ABSTRACT
Introduction Social protection includes a number of measures or schemes in developed and developing countries to alleviate the burden faced by the poor in society. Social protection (SP) has various means and functions. One of the important functions is the role of SP in fostering disaster risk reduction (DRR), and climate change adaptation (CCA), which came to be defined and understood as adaptive social protection (ASP). Davies et al. (2009) admit that there is a high relevance of SP for reducing vulnerability in society. The similar characteristics among the goals, target groups and tools of SP and DRR make it promising for sharing opportunity in achieving community resilience (Davies et al., 2009; Heltberg et al., 2008). A valid question that remains is: What is the role of SP in promoting long-term community resilience in disaster contexts? Twigg (2007) defines community resilience as a community that has capacities “to absorb stress or destructive forces through resistance or adaptation; to manage, or maintain certain basic functions and structures, during disastrous events; and to recover after an event” (p. 6). Resilience is a state where people can adapt to environmental changes (Adger, 2000, p. 1). In order to achieve community resilience, several initiatives are integrating SP, DRR and CCA approaches in disaster-affected areas. For instance, the Reducing Vulnerability to Climate Change (RVCC) project in Bangladesh distributed assets such as ducks to rear, in order to provide alternative livelihoods to the local community affected by climate change related disasters (Mallik, 2006, in Davies et al., 2009). Another form of social protection is the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) in India that guarantees 100 days of employment in a year to rural populations in public work programs such as de-silting irrigation and strengthening embankments (Davies et al., 2009). This chapter focuses on Indonesian social protection schemes in reducing community risks from disasters. In 2015, the Indonesian population reached 255.4 million people and about less than half of the population are living in rural areas and mostly are supported by agriculture (BPS, 2015). In Indonesia, poverty is found more in the
rural areas rather than in the urban population, with poverty rates of 14.3% and 8.4% respectively in 2012 (OECD, 2015, p. 24). In addition to poverty, a large number of rural areas in Indonesia are prone to disaster risks due to their geographic location in disaster prone areas. By the definition set in the disaster management regulation in Indonesia (No. 24/2007), the disaster prone area is “territory for a certain period of time are not able to reduce the adverse effects of a hazard (geological, hydrological, biological, climatological, geographical, social, cultural, political, economic, and technological),” such as along the coasts, high slopes areas and active seismic faults and volcanoes. Within the past decade (2004-2014), a large number of rural areas in Indonesia were hit by catastrophic natural hazards, such as tsunamis, earthquakes and volcanoes that claimed lives of nearly 200,000 people and resulted in about 10 million people injured (BNPB, 2015). Slow onset disasters also plague Indonesia, particularly in the eastern parts of the country. For example, West Timor has been impacted by sea level rise and drought that deteriorated agriculture and fishery production, which consequently complicated the livelihood of the community in the long term. This situation has forced some people to be temporarily or permanently displaced within the country. For example, members of villages in the South of Sikka District, NTT Province in Indonesia had to move further into the mainland since their communities have been inundated by increasing sea levels. In general, there are at least two generations of social protection programs in Indonesia (Sumarto & Bazzi, 2011). The first generation of social protection was initiated in 1998 and covered five major sectors of food security, education, health, provision of employment and community empowerment. The second generation was started in 2000 and was based on two national laws: National Law 40/2004 on national social protection system and National Law 24/2011 on national protection administered body. Under Law No. 40/2004, Indonesia has several social protection schemes including health protection, accidents at work protection, old age pension and death protection. Apart from nationally administered social protection, there are other measures implemented by the Indonesian government such as a direct cash transfer program or cash for work program. In the second generation, the social protection programs were clustered into three divisions. The first division comprised of major social programs such as rice for the poor (Raskin), Unconditional Cash Transfer (UCT), Conditional Cash Transfer (CCT), Health Insurance for the Poor (Askeskin) and scholarship programs. The second division consists of National Program for Community Empowerment (PNPM), which was established in 2008. The third division focused on expanding the small-scale enterprises (SME) by providing microcredit (Sumarto & Bazzi, 2011). The PNPM is a large-scale program that assists rural and urban poor communities to improve their living conditions through community infrastructure development and provides cash to the workforces involved in the program. It covered 200 million people in over 70,000 villages by 2011 (Sumarto & Bazzi,
2011). In some disaster prone areas, some of the works include the strengthening of water channels and establishing evacuation routes. This chapter will discuss the role of PNPM in disaster risk reduction in Indonesia and its contribution to community resilience. The concepts related to social protection in reducing disaster risk and promoting long-term community resilience are explored by considering the role of SP in Indonesia. This chapter further discusses these concepts by considering several key questions as follows:
1 What is the role of SP initiatives in supporting disaster risk reduction in Indonesia?
