Optimizing Disaster Preparedness Villages to Improve Community Resilience

JAKARTA (January 23rd 2020) - The Ministry of Social Affairs continues to improve community resilience in disaster-prone areas, one of which is by optimizing the Disaster Preparedness Village (KSB).

"By optimizing the KSB, it is hoped that community resilience, especially in disaster-prone areas, will also continue to increase", said the Director General of Social Protection and Security, Harry Hikmat accompanied by the Director of Social Protection for Natural Disaster Victims (PSKBA), Rachmat Koesnadi and Deputy Country Director of the World Food Program ( WFP) Indonesia, Peter Heltsberg at the launch of the Disaster Preparedness Village Study Report Book in Jakarta, Wednesday (22/1).

Harry explained that this is also a process of empowering the community through efforts to increase capacity and prepare disaster preparedness facilities such as the Social Granary and Social Substation.

Meanwhile, the launch of the Disaster Preparedness Village Study Report book which was fully carried out by WFP aims to gain lessons, as well as reference for community-based disaster risk reduction programs, especially for the development of the KSB program where this study was born out of a need for the Ministry of Social Affairs to understand the situation faced by KSB throughout Indonesia.

The WFP study not only explores the challenges in each KSB, but also best practices are identified with the intention of being modeled and institutionalized, so that they can be further improved so that they can be replicated in other parts of Indonesia. This program is a national scale program that has currently been developed into the concept of a Disaster Preparedness Area, whose scope is not limited to administrative areas.

The idea of a study on the development of the KSB Program has emerged since 2018 and has continued to be carried out until the publication of the Disaster Preparedness Village Study Report Book. The Ministry of Social Affairs really appreciates what WFP has done by fully supporting this activity from the start.

Harry Hikmat said that this report can be used as a reference to review policies in strengthening capacity and ensuring sustainability.