Rebuilding Aceh - Indoneisia BRR Spearheads Post

For the exclusive use of U. PUTRO, 2019.
HKS785
Case Number 2010.0
Rebuilding Aceh:
Indonesia’s BRR Spearheads Post-Tsunami Recovery
“No one had ever dealt with a natural disaster of this magnitude. It was like starting with a clean slate – and much
1
of our emphasis on ‘learning by doing’ was because we did not always have the answers when we first began.”
Introduction
On Sunday, December 26, 2004, a 9.1 magnitude earthquake occurred off the west coast of Sumatra, one of
the largest islands in the vast Indonesian archipelago. Destructive in its own right, the earthquake triggered one of
the most horrific natural disasters in modern history: a series of tsunami waves that radiated out across the Indian
Ocean, inflicting tremendous damage and suffering as they crashed ashore.
No place felt the tsunami’s effects as severely as did Indonesia’s Aceh Province, located on the far northern tip
of Sumatra and home to slightly more than 4 million people at the time of the disaster. For years, the Acehnese
had endured considerable hardship, having experienced isolation from the international community, high levels of
impoverishment, and routine violence as the Indonesian government and guerilla fighters engaged in a decades-
long struggle over control of the region. But the tsunamis’ monster waves, reaching up to six kilometers inland,
inflicted devastation on an unprecedented scale. By the time the waters had calmed, the waves had radically re-
shaped large portions of the province’s coast, affecting more than 800 kilometers of shoreline; destroying whole
villages; and taking the lives of approximately 127,000 Acehnese (with another 93,000 or so declared missing).
2
Over 500,000 local residents lost their homes.
1
The Executing Agency for Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh-Nias (BRR), 10 Management Lessons for Host Govern-
ments Coordinating Post-Disaster Reconstruction (Indonesia, 2009).
2
Ibid; and BRR, Story: Feat of the Daunting Launch (Indonesia, 2009).
This case was written by David W. Giles, Assistant Director, Program on Crisis Leadership, for Dr. Arnold M. Howitt, Executive
Director of the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard
University. Funds for case development were provided by Harvard Kennedy School’s Indonesia Program, Rajawali Foundation
Institute for Asia at the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation. HKS cases are developed solely as the basis for
class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary data, or illustrations of effective or inef-
fective management.
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In the tsunami’s immediate aftermath, survivors struggled to aid one another and to account for their families,
3
neighbors, and friends. Meanwhile, as news of the disaster spread, various public entities – chief among them the
National Coordinating Board for Disaster Management and the Indonesian military – took steps to organize an offi-
4
cial response. But the event had incapacitated numerous local and provincial institutions (one-third of the re-
5
gion’s civil servants died in the tsunami, including the mayor of Banda Aceh, the province’s capital), and the na-
tional government lacked the capacity to provide adequate relief on its own. Hundreds of domestic and interna-
tional charities, relief groups, foreign military units, and other organizations began converging on Aceh, however;
and in collaboration with Indonesian authorities, they were soon operating emergency shelters, treating casualties,
delivering basic necessities, and helping to remove and bury the tens of thousands of corpses that still lay out in
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the open.
The massive relief operation that unfolded was far from perfect, as inter-agency rivalries, poor communica-
7
tion, and a lack of coordination complicated efforts. All the same, it succeeded in preventing further casualties
and in minimizing hunger and disease; and as the immediate crisis subsided, those responsible for guiding the re-
gion out of the devastation turned their attention to a new set of challenges. With livelihoods upended and homes,
places of business, and infrastructure destroyed beyond repair, large swaths of coastal Aceh would have to be en-
tirely rebuilt.
This, authorities realized, would require a massive, long-term recovery enterprise. In time, they settled on the
idea of forming an ad hoc body to coordinate the various facets of recovery (in not only Aceh but also in the Nias
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Islands, which experienced a powerful earthquake just three months after the tsunami) – and on April 16, 2005,
3
International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC), “Information Black Hole in Aceh,” World Disasters
Report 2005 (Geneva, 2005), available at https://www.ifrc.org/Global/Publications/disasters/WDR/69001-WDR2005-english-
LR.pdf [accessed January 9, 2014].
4
BRR, 10 Management Lessons.
5
Ibid; and BRR, Institution: Laying the Foundation of Good Government (Indonesia, 2009).
