The state has to bear a huge loss worth IDR30 trillions per year due to disasters in addition to special incidents such as forest fires that account for a 221 trillion losses. "Hence, disaster risk reduction becomes important. It’s obvious that disasters disrupt the achievement of our national development,” said Head of National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), Willem Rampangilei, opening a national seminar themed Disaster Risk Reduction in the Senate Hall UGM on Tuesday (14/2).
Apart from material losses, disasters also cause non-material losses, including psychological effect among survivors and damaged flora and fauna, which take a long time to recover.
Rampangilei said there were three stages of disaster mitigation, namely disaster risk reduction, disaster impact reduction, and recovery. He said this was complicated and multidimensional, which require multi-stakeholders and multi-disciplined sciences to contribute.
Rector of UGM, Prof. Ir. Dwikorita Karnawati, M.Sc., Ph.D., said in 1960 as high as 85 percent of Indonesians lived in villages. In 2015 most of rural people have done urbanisation, leaving only 46 percent in villages, most of whom are senior citizens, widowed, and underpriviledged.
"Considering this condition, UGM feels the responsibility to minimise the gap and poverty and UGM committed to developing smart and resilience village. The Smart and Resilience Village is built through innovation in human resource, research, and downstreaming to the industry. The research done is on disasters to reduce the risks,” she said.
Director General in the Rural Affairs and Transmigration Ministry, Dr. Ir. Suprayoga Hadi, MSP ., of 120 underdeveloped regions, 95 villages are prone to disasters. He called for the cooperation from every stakeholder and funding to enhance capacity of the rural people and the infrastructure for better management of disaster risk reduction.
The National Seminar on Disaster Risk Reduction is hosted by Universitas Gadjah Mada in collaboration with GNS Science, BNPB, Rural Affairs and Transmigration Ministry, and supported by New Zealand Embassy and New Zealand Aid Programme. The seminar last from 14-17 February 2017, attended by New Zealand Ambassador to Indonesia, Trevor Matheson, Director General for Disaster Risk of the BNPB, Lilik Kurniawan, etc.