International Day for Disaster Risk Reduction (Plus training and lessons learned material) from West Sumatra

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen
Practitioners of Early Recovery and Rehabilitation and Reconstruction,


Warm regards from West Sumatra Early Recovery Network.

First of all, allow us to congratulate all of you who have done many activities to reduce disaster risk in various sectors (shelter, water, hygiene, and sanitation, education, health, internally displaced persons, and livelihoods) in West Sumatra. May these activities be blessings to the whole community (and us) to stay alert and take advantage of knowledge and skills being conveyed and disseminated by all of us for the last one year.

"Today, on the International Day for Disaster Reduction, we recognize what local governments and communities are doing to protect themselves while building more sustainable towns and cities,” Ban Ki-moon, UN General Secretary, said in a message.

In the past one year, there have been various initiative to integrate activities of disaster risk reduction (DRR) into local development. Shelter Cluster has collaborated with National Agency for Disaster Management (BNPB) to formulate technical guidelines of post-earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction for housing sector since January 2010. Education Cluster in last February initiated DRR mainstreaming into local work plan of  education offices in 19 districts. DRR working group has recently hosted Training of DRR Facilitator on DRR Integration into Local Development Planning and Budgeting on September 26-29, 2010. (Click here to access and download report and training material). Similar activities were also conducted by different working groups. Lessons learned for the past one year has also been discussed during international seminar on September 30, 2010. (Click here to access and download report and lessons learned material).

We all know and realized that non-governmental intervention for the past one year (emergency, early recovery, rehabilitation and reconstruction) is in complementary and temporary fashion. Many of non-government partners have completed their projects and leave the beloved Ranah Minang. This complementary and temporary role, though it has been closely collaborated in the work and activities of existing working groups, will still be in complementary and temporary fashion unless being integrated into the district / city development which later will give comprehensive and long term impact. Thus, allow us to invite all of you, who have been active in DRR mainstreaming, to undertake various advocacy strategies into your respective district / city development planning and budgeting for fiscal year 2011. Tips and DRR advocacy strategy could be downloaded here. Based on our lessons during Training of DRR Facilitator last week, we learned that it is not sufficient to advocate to BAPPEDA, respective government agencies and district head, but we need also to advocate and make approaches to members of Local House of Representative. Attached is road map to build local capacity by DRR Working Group in West Sumatra.

Thank you and congratulations to all of you who have initiated / planned to undertake advocacy in your respective districts / cities. May all these activities give substantive benefits to reduce disaster risk comprehensively and in long term fashion. Let's build our network and partnership to run advocacy in Ranah Minang.

"Reducing disaster risk is everybody's business, and needs everyone's participation and investment – civil society and professional networks as well as municipal and national governments. On this International Day for Disaster Reduction, I commend those cities that are acting to build resilience to climate, environmental and social risks. And to all others I pose this question: Is your city
ready?" Ban Ki-Moon said.


Warm regards,

Nova Ratnanto