6
BRR, Tsunami: From Disaster to the Emergence of Light (Indonesia, 2009); IFRC, “Information Black Hole;” “Rebuilding ‘Slug-
gish’ in Aceh,” Canberra Times, June 18, 2005, B6; and Tim Sullivan, “Aceh Shows Best, Worst of Tsunami Spending,” Associated
Press, December 18, 2005.
7
IFRC, “Information Black Hole;” “Tsunami Report Criticises Relief Effort,” The Guardian, October 5, 2005; and Tom Wright, “UN
Failed to Coordinate Tsunami Relief, Red Cross Report Says,” New York Times, October 6, 2005.
8
Although this case focuses on BRR’s efforts to coordinate recovery in Aceh Province, the agency also had responsibility for
overseeing reconstruction in the Nias Islands, located off the western coast of Sumatra, which were hit by an 8.7 magnitude
earthquake on March 28, 2005. Causing the deaths of nearly 1,000 people and inflicting widespread damage, the earthquake
significantly worsened already difficult conditions on the islands (Nias had long-standing tensions with provincial authorities on
the mainland and was, based on a number of indicators, one of the poorest regions in Indonesia). In response, Jakarta added
the post-earthquake reconstruction of Nias to BRR’s mandate, and in June 2005, the agency’s director, Kuntoro Mangkusubro-
to, named William Sabandar as head of the BRR Nias Representative Office. Sabandar would report to Kuntoro and work closely
with his cohorts in Aceh, but he was also able to adapt recovery approaches and management practices to the particularities of
the region. On BRR’s behalf, he oversaw an ambitious recovery plan that in addition to implementing a range of reconstruction
projects, focused heavily on increasing residents’ general standards of living and on improving disaster preparedness (BRR,
Nias: Building through the Road Less Travelled [Indonesia, 2009]).
HKS Case Program 2 of 36 Case Number 2010.0
the Government of Indonesia formally established the Agency for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh
9
and Nias, commonly referred to by its Indonesian acronym, BRR.
The announcement of BRR’s creation could not have come any time sooner. Writing for the New York Times in
early April, Seth Mydans captured the lack of progress in the provincial capital, Banda Aceh:
Vast areas remain a flatland of rubble, mud and stagnant water where only palm trees
and the stumps of broken buildings break the low horizon. … [Yet] there are no bulldoz-
ers or heavy equipment to be seen here; no one is clearing away rubble or repairing
roads or bridges; wells are not being decontaminated; power lines are not being put up;
10
there are no sounds of hammers or saws.
With similar scenes of quiet desolation all along Aceh’s coastline, criticism of the direction recovery appeared
11
headed was mounting by the day.
Arriving in the province in early May, BRR’s core staff was determined to put a devastated Aceh back on its
feet. But as they settled into their new jobs, they were left to ponder some serious questions. How would they
manage to overcome so many hurdles and launch a successful recovery? Had they and their partners designed and
resourced BRR in ways that would deliver real and sustainable progress? Would they be able to navigate the inter-
ests of entrenched aid organizations and other stakeholders, both domestic and international, each with its own
agenda and way of operating? What compromises and adjustments might they have to make as they worked to
spearhead recovery?
For a chronology of events described in this case and a list of key actors, see Exhibits 1 and 2, respectively. For
maps of (a) the Indonesian archipelago; (b) the epicenter of the December 26, 2004 earthquake in relation to Aceh
Province; and (c) areas in Aceh damaged by the tsunami, see Exhibits 3 – 5. Exhibits 6-11 illustrate scenes of dam-
age and recovery in the province.
Forming a National Recovery Agency
By January 2005, the international community was moving towards making billions of dollars in reconstruction
12
aid available to tsunami-affected areas, including Aceh. With so much money at stake, pressure mounted on
Indonesia’s President, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, to ensure that his government would administer the country’s
9
BRR’s name in Bahasa Indonesia, the country’s official language, is Badan Rehabilitasi dan Rekonstruksi NAD-Nias. This case
focuses on BRR’s Executing Agency, one of the organization’s three bodies, each of which directly reported – independent of
one another – to the President (the other two groups being the Supervisory Board and the Advisory Board [BRR, Story]).
10
Seth Mydans, “Where Tsunami Ravaged, Barely a Sign of Relief,” New York Times, April 6, 2005.
11
“Rebuilding ‘Sluggish.’”
