IOM Coordinates Massive Relief Effort in Java
At the request of the Indonesian government
and international aid agencies, IOM is standardizing non-food
assistance packages provided to hundreds of thousands of families
affected by the 27 May earthquake on the island of Java.
“This is a significant collective effort
on the part of the government, the international community, local
NGOs and civil society groups to guarantee we are all pulling in
the same direction,” says IOM Indonesia executive officer
Paul Norton. “Sixty-five different organizations are working
together to ensure an equitable distribution of NFIs (non-food
items) to avoid creating have and have-not communities.”
The extent of the damage done by the dawn
earthquake in the agricultural heartland of the most populous
island on earth has only become clear in the past few days. A joint
assessment by the Indonesian government and World Bank this week
concluded that close to 300,000 homes have either been completely
destroyed or rendered uninhabitable. An estimated 1.3 million
people are believed homeless.
The inter-agency coordinated procurement of
NFIs was first attempted in response to the devastating 2005
earthquake in Pakistan.
“We are taking the lessons learned in
the field there and applying them to the current emergency,”
Norton said.
“Our job is to coordinate exactly what
will be included in the various assistance packages, everything
from sleeping mats and bedding to tools and materials to be used in
the construction of temporary shelters, and then to assist in the
transportation and distribution of those materials.”
IOM’s fleet of 80 trucks has delivered
more than 2,500 tons of relief supplies to earthquake-affected
areas of Java in the past three weeks.
For further information, please contact:
Paul Dillon
Tel: +62 812 698 8035
E-mail:
"mailto:pdillon@iom.int" target="_blank" title=
"">pdillon@iom.int
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