Reflection on Aceh-Nias Tsunami Response in Indonesia (10 th Years Tsunami Commemoration)

Evaluation 10th Years Aceh-Nias Tsunami Commemoration

Reflection on Aceh-Nias Tsunami Response in Indonesia(10th Years Tsunami Commemoration)

ContextTsunami disaster was a complex humanitarian emergency: tsunami and political conflictThe number of people killed and the damage to the economies of Indonesia was the most severely affected country.National Disaster Management Agency was not establishedAceh-Nias tsunami response was the largest humanitarian efforts in the world: lot of organizations involved (463), large international donors/funding.

Losses and damages:167,540 dead and missing572,000 displaced500,000 loss of their homes1,3 million homes and buildings were destroyed,8 ports and 4 fuel depots were damaged, 85% of the water and 92% of the sanitation system broke downTotal losses amount to US$ 4.5 billion, which represents 2.2% of National GDP and 97% of Acehs GDP.

Construction Project

Livelihood Project

I. Local Church and Caritass responseThe Bishop Conference of Indonesia, through the Crisis and Reconciliation Center, deployed personnel to Aceh to immediately meet and assess local partners for possible collaboration. SEFA (Safe and Emergency for Aceh) was one of the local partners to whom the Crisis Center worked with. This local NGO based in Aceh and had given immediate response to survivors, In the absence of a national Caritas in Indonesia at that time, Catholic Churchs supports for the catastrophe were initially channeled through the Archdiocese of Medan, the Diocese of Sibolga and numerous International Caritas organizations.

Caritas International Member Organizations (CIMOs) present in Indonesia were given mandate by Caritas Internationalis to coordinate and accompany the local Church in responding to the Aceh-Nias tsunami disaster.Caritas Family launched Special Operational Appeal (SOA) Indonesia 2/2005 - US$ 238 million.Assisted and supported by CIMOs, the Local and National Caritas Indonesia implemented projects Euro 15,974,985 and US$ 2,958,910.

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Area of Intervention SectorEmergency Relief (Food Non-Food Items, temporary shelter)Reconstruction & Rehabilitation (housing & infrastructure)Communitys capacity building (DRR, gender mainstreaming, peace building)Institutional Development and Staff Capacity Building

NOAREA OF SECTORQTCOSTBENEFEUROUSD(person)1EMERGENCY RELIEF662,694 361,504 40,168 1.1Temporary Shelter425,000 168 1.2Food & Non-Food Items237,694 361,504 40,000 2RECONSTRUCTION & REHABILITATION9,354,861 1,147,170 11,953 2.1Housing/Permanent Shelter (HH houses & Public Buildings)445unit7,089,861 1,147,170 1,453 2.2Infrastructure (road, bridge, watsan installation)5pack2,265,000 10,500 3COMMUNITY's PROJECT & CAPACITY BUILDING3,943,430 1,255,278 41,684 3.1Community Capacity Building (DRR-Preparedness, Advocacy, peace building, gender mainstreaming)7community2,015,480 626,806 41,684 3.2Community Project (health, education, livelihood)1,927,950 628,472 4INSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT & STAFF CAPACITY BUILDING2,014,000 194,958 217 4.1Capacity building for institutional development and staff development (CKS, CORDIA, KARINA)3organization2,014,000 194,958 217 TOTAL15,974,985 2,958,910 94,022

II. Institutional Development of National Caritas (KARINA)Establishment of KARINAIn November 2005, the annual meeting of the Bishops Conference of Indonesia (KWI) established KARINA along with the appointed Executive Board members. The following year, on 17 May 2006, KARINA was registered as an independent legal entity: YAYASAN (foundation) KARINA. KARINA started to inform its existence with stakeholders in the Catholic Church in Indonesia and CIMOs. KARINA held its first annual meeting with dioceses and ran organizational assessment with donors to assess KARINAs capacity and plan for future collaboration.

Capacity Building for Program/Project ManagementIn a donor meeting, KARINA presented several ideas for upcoming program and ToR for the new KARINA working group. The first major proposal for Institution Strengthening Program was prepared and supported by donors to begin with the one-year program (May 2007-June 2008). KARINA also held its first strategic planning consultation and resulted KARINA Strategic Plan for 2008-2012 by the end of 2007.

As an impact of the capacity building program, KARINA and Caritas network have been growing their capacity to manage project and program. KARINA developed largest proposal, namely Global Proposal Program that was implemented in 2008-2010 with its no-cost extension in 2011. In the period of program implementation (2009), two major disasters also occurred, the earthquake in West Java in early September and the massive earthquake in West Sumatra in late September. KARINA launched the Emergency Appeal for West Sumatra, with phase one running from October to December 2009.

