Mentawai Response Lessons Learned - A Spark of Hope to Rebuild Mentawai

There are so many things to be learned during responding Mentawai following the earthquake and tsunami. The destruction was massive and the challenge on responding it was enormous. The good thing in responding Mentawai is the agencies responded to West Sumatra Earthquake in 2009 was still in Padang or Padang Pariaman. The relationship between agencies and government which has been developed for months has also given contribution so that response to Mentawai was quite fast.

These lessons learned also capture the uniqueness of Mentawai response. The strong joint effort amongst agencies is one of the benchmarks of the response. This can be seen not only in the emergency phase but also in the government early recovery program.

During 3 months (October 25, 2010 – January 25, 2011) on responding Mentawai, seeing strong cooperation amongst agencies and also with the government is encouraging everyone. The rebuilding of Mentawai would be a long process due to the area’s years of under-development and difficult terrain. But this spirit of joint effort gives a spark of hope in rebuilding Mentawai.

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Arwin Soelaksono - Disaster Response and reConstruction

Photo credit: Madrina Mazhar

Enhancement of the Recovery Quality through Joint Effort and Combined Strategic Program - Lessons Learned from West Sumatra Recovery

This paper will discuss the uniqueness of recovery effort in West Sumatera following the 2009 earthquake. The joint effort and combined strategic program was one of the uniqueness of the recovery. This initiative has proven its successes in building synergies amongst humanitarian agencies to speed up their program and enhance the recovery program quality and obviously reduce the program cost. In order to share this iniaitive to be replicated in other area, the paper give some recommendation which can be used for other program in other recovery effort.

Abstract

In the wake of the 2009 West Sumatra earthquake there were more than 75 international and national agencies works on recovery. Every agency has their experiences, approaches and expertise. It is rich variation on the way each agency undertake the recovery works. On the other hand government has their own perspective, policy and has already developed plans and budget. In the beginning it was difficult to find all efforts that can be intersected. All recovery stakeholders were firm on their decision on how the recovery effort should be implemented.

4 months after the disaster, international, national non-governmental organizations (NGO) and United Nations (UN) agencies that worked in shelter / housing program, started on taking initiative to harmonize their programs with the government plan. During that time serious study on the government plan had been carried out. The government quite open for inputs and both party – NGOs and government – established good relationship and mutual respect.

The joint effort and combined program in housing program caused other good implication. Other programs then interested to replicate this initiative. NGOs that joined in working groups such as Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR), Livelihood and other working groups tried to find synergies amongst them. The result can be sharing resource, joint funding and combined program. These initiatives surely increase recovery pace and enhance the quality.

Keyword: earthquake, West Sumatra, reconstruction, shelter, coordination

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This paper was prepared to be presented in the 5th Annual International Workshop and Expo on Sumatra Tsunami Disaster & Recovery (AIWEST-DR 2010) in Banda Aceh, Indonesia on November 2010.

Arwin Soelaksono - Disaster Response and reConstruction