Joint Efforts to Build Sustainable Resilience in Kupang District

Repeated crop failures in Kupang District, East Nusa Tenggara, have raised concerns for local government and communities. One of the main reasons droughts have been so harmful is the inadequate capacity of communities and stakeholders to identify and integrate disaster risk reduction into local and village government planning.

Endy Daniel S.N. Oematan, Secretary of East Amabi Oefeto Sub-District Head  explained that planning for villages in his area prioritises community empowerment, including by purchasing crop seeds. The problem is that these plans tend to be the same every year,  including the type of seed, the quantity and even time of purchase. ‘This is despite the visible shifts in rainfall and rain pattern.

For example, in 2023, land was  cultivated and corn seed was purchased at the end of the year, as had been the practice in previous years. Considering that most farms in Kupang District rely on rainfall, this cycle is timed to align with ‘normal’ annual rainfall patterns. However, when El Niño conditions caused prolonged drought conditions in late 2023 and early 2024, the farms experienced harvest failures. They had to rely on tubers, which are less affected by the drought. ‘A lot of them had to sell their livestock just to buy food’, added Endy.

Natan, Head of Batuinan Village, said that the main threat in his village is drought. The direct impacts they see every year are lack of clean water and crop failure. These impacts, Natan said, are getting worse over time. ‘We can’t drill wells too deep because of the risk of landslide’, he said.

Given its coastal location, Batuinan residents must endure tropical storms every year which not only threaten their crops, but also damage infrastructure. Natan notes that the village government routinely distributes 4 kilograms of corn seeds for each of the 106 heads of household (KK).

Understanding disasters

The lack of knowledge about disasters and climate change, including how to respond to and work around them, means that residents and even the village government have little choice but to accept the situation. According to Endy, people have only recently understood that the food insecurity they are experiencing is related to climate change, so talking about integrating disaster risk reduction into village planning would be quite difficult. ‘They have no idea how to read climate change and use it as a basis for making decisions regarding their seed purchases, land cultivation, etc.’, said Endy.

Residents rely on the village government to make decisions, but the village government also relies heavily on the district government, for example for clarification on the regulation to use the village fund. Although central government regulations allow village funds to be used for disasters in a broad sense, the village government still would not include them in village planning if the district government has not issued its own regulation.

Endy hopes that with better understanding of disasters, planning and regulations at the district and village levels will no longer be a copy and paste from previous years. We hope that the budget can be used more appropriately to help protect residents from the threat of natural disaster based on the specific risk profile at that time including climate forecasts. The village budget in his area relies only on village funds and Village Fund Allocation (ADD) from the district government because the Local Revenue (PAD) is very low. ‘Not even the minimum level, it’s not enough’, Endy said.

Alignment between village and district

Circle of Imagine Society (CIS) Timor, a humanitarian organisation based in East Nusa Tenggara, observed this reality and responded by designing the Building Sustainable Community Resilience program within the Framework of Disaster Resilient Villages (Destana). The 8-month program is being supported by the SIAP SIAGA Program and  implemented in Kupang District.Pilot testing of the integration of Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) into village planning will be undertaken in 5 of the districts 176 villages.

In addition to working with village governments to make the best use of village funds for disaster preparedness activities, through this program, we will also encourage and work with the Kupang Regency Government to draft disaster-related documents. This effort represents a commitment to the program, budget, and policies of the Kupang Regency Government to support village resilience,” said Ephy Pellokila, Advocacy Officer of CIS Timor.

Ephy confirmed that generally residents and even village officials in Kupang District do not have a complete understanding of disasters, let alone of how to incorporate DRR integration into village planning. According to Ephy, several parties have held discussions about disasters in the area, but these are limited to emergency response situations, ‘for example, evacuation spots during a storm, an earthquake, or a flood. And the procedures for distributing logistics, things like that’, he explained.

According to Ephy, the threat of disasters in Kupang District includes geological disasters such as earthquakes, tsunami, landslides, as well as hydro-meteorological disasters such as extreme weather, tornadoes, floods, droughts, and forest and land fires.  The last major storm to hit the region was Cyclone Seroja in 2021, alongside the threat of tropical cyclone formations like 94S Cyclone in early March 2024.

Ephy notes that at the national level, existing regulations allow for village funds to be used for disaster relief. However, the absence of regulations at the district level has made village governments, even if they had some understanding, reluctant to make new, unfamiliar budget plans.

That is why in this program, CIS Timor will carry out advocacy at both the district and the village levels at the same time. Ephy said that currently the Kupang District Government has Local Regulation (Perda) No. 3 of 2022 on the Implementation of Disaster Management. ‘But the contents of the regulation are still very general. We need at least 3 regent regulations as technical guidelines for implementing that local regulation, as well as completing other DRR-related documents’, he said.

The program is being implemented in  Tanah Putih Village in East Kupang Sub-District; Batuinan and Uiasa Villages in Semau Sub-District; and Enolanan and Oemolo Villages in East Amabi Oefeto Sub-District. Upon completion, these villages are expected to be ready to carry out the 2025 village budget planning by referring to these disaster-related documents. ‘By this time, the Kupang District Government will have completed the 3 Regent Regulations derived from the local disaster regulations, so that with these regulatory references and the 5 pilot villages, other villages will be encouraged to do the same thing. We will also involve village assistants to speed up the process’, said Ephy.

In terms of livelihoods, through this program, village residents will be encouraged to engage in horticulture within their yards. This is to strengthen drought anticipation, considering that agriculture in Kupang Regency is conducted on large tracts of land, which not only require a lot of water but are also vulnerable to price drops in agricultural products. It is hoped that with small-scale, water-efficient farming, farmers can continue to produce during the dry season and at least meet their families’ nutritional needs.