Coordination, Networking and Trust Building The unhappy memories of KARINAs former institution, LPPS, challenged KARINA to work hard to earn trust from dioceses and other stakeholders in the Catholic Church. It took time to decide how exactly KARINA might assist the dioceses, and vice versa. In relation to donors, KARINA had to learn what to realistically expect from donors and what donors expected from KARINA and the Bishop Conference of Indonesia (KWI).

The other commissions were worried about overlapping roles at national or diocesan level, and the risk of large amounts of foreign funding leading to financial mismanagement and subsequent damage to the church as a whole.In response to the issues, in this early step of KARINAs development, building trust to various stakeholders was a crucial agenda to develop. The development of system, communication and consultation with different stakeholders were established. To build relationship with dioceses a meeting with dioceses was held. The Annual Meeting attended by representatives from all the 37 Dioceses in Indonesia, and the Annual Director Forum, attended by Director of KARINA and Diocesan Caritas were held by KARINA.

In a similar way, KARINA also conducted a meeting with donors. The first working group meeting between donors and KARINA was held in 2007 and it is conducted twice a year. The meeting discussed about KARINAs programming and institutional development. Different committees and core groups were established to allow donor representatives and KARINA to discuss finance, disaster response and other strategic issues.Based on the recommendation of SOA Learning Review in Banda Aceh, Aceh SOA 2005 facilitated by CRS, agreed to transfer Caritas network support to the KARINA WG forum, facilitated by KARINA.

Tsunami Money and Narrow Mandate of KARINADonors had a lot of Aceh tsunami response money to spend. As reconstruction needs in Aceh diminished, donors turned their attention nationally. Some donors were only permitted to spend their Aceh tsunami response money on disaster risk reduction and disaster response programs. Others were able to spend more widely, including aspects like justice and peace and socio-economic development, but they found that KARINA had only been mandated to focus just on disaster risk reduction and disaster response. KARINA and the dioceses adopted strategies to allow money to address broader poverty reduction needs. They began to define disaster response more broadly. But the effort of KARINA and Dioceses is still now questioned by other commission and some dioceses, mainly those dioceses who do not establish diocesan caritas. Therefore, KARINA's narrow mandate is still being under continuous discussion between KARINA and other Commission and some dioceses.

Based on the risks and needs of communities identified by representatives of Dioceses and Director of Diocesan Caritas in the consultation meeting for strategic plan KARINA 2012-2017, KARINA and Director of Diocesan Caritas have developed resilience program. It is a development program that integrates emergency response and DRR into broader context of development. Risks and disaster are understood not in a narrow perspective. Emergency response, disaster risk reduction and preparedness perspective are important issues that need to be considered and integrated into the development program. This program development perspective requires KARINA and other stakeholders to open cooperation and coordination with others.

III. Lessons LearnedPositive Impact of Aceh-Nias Tsunami ResponseEmergency and recovery response to the Aceh tsunami was complex because of the political conflict between the Aceh Independent Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka/GAM) and the Government of Indonesia. However, it was a blessing in disguise that the tsunami triggered both parties to come in peace agreement in August 2005.After the affected area was accessible, large international fund, emergency aids from international organizations came to Aceh. They strengthened capacity of local organization and people to respond the immediate needs.

International human solidarity united people over the world regardless of race, religion, political affiliations and other different backgrounds. The positive impact of the tsunami response to the affected people was that the people could learn other cultures, religions and different backgrounds since they were isolated for a long time because of political conflict.The Recovery and rehabilitation response was also successful in terms of physical improvement of the affected people. Houses and infrastructures were not merely rebuilt and reconstructed but rebuilt better, comparing to their previous situation. Many affected people and local NGO in Aceh could also equip themselves with many skills and capacity in various areas of competencies: managing project, doing livelihood, etc.

Through DRR and ER trainings facilitated by the International NGOs, including Caritas International Member Organizations (CIMOs), the affected people and the Government could learn and develop disaster risk management. Local community have organized volunteers for emergency response. Thus, they will be ready to mobilize existing capacity and resources to respond to emergency whenever disaster occurred.Caritass response was inclusive; exp. leprosy communities got access assistance from Caritas.Akses kebutuhan kelompok anak lebih terakomodir.

ChallengesMany international NGOs were not sensitive to the local context , local values and local wisdom. They applied rigid standard of operational procedures. Indicator of projects achievement became unobvious. It, then, hindered process and achievement of the program goal. For example, when there were urgent needs during a holiday, the needs would not be responded. Other challenges were the limited grant size per project approval, the short timeframe (maximum of three months) and the tedious monitoring processes including monthly reporting. The local organization was simply used to deliver a service that had been decided upon by a donor organization. This relationship was often seen as sub-contracting rather than genuine partnership. The relationship is inevitably difficult because international actors, with limited local context understanding, had more control on the resources than the local actors who may know the local context better.