12
According to calculations by the Indonesian government, about $7.2 billion was ultimately pledged for supporting recovery
efforts in Aceh and the Nias Islands. This figure includes money provided by domestic and foreign charities, international insti-
tutions and donor countries, and the Indonesian government. Although responsible for administering the national govern-
ment’s own reconstruction budget of about $2.1 billion, BRR did not actually manage the majority of the funds committed to
recovery. Instead, it played a key coordination role through the fund allocation process (BRR, 10 Management Lessons; BRR,
Finance: The Seven Keys to Effective Aid Management [Indonesia, 2009]; and BRR, Tsunami).
portion of the funds in a transparent and effective manner – an imperative for the donor community, given Indo-
nesia’s reputation for corruption and generally weak governance systems (both problems arguably even more se-
13,14
vere in Aceh itself). In addition, Yudhoyono, who had taken office just two months before the tragedy, had his
own motives for delivering a successful and cleanly run recovery effort: he had campaigned on an anti-corruption
platform, and the recovery presented him with an unparalleled opportunity to showcase a new way of doing busi-
15
ness in Indonesia.
Negotiations
Paramount to making these good intentions a reality was identifying a chief recovery official who had the re-
spect and trust not only of Jakarta but also of the international community on whose largesse Indonesia was
counting. After briefly considering several candidates for the job, the president and his advisors soon settled on
their man: Dr. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto (hereafter, Kuntoro – like many Indonesians, he is generally referred to by
just his first name), who for years had moved easily within and between the worlds of academia, business, and
16
government. A specialist in decision analysis, he held degrees in engineering from Stanford University and the
Bandung Institute of Technology (the “MIT of Indonesia”), where he had helped found several graduate schools.
He had also served as President Director of P.T. Tambang Timah Tbk, a state-owned tin production enterprise, and
as President of P.T. PLN, the state electricity company. In the 1990s he had held several positions in the national
government, most prominently as Minister of Mines and Energy from 1998-1999 during the last days of the Suhar-
17,18
to regime and the short-lived administration of his successor, B.J. Habibie. Also of note, he was one of the
13
BRR, Finance; and Michelle Ann Miller, “What’s Special about Special Autonomy in Aceh?” in Verandah of Violence: The Back-
ground to the Aceh Problem, Anthony Reid, ed., Singapore University Press, 2006.
14
In 2005, Transparency International ranked Indonesia 137 out of 159 countries on its corruption perceptions index. The coun-
try received a low score of 2.2, with 10 representing the “cleanest” places in which to do business (Transparency International,
Corruption Perceptions Index 2005, 2005, available at
http://archive.transparency.org/policy_research/surveys_indices/cpi/2005 [accessed January 9, 2014]). Meanwhile, in Aceh,
the provincial governor was arrested and charged with corruption just a few weeks before the tsunami occurred. He was sub-
sequently convicted and given a 10-year sentence (“Aceh Governor Jailed for Graft,” BBC News, April 11, 2005; BRR, 10 Man-
agement Lessons; and Sullivan, “Aceh Shows Best, Worst of Tsunami Spending”).
15
BRR, 10 Management Lessons; and BRR, Story.
16
BBR, 10 Management Lessons; and BRR, Finance.
17
BRR, Biography: Kuntoro Mangkusubroto (Banda Aceh, Indonesia); and School of Business and Management ITB, Professor
Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, available at http://sbm.itb.ac.id/en/ictom/keynote-speakers/kuntoro-mangkusubroto [accessed Jan-
uary 10, 2014].
18
Having replaced Sukarno, the first president of post-colonial Indonesia, during a tumultuous period in the mid-1960s, Suharto
ruled as president from 1967-1998. With the backing of the Indonesian military, Suharto tightly controlled government until the
mid-1990s, when the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and other serious economic downturns significantly weakened his grip on
power. In 1998, in the face of mass protests, Suharto resigned, turning the presidency over to B.J. Habibie, his vice president.
