Enhancing community engagement in disaster early warning system in Aceh, Indonesia: opportunities and challenges

Engaging communities in Early Warning Systems (EWSs) is crucial to save lives, reduce injuries, and protect the environment due to disaster events. Yet, community input is not always commonly sought in many disaster policy development and implementation processes. Following the major disaster event of 2004 that had large consequences for multiple countries, the concept of people-centred EWSs was promulgated to encourage Community Engagement (CE) in EWSs. Aceh, Indonesia was one of the regions most devastated by the 2004 event, and despite the progress that has been achieved in disaster risk management and prevention and preparedness including the EWS design and operation following this event, improving CE in the system remains an important challenge. This study investigates the opportunities and challenges for enhancing CE in the EWS in Aceh by exploring current social systems, governance arrangements, donor funded projects and community perspectives using in-depth interviews, document reviews, and focus group discussions. The findings identify that there is inadequate CE across all four elements of a people-centred EWS. To enhance such CE in the EWS, numerous opportunities were identified: improved recognition of community figures, promoting adat and sharia practices in enhancing community involvement; and utility of meunasahs and mosques as important physical places for engaging the community in the system. Despite these opportunities, various barriers were identified to improve CE including insufficient integration of CE in the formal EWS contingency plans or the existing EWS SOP; the erosion of meuseraya practices; inadequate funds to maintain CE programs; insufficient sustained integration of CE into government disaster policy processes; lack of community ownership of CE programs; and a fatalistic worldview of disasters. Various recommendations are provided to enhance CE in the EWS in Aceh. This is a critical requirement towards reducing harm for future hazard events.