It also happened when recruiting local staffs for International NGOs, including International Caritas. The International NGOs recruited staffs only based on formal (written) standards regardless of the local knowledge and competencies. The International agencies preferred to employ staffs from outside. Only few local people who could occupy management position in INGOs. Gap of salary and benefits earned by local and international staffs became sensitive issue at that time.Aceh at that time was like a market display of expatriate staffs with their luxurious vehicles, party, offices and high standard of living (not local sensitive). To ensure the quality of logistic, many INGOs imported the logistic from outside the country. They bought their logistics from their respective countries.

The people affected by conflict were forgotten and were not recognized and could not get access to tsunami assistance.Different quality of house building provided by I/NGO created jealousy among the recipients of the houses. Some houses provided by INGO were not so sensitive to the local context and culture, so the houses were not properly used. Inappropriate cash for work could destroy spirit of solidarity (gotong-royong).There are some parents still hope that their missing children could be found, since there is case that there was a case that a children was found after 10 years tsunami. Exit strategy: there was exit strategy issue , INGOs did not prepare exit strategy so after they left Aceh, so the local people and NGOs could not continue their organizations and activities.

Organizational Development of KARINASuccess StoryOne of the earliest impacts was a positive communication development within the dioceses and between the dioceses and the Bishop Conference of Indonesia. This communication led to the discussion of KARINA and new diocesan Caritas position inside the existing church structures at national and diocesan level.The establishment and development of KARINA attract donors to deliver funding for diocesan programs in Indonesia. It made the dioceses able to assist disaster-affected communities with their immediate and medium term needs better. Some dioceses, like Cordia Medan in North Sumatra, even began running DRR trainings for diocesan staffs and local NGOs. KARINA also helped the dioceses learn about donors expectations and donors were in turn learned from KARINA about the expectation of the dioceses.

As KARINAs programs strengthened networks and bolstered dioceses interest in DRR, more Dioceses began sending volunteers to disaster responses in other dioceses.An evaluation of KARINAs main 2008-2010 program found demonstrable organizational capacity development in management and technical aspects of emergency response and risk reduction.For media and publication development, KARINA supported dioceses to document and share their activities in DRR and disaster preparedness. KARINA also organized national media, such as Jakarta Post and Yahoo Indonesia, to have a site visit and document DR activities at diocesan caritas of Purwokerto, Makassar (project site in Labasa), Maumere and Ende. The articles about that site visits were published at Jakarta Post and Yahoo Indonesia in February 2013.

Increased decision-making responsibility was delegated to senior staffs, including appointed them as members of KARINA Core Group meetings, and encouraged them to actively participated in KARINA WG meetings. The Executive Board became more active, including instigating several fund-raising activities and appointing several KARINA staffs as permanent staffs. Fuller participation of stakeholders in its new 5-year strategic plan (2013-2017) is another success story of KARINA.KARINAs impacts at diocesan and community level, including improved knowledge of DRR and increased spirits of volunteerism and solidarity at the community level.

Implementing a community engagement approach that could serve as a model for local government because the DRR projects became more transparent, more participatory and had less potential for corruption. The various diocesan projects helped, in a sustainable way, to address practical problems such as providing drains to cope with flooding and irrigation to cope with drought.Improved diocesan Caritas networking with other stakeholders. These included government bodies such as the Water Catchment Areas Management Body-BPDAS, Agriculture Dept, Forestry Dept, the local disaster management body BPBD, and the House of Representative at Provincial level.KARINA started to be recognized by other organizations and government.KARINA as a member of CI confederation has broader national and international networks.Multiflyier effect of ex Caritas staff who work with other organization

Challenges:The acknowledgement of KARINA by the stakeholders has been improved but the trust building between stakeholders remain an issue. What had been experienced with former institution, LPPS, made KARINA needs to work hard to earn diocesan trust. It took time to decide how exactly KARINA might assist the Dioceses, and vice versa. In fact, each Diocese has different social context which makes things more challenging.It took time for KARINA to learn what to expect from the donors and what donors expected from KARINA. Even, learning donor communication style was a challenge (including learning about INGO terminologies like capacity building, earmarking funds, core costs, EA, SOA and cross-cutting issues).The other commissions were worried about overlapping roles at national or diocesan level. There is also possible risk that large amounts of foreign funding.

KARINA has to improve and develop program and financial systems in order to be more effective, transparent and accountable in managing its program and organization.KARINA still needs to understand and comprehend its broader mandate as a humanitarian organization compared to Commissions Mandates under the Bishop Conference and Dioceses.The sustainability of KARINA becomes a critical issue considering that many international donors already left Indonesia. Because of previous experience with tsunami, KARINA is perceived as a rich organization by other stakeholders. So, they thought that KARINA does not need financial support anymore. Sharing from CKS in developing sustainable strategy for organization.Building same understanding amongst stakeholder in the Church in applying minimum/accountable standards.

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