During 2009, OCHA Indonesia will mostly focus its activities on: 

• Improving coordination structures at the country and regional levels;
• Incorporating disaster risk reduction (DRR) approaches and strengthening preparedness in humanitarian response;
• Advocating strategically on humanitarian principles and issues;
• Strengthening information management (IM) with the government and other humanitarian stakeholders.

The United Nations (UN) Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has been known as such since 1998, when its original name, Department for Humanitarian Affairs (DHA) was changed to better reflect humanitarian concerns within the United Nations. The Office was established after General Assembly Resolution 46/182 of April 1992, which established the function of the UN Secretariat Emergency Relief Coordinator (ERC), and Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs.

OCHA has been present in Indonesia since September 1999, when an office in Dili was established to support the Secretary General’s Special Envoy for the East Timor Crisis. In coordination with that office, a small OCHA presence in Jakarta and Kupang was also established.

In April 2000, as a result of the increasing humanitarian needs related not only to the remaining refugees in West Timor (East Nusa Tenggara province), but also to the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Maluku, North Maluku and elsewhere, the Inter Agency Standing Committee (IASC) at the global level decided to also appoint the UNDP Resident Representative and UN Resident Coordinator in Indonesia as the UN Humanitarian Coordinator (HC). In October 2000, following the appointment of a Chief of OCHA Office and Deputy to the HC, the OCHA presence in Indonesia assumed the name of “OCHA Indonesia” in line with the practice followed by OCHA field offices elsewhere in the world.

As conflict in Indonesia spread over the next few years, OCHA expanded its activities to include the coordination of international response to the victims of violence and conflict in North Maluku, Maluku, Central Sulawesi, West Kalimantan, and Aceh. Over ten thousand people were killed and nearly 1.4 million displaced as a result of these unrests. Destruction of homes, schools and other public facilities, and personal suffering took place on a massive scale. OCHA established field offices in Maluku, North Maluku, Central Sulawesi, Aceh, and posted a local staff in Papua and East Nusa Tenggara.

In the recent years, Indonesia has made remarkable strides in restoring relative social and political stability in most of the conflict-affected regions—in particular Central Sulawesi, Maluku, North Maluku, West Kalimantan and Aceh—enabling displaced people to return to their villages of origin and resume normal activities. As a result of this peace, at the end of 2002 OCHA closed down its office in North Maluku. At the end of 2004, OCHA also closed its offices in Maluku and East Nusa Tenggara, and in mid-2005, it was the turn for OCHA’s Papua office. The closure of the Sulawesi office at the end of 2005 followed suit.

While OCHA was phasing down its presence countrywide, the situation in Aceh changed dramatically on 26 December 2004, after an earthquake magnitude level 9.0 with an epicenter off the west coast of Sumatra, triggered a powerful tsunami. The tsunami wave, reaching 15 metres in height in some places, caused widespread devastation along the coastline of Aceh and to a lesser extent North Sumatra, destroying towns and villages in its path. There was a massive loss of life, destruction of property and salination of land.

The natural disaster prompted a huge emergency humanitarian relief operation led by the Government of Indonesia (GoI) and supported by the UN, donor governments, NGOs and public from around the world. OCHA’s presence in Aceh again expanded to respond to massive coordination demands.

On 28 March 2005, a second earthquake magnitude 8.7 shook off the west coast of Sumatra, causing again severe damage, this time to the islands of Simeulue in Aceh province and Nias in North Sumatra. There was no call for additional international assistance as GoI capacity, supported by humanitarian agencies and NGOs already working in Sumatra as a result of the tsunami, was sufficient to meet immediate relief requirements.

In 2006, OCHA’s efforts focused on supporting coordination and information management through the Office of UN Recovery Coordinator (UNORC) in Aceh and Nias, and on strengthening disaster preparedness and response capacities of the UN and Government at the national level. At the same time OCHA was pursuing a phase out strategy, increasingly handing over to the Office of the UN RC/HC.

On 27 May 2006, another violent earthquake of magnitude 5.9 off the coast of Java caused major damages to the Yogyakarta and Central Java provinces. More than 5,700 people were killed and over 340,000 households were destroyed or severely damaged. The nature of the disaster called again for renewed coordination efforts in the region and called for the establishment of a coordination centre in Yogyakarta led by OCHA for six months, until the end of November 2006 when coordination of major recovery activities was handed over to UNDP.

While earthquake response efforts were ongoing, another large-scale earthquake struck Central Java and West Java provinces on 17 July 2006 triggering a tsunami that killed over 600 people and destroyed coastal communities and infrastructure. The country was also faced with severe flooding in Sulawesi and Kalimantan, eruption of Mt. Merapi volcano, a hot mud volcano causing displacement of 10,000 people in Surabaya, drought and crop failures in West Timor, Papua and Maluku, disease outbreak and security incidents in Papua, and spread of Avian Influenza (Indonesia having the world’s highest number of human cases). Other ongoing humanitarian challenges include unresolved displacement and an incomplete recovery process in Maluku, volatility and insecurity in Central Sulawesi, humanitarian concerns in Papua, and pockets of malnutrition and poverty in disaster prone areas.