Wednesday, 24 August 2022, disasterchannel.co with the support of A-PADM Indonesia held a discussion on Advocacy Strategies and Data-Based Campaigns for Disaster Risk Reduction. This event is held with a hybrid mechanism, at the Swiss Bell Hotel, Beautiful Cottage, Jakarta and also online via zoom.
This series of knowledge sharing discussions presented several expert speakers, including Meiky Sofyansah, TEMPO directors and Dahniar Andriani, HUMA Executive Director (2014-2020) moderated by Lien Sururoh, content writer disasterchannel.co. various groups ranging from students, Experts in the field of disaster and the general public also participated in this discussion.
This discussion was opened with an introduction from Trinirmalaningrum, Director of SKALA Indonesia and editor-in-chief of disasterchannel.co. The woman who is often called Rini started her presentation by asking a question, advocacy for disaster risk reduction, is it possible?. From this question, he explained that throughout the year 2021 The Ministry of Finance noted that every year Indonesia suffers a loss of Rp 22,8 trillion, because of disaster. In 10 In the last year, the number of fatalities due to disasters reached 1.183 people. With the losses experienced every year continue to increase, the number of disasters continues to increase, investment in disaster risk reduction is also quite large, research results show that strengthening at the community level is the key to preparedness. These are all necessary for advocacy to create appropriate disaster risk reduction actions.
Meiky Sofyansah started her presentation with a perception about disaster. Kevin Blanchard, DRR Policy and Program Specialist King's College London at the UNDRR workshop for journalists from America and the Caribbean in October 2021 mention that “A Hazard does not have to turn into a disaster. The decisions that we take as humans are what turn a hazard into a disaster.”
This perception describes that disaster is something that can be avoided. Danger won't be a disaster if we can avoid it. Mitigation is carried out to reduce risk, in other words to avoid the disaster from happening.
The media works by starting to find and collect facts and process them into stories. Data is the starting point for advocacy for disaster risk reduction. The media also play a big role in providing an understanding of disasters and risks. The media can build the perception that danger must be discussed in the wider public domain before a disaster occurs. This is done to make us ready and able to avoid as much risk as possible.
Unfortunately, the media is often positioned as a funnel for information on events.
“Media is not placed to be a unit for collaboration by building connectivity where media is the subject of disaster management, collaboration is built and must be maintained.” Meiky said.
The discussion continued with a presentation from Dahniar, he highlighted that environmental issues are the root of disasters that can occur and at the same time can be a starting point for advocacy.
"Human actions have become a major contribution that has resulted in disasters in this country", it can be minimized. And we, like it or not, advocacy related to disaster, Disaster advocacy does not have to be solely about emergency response., but it can be started from adaptation and mitigation.” Dahniar said.
The spirit of advocacy for disaster risk reduction is very strong, seen from the enthusiasm of the participants who never stop asking. Then at the end of the show, Lien conveyed several conclusions of the discussion including:
In order to be able to do advocacy in disaster management, then we all must forge an alliance by cooperating with the mainstream media to be able to bring us closer to advocacy efforts to change policies for the better
Advocacy must be done not only during emergency response. Advocacy must start from adaptation and mitigation. Big components (Government, Community and Private Sector) still walking alone. Advocacy goals must be mutually agreed, this goal will not be achieved if policy makers do not have the same perspective on disasters. In terms of legislation, it has not been revised which provides room for development in disaster-prone areas.
Advocacy is an art of change movement that is carried out together to influence many people, all sectors should be encouraged to talk about it and then advocate collectively to achieve big change. (LS)
