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7
Integrative Risk and Security Research
Volume 2/ 2017
Economic Revitalization of the Tsunami Victim Community in
Aceh Province, Indonesia
Elvira Iskandar1, Safrida1 & Sofyan1
1Agribussiness Department, Syiah Kuala University, Indonesia/ Tsunami Disaster Mitigation Research Centre,
Indonesia
Email: elviraiskandar@yahoo.com; rida_aceh@yahoo.com); sofyansamsudin@ymail.com
Introduction
The earthquake and tsunami in Aceh on December 26, 2004 destroyed most of the west coast of Aceh and its
surrounding areas, including Banda Aceh, Aceh province’s capital. Based on data from the Disaster
Management Agency of Aceh province, the tsunami caused approximately 236,116 deaths and 74,000
missing people. Moreover, the tsunami destroyed most of the community activity centers around the coastal
areas.
There are some alternative possibilities to help develop economic activity in disaster affected areas, including
supporting small and medium enterprises, encouraging the establishment of new businesses, attracting
foreign investment (domestic and international), investing in the physical infrastructure, investing in soft
infrastructure (including human resources, institutional reinforcement and policy issues), supporting the
growth of specific business groups, targeting the growth of spatial targets, and targeting the growth of some
disadvantaged groups (World Bank, 2001)
Revitalization is an effort to enliven an area that had originally been thriving but then suffered a decline. The
process of revitalization includes improving the physical, economic and social aspects of an area (Danisworo,
2002). Revitalization is not only used to improve the physical characteristics of a place, but also must improve
the local economy and cultural recognition. The revitalization process requires community involvement.
However, the community should not just support the formal aspects of the project, but people also really
need to engage in all processes of the development (Laretna, 2002). Lee (2004) explains that in order to
retain long-term economic improvements and optimize potential resources, great efforts are needed to
improve the infrastructure and facilities in the community. Economic revitalization is one aspect of
revitalization that should be reviewed now that eleven years have passed since the tsunami. One specific
area needs revitalization when its lack of economic growth or the economy will begin to deteriorate. This
occurs because of the loss of economic competitiveness.
Eleven years after the tsunami, Aceh continues to rise from adversity. This began with the rehabilitation and
reconstruction process initiated by BRR (Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Body of Aceh and Nias) from 2005
to 2009, and was completed with various physical and non-physical assistances provided by local and
international non-governmental organizations (NGO). Afterwards, the development process was conducted
by the Acehnese government. In this period, the government created many projects to improve community
life, focusing on the economic empowerment of community assets. However, the recent conditions of the
community have indicated that the development process has not shown the expected results. Most of the
tsunami-affected communities in the coastal areas are still in poor condition. The major problems faced by
the tsunami victims are the loss of property, lack of capital and infrastructure problems. This required an
analysis of the economic revitalization eleven years after the tsunami. To study the economic revitalization of
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Recovery after extreme events - Lessons learned and remaining challenges in Disaster Risk Reduction
the disaster region, we identified the economic conditions of the disaster communities as well as their future
expectations for their economic conditions. This study conducted in tsunami-affected areas in Banda Aceh
and Aceh Besar District, Aceh Province. The villages determined by the level of damaged they had. The
villages were Meunasah Keude, Lampulo, Blang Krueng, Lampaseh, Lampisang and Lamlhom. This study
explained about the development program implemented in the affected area after Tsunami. This result has
been presented in National Seminar of Indonesian Higher Agricultural Education Communication Forum
(FKPTPI) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia in November 2016.
