By Hafiz Amirrol, Head, Building Resilient Communities Programme Development and Operations, MERCY, Malaysia. (Southasiadisasters.net issue No. 179, December 2018)

Urbanisation, environmental degradation, climate change, and development-related processes and planning, shape and configure hazards. The complexity of systems and uncertainty related to the impact of development and climate change affect the way we understand and manage risks. Like other countries with exposure to disaster risks, especially in the Southeast Asia region, Malaysia’s disaster exposure ranges to various climate-related disasters such as floods, flash floods, landslides and strong winds, and increased partly due to climate change.

Taking into account future risks and uncertainties, Malaysia has taken several initiatives to mainstream disaster risk reduction (DRR) into its development agenda to safeguard risk-sensitive investment in the country. Several ongoing national initiatives in Malaysia to advance disaster risk reduction at the local level, with the National Disaster Management Agency (NADMA Malaysia) spearheading the effort to develop a national legal framework for disaster risk reduction which would serve as the umbrella for state governments and local authorities in the country.

Malaysia too had developed the National Science, Technology and Innovation Plan for DRR to comprehensively and systematically address knowledge gaps on current and emerging hazards in the country, including taking an integrated approach to disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation, to ensure sustainable development. Substantial resources have been provided to reduce underlying risk factors and promote sustainable development in the nation’s primary development plan – the ‘Five Years Malaysia Plan’.

At the level of the civil society, MERCY Malaysia had developed a strategic initiative known as Building Resilient Communities (BRC). BRC is an initiative that combines local governments, local communities, the education sector, health infrastructure and service providers, and the private sector as its primary stakeholder. Its objective is to achieve an understanding for the mainstream humanitarian actors, specialist actors and the public in becoming a prepared, responsive and resilient through the involvement of the effectiveness of grass – roots projects and programs and at the same time, suggest policies, guidelines and training inputs for each community to secure its role building resiliency.

Its activities and programs are being conducted across the country and beyond, with the aim of providing practical examples on how investing in building resilience can help reduce the humanitarian burden as well as demonstrate how investment in local DRR capacities can reduce risk, foster resilience and promote sustainable development. Its projects also practices current regional and localized approaches to DRR and explore how civil societies cooperate in building a more resilient Malaysia and ASEAN.

Routine training of trainers program, alongside other related trainings provide consistent capacity building inputs, not only at the local community level, but also to government administrators in enhancing the state of resilience of the country. Institutional frameworks adopted by the government will help to streamline activities and program strategies by NGOs and CSOs. One way of doing this is that NGOs and CSOs working in close coordination with NADMA Malaysia and other regional and international actors.

In its effort to encourage and protect sustainable development, the Government of Malaysia, under the 2019 National Budget which was announced on 2 November 2018, Malaysia Development Bank will provide a RM1 billion Sustainable Development Financing Fund aimed at supporting the sustainable development agenda of Agenda 2030 and the 17th Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) under UNDP. For this purpose, the Government will provide an interest rate subsidy incentive of 2%.

Some areas that require improvement include enhancing and building local community leaders’ capacities. Local leader platforms and forums should be created and promoted at the local level where open and frequent discussions on the different dimensions of the Sendai Framework can be encouraged. Local leadership must be nurtured and exchange programs for learning and sharing be encouraged. Focussed investment in developing regional cooperation for development of disaster resilient infrastructure and enabling environment for promotion of DRR work need to be established, while ensuring national development plans should be risk informed, aligned with DRR strategies. This practice should be encouraged as a necessity across the country and region.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this piece are those of the author/s and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of AIDMI.