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Indonesia

Indonesia Office Annual Report 2013 (MAAID002)

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Overview

The political and socio-economic stability of 2012 continued throughout 2013 and there were no developments which significantly affected the operating environment of PMI (Palang Merah Indonesia – the Indonesian Red Cross) or the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) Indonesia country office. There were no national natural disasters requiring international assistance. The security situation was generally conducive, with no major terrorist events and the capture or shooting of some small groups of suspected terrorists by the anti-terrorist detachment of the police. Fears of violence associated with the more than 150 local legislative and leadership elections held in 2013 proved generally unwarranted.

Corruption and its eradication continued to dominate the headlines. The (former) minister for sports and youth and the (former) head of the constitutional court were among the highest profile figures detained and charged by the corruption eradication commission in 2013.

For PMI one highlight of 2013 was the holding of its five-yearly national volunteer gathering. This took place in June, in Selorejo, East Java. Almost 2,400 volunteers from all of Indonesia’s 33 provinces took part. They were joined by 52 representatives from 14 sister National Societies for a week of activities focussing on friendship, social service, violence prevention and entrepreneurship. The other headline event was the PMI mission to assist victims of Typhoon Haiyan in the southern Philippines from November 2013 to January 2014.

Some 30 volunteers and staff, together with hundreds of tons of relief items, water and sanitation equipment, amphibious vehicles and a helicopter air ambulance were mobilized. The relief distribution, provision of clean water and medical services carried out by this PMI team were highly appreciated by both the Philippine Red Cross and the IFRC president. PMI also mobilized three staff for regional disaster response teams. The IFRC country office provided two staff on loan to the Philippines country office - one logistics and one finance.

The absence of national level natural disasters does not mean that Indonesia and PMI were not affected by disasters in 2013. PMI headquarters disaster operations centre recorded 186 natural disasters in 128 districts.

The most common were floods (37 per cent), whirlwinds (18 per cent) and landslides (12 per cent). PMI headquarters supported its local units to respond to 59 of these with relief goods, logistics support and operational equipment, reaching a total of 144,095 beneficiaries and spending a little over CHF2 million. Two requests for IFRC Disaster Response Emergency Funds (DREF) were made to respond to severe flooding in and around the capital, Jakarta, in January 2013 and a 5.6 scale earthquake which caused severe damage to Central Aceh province in July. For both DREF operations, funding totalled CHF532,000 and expenditure CHF468,000.

The decline in partner National Society support mentioned in our 2012 report saw the number of partner National Societies supporting PMI decrease from 12 in December 2012 to seven in January 2014. A further decrease of at least two partner National Societies is anticipated in 2014. This brings the future of PMI’s community-based risk reduction or resilience work into question. At the same time, however, three alternative streams of income support became available. This is discussed in more detail in the section below.

Finally, revision of the IFRC Indonesia Long Term Planning Framework 2012 – 2015 was completed in October 2013 and the revised framework is used in this report.