An urgent need to legislate for disaster management

Puji Pujiono, Jakarta

Over the weekend, close to 30,000 persons perished in one of the worst earthquakes in South Asia while another fifteen hundred were killed by floods and landslides in Guatemala. When the tsunami devastated our shores in Aceh, we thought it was the worst and last nightmare. Before long, the Nias mega quake hit. As we sighed with relief, Katrina and Rita inflicted massive destruction in the U.S.

Serious attention to disasters is nothing new. The decade of the 1990s was designated to be the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction (IDNDR). At the end of this decade, noting that the impact of disasters showed no let up, in 2001, the UN General Assembly designated to continue the second Wednesday of October as the International Day for Disaster Reduction.

The International Day is a vehicle to promote a global culture of disaster reduction, including disaster prevention, mitigation and preparedness. ASEAN ministers responsible for disaster management, in their meeting in Phnom Penh three weeks prior to the tsunami last year, also adopted this date to be the ASEAN Day for Disaster Management.

This year's theme is "Invest to Prevent Disasters" through exploring the possibility of cutting the vicious circle of poverty, vulnerability and disaster risk.

In Indonesia, disaster reduction bears different but equally formidable importance. At the very core, there is the constitutional mandate stipulating that the very purpose of instituting the government of the State of Indonesia is, inter alia, to protect the entirety of the Indonesian nation.

For a country with such a clear vision regarding the protection of its people, it is strange that there are only fragments of sectoral policies instead of a coherent policy regarding disaster management in Indonesia.

What this country needs is legislation that sets the legal ground-rules to implement such constitutional mandate. This would not only provide guidance on what to do to reduce disaster risks, but also how to go about it, and who should be held responsible to accomplish such tasks.

Each ministerial department appears to attempt to interpret its tasks and responsibilities regarding disaster management individually. To make matters worst, the local autonomy paradigm sets in and there is an added confusion with regard to which level of government should be held responsible.

Past disaster-response thinking in Indonesia could be characterized as emergency response-oriented, central government centered, and largely focusing on natural disasters. Most disaster managers in Indonesia still perceive disasters to be cyclical and organic, i.e. preceded by prevention, mitigation, preparedness, emergency event, response, recovery and rehabilitation.

This simply means that not much is being done for disaster management during "normal" times. The system only kicks in if and when disasters strike, and such response would largely be relief provided by, or billed to, the central government.

Meanwhile, at the global level there have been major shifts in thinking. The International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the successor of the International Decade for Natural Disaster Reduction, proposes concepts that are multihazard (covering all disaster hazards), comprehensive (addressing all phases of disaster) and integrated (involving all segments of the society) while giving premium to risk reduction and preparedness.

If there is a silver lining to the tsunami and Nias disasters, it was the opportunity to undertake a collective shift in thinking. The momentum provided itself in February 2005. The Legislative Board of the House of Representative confirmed that disaster management legislation indeed was on the national legislative agenda. It was, however, nowhere near a top priority. At the rate of current progress, disaster management legislation may be five to six years away.

To its credit, the Commission VIII (public welfare) of the House put together a working group to study the matter. A series of hearings was conducted during the first quarter of the year.

The House responded positively to the drive and, following a plenary session, it formed a Special Committee for Disaster Management Bill.

The intensive briefings and hearing sessions conducted by the parties in the House with various entities yielded interesting results. Members of the Special Committees learned fast. In a matter of months, the new thinking was internalized. All the while a series of hearings with stakeholders continues to be mounted at the House.

Recently, sub-groups in the Special Committee conducted consultations with government and communities at the local level. A range of localities were in the chosen. The representation included the western and eastern extremities of the nation, the advanced to the least advanced.

Members of the House appeared to be overwhelmed by the response they collected in the field and from the public hearings. Lately, together with the research and development group of the House and a group of experts, those findings were incorporated into a revised draft bill.

Admittedly, the Disaster Management Draft Bill has been very convergent. It has been relatively free from politicking in the House. All parties tacitly adopted a convergence approach and reflected the sense of urgency to bring it to the government for ratification before the year's end.

Seen from the other end, i.e. administrative and technical perspectives of the government (executive), the draft bill could be quite contentious. For one, it posits protection to be part of people's basic rights. It follows that failure to provide this protection would result in liability on the part of the duty bearer: The government.

In terms of institutional arrangements, the draft bill would imply designation of authorities, resources, and liability amongst government ministries and corporations. When somebody's power is bound to be enhanced while that of the others would be trimmed; when power to extract compliance will be distributed and sanctions put in place, quarrels are bound to happen.

By the end of November or in December, the House will finalize the draft bill and pass it on to the government.

The writer is the secretary-general of the Indonesian Society for Disaster Management.