Community Perception for Coastal Inundation

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As the leading institution for advocacy under ZFRA Phase 3 program, MC puts specific efforts to strengthen policy at global, national or sub-national level to support climate resilience initiatives. This perspective is contextualized by the ZFRA Indonesia team, taking into account the current challenges faced by the country, particularly in Indonesia's working area.

Coastal inundation has recently emerged as a significant concern in Indonesia. This occurs when seawater flows into the land repeatedly over a certain period of time, permanently changing the area from dryland into permanently inundated area. Coastal flooding and abrasion are among the primary causes of coastal inundation. As it often happens gradually over an extended period of time (known as a slow-onset event), the severity of the situation may go unnoticed, until it is too late, resulting in irreversible impacts.

ZFRA Phase 2 has equipped the team with substantial insights on issues and challenges faced by local governments in managing coastal inundation and its associated impacts. The previous study on Loss and Damage Governance Gap Analysis highlighted the unclear categorization of coastal inundation (between disaster and climate change) and its slow-onset character, which already poses a challenge in addressing it. Additionally, the inadequate policy and governance framework at the national level has contributed to incompetence and inefficiency in managing this issue. Recognizing the pivotal role played by relevant policy and governance frameworks at the national level in guiding sub-national and local government, it is important to have such a framework in place to effectively address coastal inundation

Despite the ZFRA team’s efforts and achievements in influencing the decision-making and policy-making processes related to flood resilience and climate resilience at both sub-national and national levels, these challenges remain unresolved. In addition to that, vested interests of stakeholders and political dynamics across different government levels has driven the team to continually refine the advocacy strategy throughout the program implementation period. The advocacy process, particularly for coastal inundation context and its cascading impacts, was getting more challenging as the team has struggled to comprehensively map the broader landscape of this issue. ZFRA sees a more robust influencing approach for coastal inundation issue is needed to foster a more effective and operational policies and governance frameworks, particularly at the national level.

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