Indonesia leaders urge disaster resilience in development planning

Indonesian officials and political leaders are calling for disaster resilience to be integrated directly into the nation's development planning and governance. Deputy Minister of Home Affairs Bima Arya Sugiarto emphasized that disaster management must move beyond mere response efforts to a system of “resilience by design.” He argued that development policies, spatial planning, and budgeting must account for regional risk data to prevent increasing vulnerability.

Complementing this approach, PKS President Almuzzammil Yusuf proposed a three-step agenda to strengthen preparedness: empowering families as the first line of defense, ensuring the use of credible information to combat “information disasters” or hoaxes, and integrating risk reduction into infrastructure governance. Yusuf specifically highlighted the need for disaster-safe schools and hospitals, as well as spatial planning that respects maps for landslides, floods, tsunamis, and eruptions.