Institutionalizing Disaster Preparedness and Management Capacity of BPBDs in Indonesia through Technical Assistance and Training Teams

The program began in 2014 with an initial two-year pilot phase, but was subsequently extended to 2018 with an increased award of $9 million. During the semi-annual reporting period from October 2017 to March 2018, TATTs impacted 1,589 direct beneficiaries through 29 technical trainings, coaching, and technical assistance across the eight target provinces. A total of 646 people received training, with 475 males and 171 females. The program has successfully embedded technical assistance teams in eight provincial BPBDs, providing tailored technical training, mentoring, and support to the target government institutions. TATTs has strengthened its engagement and coordination with the National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) by submitting program activity TORs to the BNPB's Planning Bureau for review. The program has also invited BNPB technical resource persons to attend technical training and other significant capacity-building events at the BPBD level. This increased involvement of BNPB is expected to ensure that TATTs-supported subnational interventions are in line with national concepts, policies, and priorities. The program has made significant progress in implementing the eight joint TATTs-BPBD workplans, which are based on gaps analysis of BPBD organizational capacity, local needs, and provincial priorities. The workplans focus on specific themes, including capacity building, awareness, inclusivity, institutional development, coordination, contingency planning, and curriculum development. TATTs has also supported the development of the BPBDs' new draft five-year strategic plans (Renstras) to prepare them for the upcoming provincial elections and changes in local policy direction and priorities. In preparation for the provincial elections, TATTs is supporting the development of the disaster management sections of the 'whole-of-government' medium-term development plans (RPJM/D) for the new provincial administrations. This intervention is strategic because the new development plans will set the policy agenda and priorities of the new administrations. TATTs support will be demand-driven, with technical assistance provided through engaging local DM planning experts to work with relevant working groups established by the Provincial Planning and Development Agency/s (BAPPEDA). The program has also identified BPBD-TATTs 'points of exit' to ensure sustainability. TATTs has signed MOUs with each of the eight provincial governments to revise and extend the partnership between TATTs and the target BPBDs to the 31 December 2018 program end date. This has presented the opportunity to jointly review annual achievements and reset development priorities of BPBD-TATTs support with each of the target provinces. Overall, the program remains on track to achieve its strategic objectives within the current program end date and budget. The program has made significant progress in building the technical capacity of provincial-level disaster management agencies and is well-positioned to support the new provincial administrations in developing their disaster management plans and strategies.