Strengthening local humanitarian capacity in Indonesia

Agus Wijaya (right), member of the West Nusa Tenggara Youth Movement Communication Forum (Forum Komunikasi Gerakan Pemuda - FKGP), appears as a guest speaker on the topic of ‘Digital Technology Innovation in Supporting Community Resilience’ at the National Disaster Risk Reduction Day celebration on 12 October 2022, in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan.

Agus Wijaya has been a member of the West Nusa Tenggara Youth Movement Communication Forum (Forum Komunikasi Gerakan Pemuda - FKGP) since 2009. Through this forum, Agus is actively involved in community social activities.

During the 7.0 Lombok earthquake in 2018, 30-year-old Agus and his colleagues were personally affected. Despite the personal disruption, they continued to respond to the disaster by distributing aid to the affected communities. Despite their efforts, FKGP experienced hurdles and capacity constraints.

Thanks to World Vision’s Indonesian COVID-19 Surge Response supported by the Australian Humanitarian Partnership (AHP), Agus and his colleagues in FKGP now have strengthened capacities for distributing aid and cash and voucher programs (CVP) to vulnerable families impacted by the socio-economic aftermath of COVID-19.

"The distribution of aid that we carried out during the Lombok Earthquake did not use a needs assessment beforehand, so the goods distributed were often not according to the needs of the community. In addition, we were unable to identify people who had or had not received assistance because we did not have data by name and address,” said Agus, while recalling his previous experiences.

Agus explained that his knowledge and capacities were enhanced after he and FKGP were supported by World Vision Indonesia through the AHP activation. World Vision Indonesia introduced FKGP to the Last Mile Mobile Solution (LMMS) application that is designed to strengthen efficiency, effectiveness, and accountability in humanitarian service delivery. The application improves remote data collection, rapidly tracks the management of aid participants, and enables fairer aid distributions. According to Agus, the distribution of aid is now easier, with initial community needs assessments also helping communities receive assistance according to their needs.

“Prospective aid recipients are registered in the LMMS system first so that people who come to receive assistance only need to show the LMMS card that has been distributed previously. As a result, the distribution process runs in an orderly and fast manner," Agus added.

World Vision Indonesia implements the AHP-supported Indonesia COVID-19 Surge Response in collaboration with 12 local partners across East Nusa Tenggara, West Nusa Tenggara, Central Sulawesi, North Maluku, and Papua. The distribution of cash assistance aims to help vulnerable families and members of the community greatly affected by COVID-19 who have not received government social assistance. The response has a significant focus on gender, disability and social inclusion, to ensure that the most vulnerable can meet their basic needs and the needs of children including education costs.

Cash assistance is provided through two transfers where each household gets Rp600,000 (AUD 60) per transfer. As of October 2022, a total of 4,189 people had benefitted through the LMMS application, including 2,219 people with disabilities. By using LMMS and equipping local responders and civil society to manage the technology, aid can be distributed quickly and effectively.