

Welcoming sustainable resilience

Local actor involvement in disaster risk management is growing stronger with the commitment of the Government of Indonesia to the concept of Sustainable Resilience. Sustainable Resilience describes a system, governance, and community and that can effectively face, adapt to and recover from disasters in ways that do not undermine development and sustainability. This concept integrates disaster risk management, climate change adaptation and sustainable development goals to create a cohesive strategy for protecting the welfare of the human race and the environment.

Sustainable Resilience in the Indonesian context of disaster governance aim to localise and integrate its global commitments on disaster resilience, climate change adaptation and sustainable development. The National Disaster Management Authority (BNPB) has launched a myriad of initiatives and practices to underline the importance of local actor participation and learning in efforts to reduce disaster risks. Since 2022, BNPB with the SIAP SIAGA Program has collected dozens of local resilience stories from disaster-prone ecoregions in Indonesia. These stories were then launched in a compilation of books entitled: Living with A Volcano in Your Backyard (2022), The River Community Speaks (2023), and The Coastal Community Speaks (2024). These stories focus on the role of communities as the frontline of disaster management and record the strength of collective action and the communities’ local culture in responding to disasters. Read our coverage of one of these endeavours here, where we foster a participative disaster risk management approach as part of Sustainable Resilience in action.

In the context of partnerships in the Indo-Pacific Region, the SIAP SIAGA Program also supports Indonesia’s promotion of the sustainable resilience concept as a conceptual framework for other countries facing similar challenges. This includes, for example, the use of the Coastal Resilience toolkit, which promotes collaboration between disaster actors and local communities in using data to prepare for the threat of hydrometeorological and other disasters in coastal areas. This tool allows the contribution of local knowledge (tacit knowledge) on the interpretation of weather and ocean patterns alongside tested knowledge from experts (explicit knowledge) to produce preparedness policies in coastal areas based on knowledge and data (implicit knowledge).

Having learnt from the effectiveness of localisation during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Government of Indonesia continues to progress in efforts to localise disaster risk management for people and communities. This effort is achieved through adaptation and strengthening the implementation of global commitment tailored to local contexts by adopting Sustainable Resilience principles. Local actors living in areas prone to disaster possess the knowledge to enrich disaster risk management policy. Empowering them as the frontline in disaster management is a strategic step in disaster resilience, climate change adaptation and sustainable development.