During the first meeting of the G20 DRR working group in India from March 29 to April 1, 2023, BNPB invited Duda Timur village head, I Gede Pawana, who is the head of Pasebaya Agung, to talk about community participation in reducing the risks of disaster at Mount Agung in Bali.
According to a BNPB press release issued here on Tuesday, Pasemetonan Jagabaya or Pasebaya Agung is an organization that educates the community on disaster mitigation and a volunteer forum that consists of residents from 28 villages in the Mt. Agung ring area.
The forum, which was established on November 17, 2017, has become a partner of the central and local governments in providing counseling to the community about DRR and conveying the latest information on Mount Agung's volcanic activities.
"I Gede Pawana's experience in leading Pasebaya Agung shows how important it is to involve local communities in improving their preparedness against disaster threats," BNPB's deputy for systems and strategy, Raditya Jati, said.
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The earthquake and tsunami occurrences in Indonesia have provided valuable lessons on the importance of DRR governance, he added.
"As an archipelagic country, Indonesia has experienced several wake-up calls in the form of major earthquakes and tsunamis such as in Aceh in 2004, Yogyakarta in 2006, Central Sulawesi in 2018, and the Cianjur earthquake in 2022," he said.
The experiences of handling the impact of these disasters provided valuable lessons in preparing governance, execution, and partnership plans regarding DRR, he added.
"Indonesia also underlines the importance of integrating climate change issues with disaster risk reduction efforts to achieve sustainable development goals through the spirit of sustainable resilience," Jati explained.
He said he expects the Bali Agenda for Resilience, formulated during the Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction (GPDRR) meeting in Bali last year, to serve as a reference for countries in carrying out disaster risk reduction.
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Translator: Devi R, Kenzu
Editor: Yuni Arisandy Sinaga
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