Disaster Capacity Building in Climate Related Disasters: Comparative Study of Post-Tsunami Indonesia and Sri Lanka

Abstract

This thesis examines the various domestic capacity building initiatives as well as disaster management strategies of post-2004 Indonesia and Sri Lanka, the two most affected nations of the Indian Ocean tsunami. Despite similar levels of damage as well as progress of short-term recovery processes, these two countries in question have diverged in terms long-term disaster resilience building. Given this, this thesis investigates how the short-term and long-term resilience building process various depending on a government's capacity, focusing on the impacts of institutional coordination. Coordination ability of the government was assessed through the degree in which information sharing and agency collaboration were operative.

Analysis revealed that while insufficient government capacity can be compensated through international aid efforts, government capacity to appropriately coordinate disaster resilience building strategies is essential in long-term development plans. Sri Lanka and Indonesia had contrasting levels of progress in long-term resilience building strategies. While Indonesia took the approach of slowly fusing disaster management initiatives into existing national development plans, Sri Lanka's lack of institutional arrangement as well as funds for economic and urban planning measures hindered the country from doing so. As a result, Sri Lanka showed less progress in comparison to Indonesia.