About the 2009 Awardees

Dr Eko Teguh Paripurno is this year’s laureate for the Sasakawa Award for Disaster Reduction. Dr Paripurno is the Director of the Research Center for Disaster Management of the University of National Development in Yogyakarta and consultant to local and national governments as well as to various civil society organizations. In these roles, Dr Eko Teguh Paripurno is significantly contributing to reduce the risk of natural disasters in Indonesia, one of the countries most vulnerable to hazards reaching from earthquakes and volcanic eruptions to floods.

1. As this year’s recipient of the Sasakawa Award, could you outline the work you are doing in Indonesia to build community capacity and resilience related to natural hazards?

I attempt to take the role as catalyst and facilitator for mutual learning and practices in enhancing awareness, knowledge and skills required for attaining resilience to disasters based on a sound risk analysis.            

2. Why are training and knowledge building especially effective measures to render communities less vulnerable?

I believe that series of trainings, internships, mentoring and experience-sharing within and among different communities and other stakeholders serve as the most effective and inexpensive measures in enhancing awareness, knowledge and skills to establish resilience to disasters. I am grateful that I am surrounded by my fellow community members from disaster prone areas. It makes it easier for me to facilitate the mutual learning and experience-sharing among the communities in question.

3. How do you train community members, politicians and other stakeholders?

It all begins with learning. Learning is basically a process in building the trust that everyone can play a significant role in collective risk reduction efforts. The learning takes place by enabling community members, politicians and other stakeholders to play their significant roles in disaster risk reduction. Communities play their role through a series of adapted practices, while politicians play theirs by means of pro-risk reduction policies they make, etc. This reconfirms that disaster risk reduction is everybody’s business.

4. What have your biggest achievements and successes in empowering people been so far?

I feel that I really have succeeded when some communities in disaster prone areas and all stakeholders are fully empowered and have the capacity to rely on their own resources to implement disaster risk reduction efforts as part of their daily lives.

5. In which ways were you involved in actions taken in the aftermath of the Yogyakarta earthquake of 2006, which killed nearly 6000 people?

During the emergency relief stage, I led the Research Center for Disaster Management of the University of National Development in Yogyakarta by organizing dozens of voluntary medical doctors and paramedics to carry out a mobile clinic programme to pay visits directly to the affected people who could not make it to the general or the field hospital. Afterwards, we also organized thousands of university students to do their field work courses helping in the implementation of the following activities: post-earthquake damage and loss assessment in collaboration with the Bantul district government, provision of basic needs to the earthquake-affected people, facilitation of the rehabilitation and reconstruction process in the district of Bantul (Yogyakarta Special Region province) and the district of Klaten (Central Java province). Furthermore, they assisted the Sleman district (Yogyakarta Special Region province) in the development of disaster risk reduction programmes on rehabilitation and reconstruction.

6. How are you planning to invest the award money?

I am planning to make use of the award money by promoting learning and practices in disaster risk reduction in a number of areas prone to volcanic eruptions, such as the Mt. Kelud area in East Java and the Mt. Egon in East Nusa Tenggara, and a number of other areas that have escaped our attention. Additionally, I would like to initiate a community centre for learning related to disaster risk reduction.

7. What are your future plans for furthering disaster risk reduction?

My future plans include contributing to the implementation of the Hyogo Framework for Action by means of  promoting investments that are more locally-based, make use of local resources and knowledge and that facilitate disaster risk reduction as an inclusive process. In Indonesia, every island and ethnicity has their own ways of practicing disaster risk reduction.

8. Why is linking climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction indispensable and what do you consider the way forward in this issue?

Climate change has inevitably a direct and indirect influence on the level of risks through the changes of the characters of hazards as well as the changes of the capacities and vulnerabilities of communities. Community adaptation to climate change should become an important agenda of disaster risk reduction in the future. This can be achieved by re-assessing changes of the characters of hazards and the possible emergence of new hazards as well as re-assessing the capacities and vulnerabilities of communities.