IRI Helps Local Government with Post-Tsunami Reconstruction

April 20, 2005

April 20-21 – In response to the devastation caused by the December 2004 tsunami in Indonesia’s Aceh province, IRI held an historic two-day workshop in the provincial capital of Banda Aceh. The workshop, which followed two IRI field assessments conducted in February and March, focused on the role of elected officials and political parties in a reconstruction environment. The first day of the workshop was held in the provincial parliament (DPRD) building and was attended by a majority of elected officials and party factions in the parliament. The event marked the first time a foreign nongovernmental organization had been invited to hold a democracy-strengthening workshop in the DPRD building and the first time since 2002 that IRI was able to conduct a multi-party workshop in Banda Aceh on an explicitly political topic.

Paul Berg, the U.S. consul general-designate in Medan, and IRI Vice President Liz Dugan opened the workshop and introduced the panel of trainers who led the two-day workshop. The trainers included Cheryl Moore, district director in the office of U.S. Representative Tom Feeney (R-FL); Andrew Poat, director of government relations for the city of San Diego; and Tarik Harun, project coordinator with the Coastal Association for Social Transformation Trust in Bangladesh. Participants also viewed a recorded message from Alvaro Patino, former mayor of Armenia, Colombia, which suffered a catastrophic earthquake in 1999. IRI plans to hold a follow-up conference this year as a result of the positive feedback received from the participants.

Figure 1: IRI holds two-day conference in April 2005 in Banda Aceh, Indonesia, to assist local government with post-tsunami reconstruction efforts.

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