During his short time in office, Habibie implemented far-reaching reforms that included taking steps to stabilize Indonesia’s
economy; reaching an agreement with separatists in East Timor; and liberalizing the country’s political structure, which paved
the way for a transition to democracy and the decentralization of governmental functions and institutions. In November 1999,
following Indonesia’s first post-Suharto era elections, Abdurrahman Wahid replaced Habibie as president. Two years later,
Sukarno’s daughter, Megawati Sukarnoputri, assumed the presidency, ruling until 2004, when she was defeated by Yudhoyono
in the country’s first direct presidential elections (William H. Frederick and Robert L. Worden, eds., Indonesia: A Country Study
(Washington, DC, 2011), available at http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/pdf/CS_Indonesia.pdf [accessed January 10, 2014]; and U.S.
founders of the Indonesian Transparency Society (known by its Indonesia Bahasa acronym, MTI), which advocated
19
for good governance and against corruption across the public, private, and nonprofit sectors.
Over the course of his career, Kuntoro had earned a reputation as a particularly effective administrator with a
20
high degree of personal integrity, which made him an especially appealing candidate to those with a stake in the
recovery. In particular, he was strongly supported by several influential cabinet ministers – including the head of
the National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS), which had conducted post-tsunami damage assessments
and was thus intimately familiar with Aceh’s recovery needs – as well as by representatives of key donor countries
21
and multi-lateral organizations. (Interestingly, although Kuntoro and Yudhoyono were both active in government
in the late 1990s, they did not know each other particularly well and were not close in a political sense.)
When Yudhoyono offered Kuntoro the post of recovery czar in February 2005, Kuntoro expressed interest but
did not immediately accept. Instead, he and a core group of advisors embarked on an intense, months-long back
and forth with the president and his staff over the terms of the appointment and the design, structure, and under-
22
lying authorities of the organization he would lead. Among those Kuntoro consulted with closely during this pro-
cess was Sudirman Said, who would eventually serve as BRR’s Deputy for Institutional Development. At Kuntoro’s
behest, Said and several associates began researching how recovery had progressed following several other major
disasters – in particular, the earthquakes in Kobe, Japan, in 1995, and in Bam, Iran, in 2003. Realizing that rehabili-
tating those areas had taken a considerable amount of time, the group concluded, in Said’s words, “We needed to
23
establish a strong institution, politically strong [in order to achieve results and avoid gridlock.]”
Kuntoro’s own experience as a bureaucrat and chief executive of state-owned enterprises provided him with a
good sense of what he did and did not want for the organization. He was especially determined to press for pas-
sage of a law establishing a strong and autonomous agency, as recommended by Said’s group – along with ministe-
rial rank for himself as its head. Kuntoro elaborated:
And what [I felt] the law should state was that this special organization had special au-
thority to do [reconstruction]. … Meaning that if I wanted to build 1,000 homes there,
that was my authority. I didn’t have to meet with the Minister of Public Works. I didn’t
Department of State, Background Note: Indonesia, January 20, 2012, available at

http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/indonesia/195233.htm [accessed January 10, 2014]).
19
BRR, Story; and Masyarakat Transparansi Indonesia (MTI), Visi dan Strategi, available at
http://www.transparansi.or.id/profil/visi-dan-strategi/ [accessed January 10, 2014].
20
“At Last, Progress,” The Economist, May 26, 2005, available at http://www.economist.com/node/4010826 [accessed January
14, 2014]; BRR, Finance; and Sullivan, “Aceh Shows Best, Worst of Tsunami Spending.”
21
BRR, Story; and interview with Maggy Horhoruw, Office of the Director, BRR, by telephone, September 9, 2010.
22
BRR, Story.
23
Interview with Sudirman Said, former Deputy, Institutional Development, BRR, Jakarta, Indonesia, October 20, 2010. Unless
noted, subsequent quotations from and attributions to Sudirman Said are from this interview.
have to meet with the Minister of Housing. … Bureaucracy means that you have to wait
24
for all the other ministers, to ask permission, [and] I didn’t need that kind of thing.
He also insisted on rights to select his own staff, to hire and fire, and to pay salaries above standard civil ser-
vice rates.
Kuntoro and his team thus aimed to insulate their organization from corruption and the influence of en-
trenched political interests. As Sudirman Said explained, “[Kuntoro] wanted full protection, full authority because
he knew well that this institution would be a kind of target for all political players, locally and nationally … a target
for those who had an intention to get some money out of it, because it was big money.”
Initially, the president balked at some of the demands. Kuntoro recollected,
The organizational structure [I was asking for] was totally different than what we have
here in Indonesia. So you can imagine the direction of the president during the negotia-
tions. He always said, “This is not possible, that is not possible.” But I told the President,
“I’m the one who’s going to Banda Aceh and I’m the closest to the fire there.”