Economic Empowerment Program for Affected Community
Recovery of economic activities was one of the main focuses of donors during the rehabilitation and
reconstruction period (2005-2008). Thus, many things were done to make people able to support themselves
and their families able to rise from adversity. The loss of family, property and businesses caused resignation
by affected people so they only expected support from other parties. In economics, number of family,
property and land are all production inputs, so that if one of them does not exist or is lost, it will obstruct the
production process. Through the economic recovery activities, donors created a variety of programs that
aimed to increase people's access to economic assets, such as allocating capital, equipment and training to
improve people's creativity in the economic sector. In this period, many foreign donors were involved in the
economic recovery process. The donors included Oxfam, International Relief and Development (IRD), Islamic
Relief, UNICEF, United Nation Development Programme (UNDP), Mercy Corps, Asian Development Bank
(ADB). The only government agency which was engaged in the rehabilitation processes was The
Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Body (BRR) for Aceh and Nias. BRR was an Indonesian government agency
which coordinated and jointly implemented the recovery program following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami
and the 2005 Nias Earthquake. This institute has run many disaster recovery projects in Aceh from 2005 to
2009, so this period is known as the rehabilitation and reconstruction period. The institutions which engaged
in the rehabilitation and reconstruction period were mostly international aid agencies. They were focused on
the ownership of economic assets and production facilities to increase the community’s ability to generate
income. Some assistances given by donor in this period are business capital, fish processing equipment,
training of producing Aceh craft, sewing equipment, training of catfish production, procurement of catfish
germ, revitalisation brick factories, procurement of boat and fishing gear, procurement of tricycles, training
of producing shredded fish, cool box procurement to preserve the fresh fish and training of fish processing to
fishermen.
After 2009, the aid was more focused on sustainability and equitable distribution of economic activities. In
this period, some aid programs were still supported by the government through related agencies, such as
the Industry and Trade Department, the Marine and Fisheries Department, the Social Welfare Department,
etc. While during the rehabilitation and reconstruction period the type of aid was mostly physical assistance,
in the next period the aid was more focused on non-physical assistances in the form of business
development training.
However, people's lives ten years after the tsunami were still below the standard of living, including low
income levels and poor quality of life. Moreover, focus group discussions have shown that there are some
aspects that are ignored in the distribution of aid to the community. One case was that people were not
involved in determining the economic assets needed.
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In an effective empowerment program, the community should be involved in the process of planning,
actuating, results utilization and project evaluation. However, due to time constraints in implementing aid
programs, there was incompatibility between the type of assistances provided with the capacity and skills of
the community based on their economic activity before the tsunami. In order to give a quick response, the
donors formulated quick policies in accordance with disaster locations and the amount of funds available.
In addition, the absence of monitoring and evaluation from funders in every provision made donors only
focus on the fulfilment of tasks of institutions to provide assistance in a precise time, sometimes regardless of
people's basic needs. The people were also not involved in any of the decision making processes, showing
that these actions only want to show the existence of donors without requiring the community to participate
actively. Moreover, in the rehabilitation and reconstruction period, the affected community also noticed aid
that was overlapping between donors. This condition happened because one type of goods was considered
more important compared to other types of assistances. This situation left some kinds of help ignored and
not used.
We realise that many assistances made people move on from their sadness and improve their lives again. But
in economic assistance, the huge amount of assistance has had a negative impact on people’s daily attitude.
One of the problems is that the beneficiaries have become apathetic and always rely on donors for their
livelihood. This happened because the economic resources were not developed as a whole. Donors seemed
to put a lot of attention on the type of aid. However, we also need to consider the readiness of the
community to take advantage of the aid. Readiness of the society includes not only economic aspects (which
means skills in using a given asset), but also the readiness and commitment of the community to use the aid
in accordance with the purpose of granting such aid. In some cases it was found that people often used cash
capital or other aid for private purposes because they needed to fulfil their primary needs, so their businesses
remained undeveloped.
People's desire to meet their primary needs quickly also caused other problems in the efforts to accelerate
economic growth. Generally, people choose to do business that could increase revenues in a relatively short
time and that had a certain market. So many trainings on product innovation were not implemented by the
community. It showed that Acehnese people focused more on fulfilling their family needs by using the
assistance or working as before tsunami because they don’t want to take a risk to try something new to fail
and loose income for their family. Therefore, after the various assistance programs from NGOs and BRR were
completed in 2009, the economic life of the people affected by the earthquake and the tsunami did not
experience significant development.
