"Anticipatory actions should be carried out by involving all elements of the community through disaster education to be aware of and understand disasters," he said while opening the ASEAN Regional Disaster Emergency Response Simulation Exercise (ARDEX 2023), which was followed online from here on Tuesday.
ARDEX is being held in Bantul district, Yogyakarta, from August 1–4, 2023.
According to Effendy, realizing sustainable disaster resilience is a must, especially as Indonesia is prone to various disasters.
For this, capacity building in disaster risk management is needed in order to strengthen data and information management, he said.
"Apart from that, routine simulation needs to be carried out to continuously train the community so that they are not confused when a disaster occurs," the minister added.
Meanwhile, head of the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB), Lieutenant General Suharyanto, said that ARDEX is one of the efforts to improve disaster preparedness and bolster Pentahelix collaboration.
"ARDEX is one of the steps in the effort to manage disaster risk reduction by involving cross-sectors, cross-systems, cross-scales and borders through sovereignty simulation exercises in disaster management," he added.
Suharyanto expressed the hope that Indonesia and friendly countries in the Southeast Asian region will share knowledge and technology in the field of disaster and good practices from local cultures on disaster management.
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Translator: Asep Firmansyah, Raka Adji
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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