Post-Tsunami Lessons Learned and Best Practices Workshop

 Some 80 people, including government officials at national and provincial level, representatives of UN agencies, as well as national and international NGOs, convened in Jakarta on 16 and 17 May 2005 for a two-day lessons learned and best practices workshop on the national and international response to the tsunami disaster of 26 December 2004.
The opening address was delivered by Dr. Alwi Shihab, Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare and greetings were conveyed by Mr. Bo Asplund, UN Resident Coordinator. Ibu Nannie Hudawati, Deputy Secretary for Cooperation and People’s Participation, provided an overview of the response to the tsunami crisis from the standpoint of the Indonesian Government.
In the introductory remarks prior to the beginning of the substantive discussions, it was recognized that the tsunami was an exceptional event. It was agreed that while lessons should be drawn from the response to it, recommendations would need to have a broader scope and be relevant for more frequent, smaller-scale disasters.