Eleven years after the earthquake and tsunami, Aceh’s economic conditions have begun to improve. Most
people have been forced to change their jobs because of the loss and destruction of business areas, but
some others are still doing their previous efforts. People in coastal areas are generally still running the same
businesses, such as fishermen and fish processors. Likewise, people in the Lampisang and Blang Krueng
village are also still running the same business such as traditional cake production. Lampisang village has
been known as a producer of reliable traditional Acehnese cakes since before the tsunami. Along the streets
of Banda Aceh-Meulaboh we can see many traditional pastry shops. In contrast, in Blang Krueng village,
people sell only on a small scale at the coffee shops around the village and the Darussalam area.
For the farmers in the region of Lamlhom village, Aceh Besar, some have had to switch jobs and become as
traders or construction workers as their fields are still covered in mud from the tsunami. However, some
people are still trying to work as they did before the tsunami as farmers and traders. Recently, we can see
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Recovery after extreme events - Lessons learned and remaining challenges in Disaster Risk Reduction
most of the people affected by the tsunami have received higher revenues, especially the fish processors, the
traditional cake makers and some farmers. But some traders have experienced a lower income as a result of
the increase in competition. This competition happened because a greater number of shops were built
throughout Aceh since the rehabilitation and reconstruction period.
From group discussion we can see some constraints faced by the community, such as the limitations in
marketing channels and the rise of the unemployment rate. This was caused by people’s dependency on aid
and the high level of wages during the reconstruction and rehabilitation period. It made people engage with
the wage system, and they did not want to work at a lower wage. So they were willing to be unemployed
rather than accept low wages.
From some of these constraints, some of the expectations of the tsunami victims are higher access to venture
capital and an independent economic society. Some cases in the coastal regions of Aceh Besar showed that
the number of requirements and guarantees from the official financial institutions caused a lack of
community access to capital and made people not want to borrow capital from official institutions. So they
were willing to borrow capital from moneylenders who did not require any collateral. But people had to pay
interest on loans which had higher rates than the official financial institutions. By the adequacy of capital,
people are expecting an independent economic society.
Lesson Learned from Economic Revitalization Efforts
Many programs of donors were able to empower tsunami victims in Aceh. However, the study on the
economic revitalisation of affected communities by the disaster showed the importance of comprehensive
planning for various emergency response programs. The government should have a blueprint for disaster
response that can be used by all agencies which are involved in the emergency response in the future.
Cooperation between the various institutions will help to improve aid distribution and minimize the
occurrence of overlapping types of assistance in the same areas. A blueprint for emergency response must
contain a mapping of the conditions in affected areas including demographic information, the data for rural
households (such as poverty rate, livelihoods, business scales and main assets owned) as well as data on
supporting institutions that are located in the disaster area. Policies, economic decisions and mitigation
activities should be supported by long-term, accurate data and assessments (Barredo, 2009). Ease of access
to data will increase the effectiveness of the assistances provided to the community, both in terms of the
type and amount of aid that is distributed to the community.
Another thing that is needed to accelerate the economic revitalization of affected people is to create policies
that reduce the loss of community economic assets after the disaster. In this case, the government should
have a master plan for disaster risk reduction within the next 10 years to ensure that economic assets can be
protected, for example by improving community access to banking institutions and the expansion of
insurance, especially for vulnerable people who were exposed to the earthquake and tsunami.
Conclusions
The earthquake and tsunami in Aceh have eliminated many productive assets of community, a result of the
lack of economic activities in the community level. In the process of economic activity revitalisation, there are
several projects that have been implemented by donors, such as the distribution of production inputs, the
rehabilitation of land and the training for small and medium businesses in the community. However, there
are problems in the process of economic revitalisation about the incompatibility of the types of aid and the
overlapping types of aid. This formed gaps in economic empowerment, and moreover made several aid
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Integrative Risk and Security Research
Volume 2/ 2017
opportunities be abandoned because they could not be used in certain areas due to a lack of land capacity.
In addition, top-down planning and aid provisions made people feel unsatisfied with the assistance provided
because it was not in accordance with the needs and characteristics of rural areas. In this case, the integrated
efforts of all institutions which are involved in the rehabilitation processes and reconstruction is needed. This
can be realized through a blueprint of emergency response and disaster risk reduction master plan that can
become a reference for the actions of all donors involved. Thus, the efforts of the emergency response in the
future will be well integrated and will maximize the accelerated development of disaster victims.
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