Af Lilianne Fan, gæsteskribent hos IRIN
Aceh-provinsen på det nordlige Sumatra har fået megen hjælp til at genopbygge samfundet efter naturens voldsomme knytnæveslag i 2004 – men alt i alt er den indonesiske provins ligeså fattig og tilbagestående som denne dag for ti år siden.
BANDA ACEH, 26 December 2014 (IRIN): The Indian Ocean tsunami, triggered by a massive earthquake just off the coast of the province of Aceh on tip the Indonesian island of Sumatra, released the energy of 23,000 Hiroshima-type atomic bombs and devastated coastal towns and communities.
The impact was global in scale – an estimated 270,000 people killed or missing across 14 countries, with casualties in 46 nations.
But while the tsunami’s destruction was felt around the world, Aceh was by far the region most devastated by the disaster, bearing almost half of the total damage and losses worldwide.
A success story….
Today, 10 years on, Aceh is widely regarded as a success story in disaster reconstruction. This is not entirely surprising – over the four year mandate of the government-led recovery process, Aceh saw a remarkable amount of construction.
With the help of hundreds of aid agencies and donors, under the coordination of the government of Indonesia, more than 140,000 new homes were built, along with around 4,000 km of roads, 2,000 schools, 1,000 health facilities, 23 seaports, and 13 airports and landing strips.
One of the most prominent symbols of Aceh’s reconstruction is the 242 km-long highway from provincial capital Banda Aceh to Meulaboh along the province’s formerly devastated west coast, built with the vision of stimulating economic activity and supporting Aceh’s long-term development.
But deeper problems persist
But while Aceh’s physical reconstruction is impressive and the Indonesian government’s Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Agency for Aceh and Nias (BRR) has rightly been praised as a model of post-crisis governance and leadership, these achievements obscure deeper problems that have made long-term recovery for many Acehnese difficult and elusive.
The hard truth is that for most Acehnese, their “recovery” still remains an unfinished journey, as many continue to struggle to make ends meet.
Even after receiving more than 7.7 billion US dollar (knapt 46 milliarder DKR) in aid, from both international and national sources, Aceh remains one of the poorest provinces in Indonesia with 18 percent of the population living below the country’s poverty line (significantly higher than the national average of 11 percent).
Today, in spite of much optimism that the province would undergo an economic renaissance on the back of the reconstruction bubble, Aceh’s economy is stagnant and unemployment is high.
And while tsunami aid could not possibly have been expected to lift all Acehnese out of poverty, some critical questions ought to be asked about whether that aid struck the right balance.
Was the prioritization on physical rebuilding along Aceh’s west coast appropriate in a province that suffered from not only a tsunami but also a 30-year conflict and decades of isolation and underdevelopment?
Should more aid have been spent on supporting sustainable livelihoods and less on physical infrastructure? Could more effort have been made to shift excessive tsunami aid to poor conflict areas?
Ghost villages, empty highway
All along the west coast of Aceh are houses built with aid money – once sturdy buildings, now abandoned and decayed, forming ghost villages, such as in the villages of Lhok Kruet, Nusa and Babah Dua in the district of Aceh Jaya.
Without regular income, many Acehnese simply cannot afford to maintain their new houses, nor to pay for infrastructure and utility connections, and have found alternative shelter, including sharing rented accommodation with relatives.
Many tsunami survivors, including children and youth who became heads of households and breadwinners in the aftermath of the disaster, feel they have few options but to migrate, often illegally, to seek work.
Moving to big cities in Indonesia and Malaysia in search of work, many have also abandoned their aid-built houses in pursuit of livelihood security.
Such economic pressures have a direct negative impact on children’s education – Aceh’s school drop-out rate of 26 percent is one of the highest in the country, and orphans from poor backgrounds are the single largest group among drop-outs.
In addition, in 2013-2014, Aceh had the highest number of secondary students who failed the national exams. They also have an impact on women, who are left to take care of children and the elderly, a role which they played during the years of conflict when many men were forced to flee.
In all fairness, tsunami aid cannot be blamed for Aceh’s continuing problems
Indeed, Aceh had multiple problems before the tsunami, first among them the 30-year conflict between the Free Aceh Movement (Gerakan Aceh Merdeka, or GAM) and the Indonesian government that killed an estimated 30,000 people, left over 300,000 seriously injured, and displaced an estimated 600,000 people.
The conflict also devastated the social and economic fabric of the province, and weakened its institutions. During the years of fighting, human rights violations against rebels and civilians alike were rampant, homes and schools became regular targets of arson attacks.
The social development costs of the conflict were alarming. In 2002, just two years before the tsunami, the poverty rate stood at 30 percent, more than half the population had no access to running water and one in three children under the age of five was under-nourished.
Farmers were too afraid to attend to their fields, while illicit businesses, including in logging, arms, drugs, and extortion, thrived.
A “third wave of trauma”
Many hoped that the peace agreement, accelerated by the tsunami, would allow Aceh’s conflict-affected communities to also benefit from the large volume of aid in the province.
But while damage and loss from the conflict is estimated to be more than 10 billion dollar (ca. 60 mia. DKR), conflict aid to Aceh reached only around 800 million dollar, or one-seventh the total of tsunami aid.
Today, many rural households continue to struggle to make ends meet: Aceh’s anticipated “peace dividend” has yet to become a reality.
Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, director of BRR, admitted in 2008 that “the rural economy on the coastline that was hit by the tsunami is back, I can say that with full confidence. The rural economy in the hinterland that was affected by the conflict is not back.”
Recent psychosocial research by the Mulia Hati Foundation, a local NGO, along Aceh’s west coast revealed that many Acehnese experience poverty as a “third wave of trauma”, on top of the trauma of the tsunami and that of the conflict.
Indeed, Aceh’s conflict-era political economy has not disappeared since the tsunami or the signing of the peace agreement; it has, on the contrary, adapted and persisted, creating new inequalities and putting control of the economy into the hands of a new political elite.
Blind aid
Læs videre på
http://www.irinnews.org/report/100972/aceh-s-unfinished-recovery
Se også http://www.odi.org
Lilianne Fan er tilknyttet britiske Overseas Development Institute.
NOTE:
This is the final part in a five-part IRIN-series looking back on the Indian Ocean tsunami:
Part 1: Aceh at 10 – a look back at the response
Part 2: The tsunami that helped stop a war
Part 3: The legacy of Aceh’s emergency economy
Part 4:Sri Lanka, the tsunami and the evolution of disaster response
