Capacity Development : Supporting Disaster Mitigation Activity in Indonesia

Capacity Development : Supporting Disaster Mitigation Activity in Indonesia

Andi Eka Sakya

ABSTRACT

Indonesian's position is very unique. Indonesia is flanked by two continents and two oceans. As one of the biggest archipelagic countries in the world, it consist of more than 17000 islands lies across approximately 6000 km width from east to west and full of volcanic mountain often called ring of fire. That situation, added by the influence of meridional and zonal circulation, affects the complexities of the climate variation in Indonesia. Furthermore, the interaction between the Indian Ocean and te African one, so-called dipole mode, impinges on the weather at western side of the country. In the eastern part, the ENSO phenomenon, frequently induce weather anomaly especially extreme drought.

In addition to that, Indonesia lies on the three dynamic faults so-called Eurasia, Pacific and Indo-Australia plates, which move approaching each other with different speed of dilatation. This alone poses a potent and vulnerable position of Indonesia to the earthquake. Depending on the movement of the plate, because almost of the plate position is within the sea area, the sub-ducted movement often causes tsunami.

Those above condition lay the foundation of the Indonesian's vulnerability to disaster, not only because of weather or climate anomaly but also because of earthquake, tsunami as well as volcanoes. Those disasters easily originate damage and live lost, especially when people do not aware of the cause as to how disaster could happen. The awareness of the incident can lead to the early warning and can also reduce the damages as well as the victims.

This paper reports the activity encompasses the country's resource capability addresses the crucial question on disaster mitigation. It covers human resource development technologically, institutionally as well as organizationally. The ultimate objective is to discuss the steps that have been undertaken related to capacity development with regard to the disaster mitigation.

This paper outlines briefly the type of disasters that potentially occur, followed by the basic approach ion management development on the disaster mitigation. Activities that have been conducted at other institutions be it individually or in coordinated term, is also explained.

Keywords : Disaster prone, Tsunami, Meteorology, Earthquake, Early warning, Capacity building.

(Natural Disasters: Policy Issues and Mitigation Strategies. 2011. Daya Publishing House : New Delhi, India.)