Key Disaster Management Successes: January 2012 – February 2013 Risk and Vulnerability
To help communities better prepare for floods, earthquakes and tsunami, a new hazard impact modelling tool, the Indonesia scenario assessment for emergencies (InaSAFE) was developed by AIFDR in partnership with BNPB and the World Bank. This free and open software produces realistic disaster scenarios for contingency planning. Indonesia’s President Dr Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono praised InaSAFE as being “very beneficial for us all”. AIFDR has also developed training material to teach Indonesian disaster managers how to use InaSAFE, OpenStreetMap and Quantum GIS to produce realistic natural hazard scenarios for contingency planning. To date, this pilot program has trained over 150 people across six Provinces in the fundamentals of using participatory mapping techniques for collecting data and the use of InaSAFE for analysing this data and informing contingency planning.
AIFDR’s Dr Trevor Dhu explaining the new hazard impact modelling tool, the Indonesia scenario assessment for emergencies (InaSAFE) to the Indonesian President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
Training and Outreach
To support the Indonesian President’s Master Plan for Reducing Tsunami Risk, AIFDR brought together leading Indonesian and Australian tsunami scientists to develop Indonesia’s most robust and realistic national tsunami hazard map. This same team is now developing a realistic tsunami scenario to support BNPB’s international disaster management exercise in Padang and the Mentawai Islands. With the support of AIFDR, over 6,700 disaster managers from BNPB and BPBD’s have undertaken disaster management training across a range of areas including: rapid response; contingency planning; information; rapid assessment and coordination; community-based disaster risk management; and senior management training. This brings the total number of people trained since January 2011 to over 11,000 of which 47% were women. To further strengthen the capacity of BNPB, AIFDR is supporting the building of two Emergency Operations Centres in Makassar and Kupang, and a new Disaster Management and Training Centre (UPT-BNPB) in Padang. The Padang Centre will function both as a training and logistics facility to support Indonesia to better prepare for disasters. When built, they will enhance disaster preparedness and response coordination across government and communities.
BNPB staff facilitate group discussion on resilient village.
The Capacity Development Support Program (CDSP) also supports strengthening capacity within BNPB and selected BPBDs. There are currently 14 advisors/ consultants placed directly within BNPB and BPBD’s including in key positions to support the BNPB Deputy for Emergency Management and BNPB’s Training and Education Centre. This number will grow to 22 by the end of 2013. The AIFDR funded film, “Message from the Ocean”, made in partnership with BNPB and the Red Cross, attracted a viewing audience of over 11.5 million people when it first screened on Indonesia’s Metro TV on 29 December 2012. Designed to educate people to know what to do in the event of an earthquake or tsunami, the film is one of the many approaches being used by AIFDR to spread key survival messages to those who may be impacted by natural disasters.
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