Is localisation the key to making disaster preparedness more inclusive?
The evolution of Indonesia’s humanitarian landscape is intertwined with past disasters. In 2004, the Aceh tsunami response was dominated by international actors who didn’t consider national and local priorities. In contrast, for the Central Sulawesi disaster response in 2018, the government restricted the arrival of international actors, allowing national and local actors a larger role.
It is in this context that Yakkum Emergency Unit (YEU) has established IDEAKSI (ide inovasi aksi inklusi — Idea, innovation, action, inclusion) as a programme to find and develop innovations by local communities, as part of the Community-led Innovation Partnership. Its focus is on improving inclusion in disaster management in Indonesia, particularly for people with disabilities and older people. As one of its first steps they commissioned a Scoping Study from the Pujiono Centre to better understand the current gaps in inclusive disaster management practices.
Inclusive disaster management in Indonesia
YEU’s study, “Inclusive Humanitarian System and Landscape in Indonesia”, found that although inclusion of vulnerable groups in disaster preparedness is widely supported through policies and regulations, implementation is inconsistent and often limited by capacity. Government officials and NGO leaders do not always have the knowledge and skills to make their activities inclusive. At community-level, vulnerable groups are only beginning to be included and participate widely in disaster preparedness planning.
The study also highlights positive examples from Yogyakarta, where locally-driven participation of vulnerable groups is leading to better results, such as the Yogyakarta Special Region Children’s Forum. The forum provides a sign language interpreter to support the participation and virtual learning of children with disabilities.
The 2006 eruption of Mount Merapi volcano in Yogyakarta province was a turning point in awareness that “vulnerable groups…are social capital.” This led the Social Agency of Yogyakarta to establish Difabel Siaga Bencana (DIFAGANA) — the People with Disabilities Task Force for Disaster Response. It is this local ownership of inclusive preparedness that seems to be key for success.
The case of DIFAGANA demonstrates how inclusive response can emerge from the grassroots. Since it was formed, DIFAGANA has been involved in disaster management projects in Lombok, Central Sulawesi, among other areas, and they have received training on shelter management, public kitchens, psychosocial services, logistics, emergency first aid, and the use of communication tools. As time goes by, more and more people are asking DIFAGANA for help — a testament to their approach.
Community engagement is key for inclusive disaster risk reduction so that the stigma and misconceptions about the agency and capacity of vulnerable groups can be addressed. In Indonesia, local governments are well positioned to facilitate this engagement, but lack capacity and resources. As the study says, “There is the need for sustained assistance to local governments to understand and translate plans and budgets related to inclusion into budget arrangements and allocations in their respective localities”.
Bottom-up and top-down approaches
YEU’s findings highlight the need for bottom-up approaches that would “bring the reality and perspectives of vulnerable groups…to formulating policies”, complemented by top-down approaches to support “the implementation of a coordination scheme from the national level to the regional and sector levels.” In both directions, further localisation has the potential to catalyse action and improve the effectiveness of inclusion efforts.
From a bottom-up perspective, participation of vulnerable groups is key to inclusive planning at the local level. The study identifies problems such as groups not understanding or knowing that their participation is important, and participation that is confined to leadership of vulnerable groups. In other cases,
“involvement is mostly still limited to the presence of the beneficiary, and not yet in the full capacity of stakeholders who truly voice their special needs, aspirations, and contributions in a substantively and broad manner. Barriers from the environment, facilities and mobility still hinder the participation of vulnerable groups.”
The pandemic is, perhaps surprisingly, showing routes to more inclusive participation through information and communication technology: events held online negate barriers to physically attending an event, home visits are allowing for more robust data collection, and Google’s live transcript feature helps overcome communication barriers. As in many other situations only beginning to be documented and understood, Covid-19 is requiring more localised work — to encouraging effect, from a Grand Bargain perspective.
From a top-down perspective, the study recommends increased efforts by the existing cluster and subcluster system to support the Local Disaster Management Agency and Social Agency in forming partnerships with local humanitarian actors. It also recommends further localising the national humanitarian coordination structures to better support the translation of policies into action. This year, YEU has been actively involved in advocating the government establish “SubKlaster LDR” (a sub-cluster of older people, people with disabilities, and vulnerable groups) at the provincial level, so that later local innovators and organisations have more opportunities to lead and be part of coordination mechanisms.
Practical steps forward
YEU’s study concludes with four main recommendations to make humanitarian response more inclusive, based on the gaps it found in supporting vulnerable groups in disaster preparedness.
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Provide inclusive and accessible media information about disaster preparedness. Available information is not user-friendly, complete, nor comprehensive due to lack of understanding of the potential and needs and specificities of vulnerable groups.
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Encourage the government to mainstream inclusion in all capacity building activities. Government at all levels needs to advance a better understanding of disability so as to better involve vulnerable groups and develop everyone’s capacity to be inclusive.
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Vulnerable people need to be involved in leadership positions and decision-making in humanitarian coordination at all levels. Vulnerable groups should be an integral part of local analysis, planning and budgeting and, in turn, into inclusive preparedness and humanitarian response.
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Identify budget items that have opportunities for inclusive disaster preparedness funding. Additional budget or support should be sought to ensure active involvement of the people with disabilities and older people.
The next step will be for YEU’s IDEAKSI platform to identify innovators to start designing solutions to solve these critical gaps. YEU strives to support innovator’s to connect and be led by the community of these vulnerable groups while also connecting with local government to ensure that simultaneous top- down and bottom-up approach. The initiative hopes that this innovative approach will result in sustainable solutions for these communities.
CLIP believes that local humanitarian actors can best leverage national and international networks to identify good practices, and innovative ideas for improvement. YEU hopes that in time, these eventual ideas and existing collection of practices can be filtered and tested to become role models for promoting inclusive practices in preparedness and humanitarian response.
This is the first in a series of blogs that sets out to explore the innovation journey from the perspective of community-based partners providing localised funding and support. This blog explores Yakkum Emergency Unit’s aims to improve inclusion in humanitarian preparedness and response in Indonesia, specifically people with disabilities and older people in disaster management. This blog was first published on Medium by Alice Greider (CLIP Coordinator, Elrha).
By the Pujiono Centre research team (Pujiono, A. Budi Prasetyo, Z. Septikasari, M. Silviana, and H. Syahroeddin), Jessica Novia (Information Officer and Partner Relations, YEU), Debora Utamie (Project Manager, YEU), and Alice Greider (CLIP Coordinator, Elrha).