Improving Disaster Recovery Governance: Lessons from the Two Ad-Hoc Recovery Agencies

Abstract

At the time of the Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 and the Super Typhoon Haiyan of 2013, the existing disaster risk management (DRM) institutions of impacted countries were inadequate, and unprepared to govern the recovery process from large-scale disasters. This prompted the respective governments to establish adhoc recovery agencies to mobilise resources and unify all recovery efforts. However, establishing an ad-hoc agency after a disaster is a challenging endeavour. It poses issues from setting up to ensure it has adequate power and the capacity to influence the recovery outcomes. Governance issues-such as the power to command government agencies and stakeholders, the capacity to blend and streamline bureaucratic processes, and produce an 'account' of how the recovery agency discharges its duties to all recovery stakeholders-can create bottlenecks and stall the whole aspects of the recovery efforts. If the recovery agency fails to address these challenges, the stalled process will exacerbate social and economic losses and will exponentially increase the overall recovery costs. This paper reviews these governance challenges from the experiences of two ad-hoc recovery agencies (i.e. Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi or BRR in Indonesia, and the Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery or OPARR in the Philippines) in Southeast Asia using a contextual lens (i.e. social, cultural, economic, and political perspectives) to draw lessons on improving disaster recovery governance for large-scale disasters. Keywords IntroductionIn two large-scale disasters that impacted Southeast Asia, ad-hoc agencies were established to govern the recovery process. The Government of Indonesia, following the Indian Ocean Tsunami (2004), established the Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi (BRR), while the Government of the Philippines, following the super typhoon

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“…The study calls more community engagements, changes in policy and more targeted aids as participating factors in a quicker reconstruction. Potutan et al (2022) focused on two recovery agencies and governance challenges they faced during recovery. Authors made several recommendations for improving the recovery governance when agencies are dealing with large-scale disasters.…”