In fact, despite disagreements over some of the particulars, both shared the overall goal of establishing an ef-
fective and reputable institution. Reflecting on Yudhoyono’s perspective, Said remarked: “Remember – that was
the beginning of the presidency. It meant that the way we established governance systems, transparency, and
credibility had to be [right]. This institution would be a role model … [for] the way the government should work.”
With strong backing from the donor community and with Yudhoyono eager to move forward, Kuntoro ob-
tained much of what he had deemed necessary to get the job done – but not the law upon which he had initially
insisted. He therefore continued to hesitate in formally accepting the position, worried that the regulation-in-lieu-
of-law that had been drafted to establish the new recovery body did not provide him with sufficient political pro-
tection and autonomy. He was particularly frustrated that the regulation did not explicitly give him ministerial
rank or the right to hire and fire staff. But with his advisors prevailing on him not to withdraw, Kuntoro eventually
agreed to a compromise: in addition to the regulation-in-lieu-of-law, Yudhoyono would issue a presidential regula-
25
tion dictating how the new agency would be structured and administered. (Among other things, Kuntoro ulti-
mately succeeded in obtaining the exceptional human resource provisions he sought, including the right to select
and dismiss his staff and the authority to set salaries.)
Building a Team
Nearing agreement with the President on the scope of his authorities and on the basic structure of the agency,
Kuntoro turned to recruiting a core staff on which he would come to rely heavily in the early months of the recov-
ery effort. Kuntoro described the strategy he pursued in putting together his team: “I asked close friends to rec-
24
Interview with Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, former Director, BRR, Jakarta, Indonesia, October 18, 2010. Unless noted, subse-
quent quotations from and attributions to Kuntoro Mangkusubroto are from this interview.
25
BRR, Story.
ommend people, that kind of thing. [And] these people were scattered around, in the private sector, in the minis-
26
tries, NGOs, universities. [Then] I asked them one by one whether they wanted to join me or not.” Arabiyani Abu
Bakar (who would eventually join BRR’s leadership team after several years of working in Aceh’s NGO community)
observed that Kuntoro’s decision to reach out to people from a range of sectors made for a stronger organization
27
than had he recruited exclusively from government. Not only did it allow him to tap into a bigger pool of candi-
dates, but the diversity of BRR’s senior officials allowed for a dynamic exchange of ideas and perspectives.
In terms of targeting individuals with specific professional skills, Kuntoro took a flexible approach. ”When it
came to skills, what kind of skills did you actually need?” he posited. “Nobody had experience in rebuilding after a
28
disaster like that!” But, Kuntoro said, he did insist on one common trait: above all, he sought people who exhib-
ited high degrees of integrity, given the large amount of money that would pass through BRR and the thousands of
projects – involving all sorts of external partners – that they would be responsible for managing. According to
Kuntoro and his advisors, securing the right to pay salaries higher than the standard civil service rates not only
helped entice the best candidates to join BRR, but it also minimized the threat of corruption, as agency staff would
not be as tempted to take bribes or skim funds to supplement their incomes as they might have been if paid lower
29
wages.
Kuntoro also took pains to recruit Acehnese for key leadership positions, in recognition of the extreme politi-
cal and cultural sensitivities of operating within Aceh. Since the mid 1970s, the province had endured a violent
conflict between the Free Aceh Movement (widely referred to by its Indonesian acronym, GAM), which had sought
independence for the region, and the central government, which was determined to maintain control over the
resource-rich province. The end of Suharto’s rule in 1998 and the implementation of democratic reform through-
out Indonesia had increased the prospects for peace, eventually leading – albeit tumultuously – to the signing of
the Cessation of Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) in 2002. But within just six months, the agreement had collapsed;
and in May 2003, the then-President of Indonesia, Megawati Sukarnoputri, sent 40,000 troops to Aceh to impose
30
martial law (which Jakarta replaced with civil emergency rule a year later). Kuntoro observed that as a result of
the prolonged conflict, “Nobody trusted anybody [by the time of the tsunami].” He expanded on the point, saying,
“And how did [they] see a Javanese like me coming from Jakarta? …. You cannot explain what kind of feeling they
26
Unique among government agencies, 86 percent of BRR’s eventual core staff had experience in the private sector (BRR, 10
Management Lessons).
27
Interview with Arabiyani Abu Bakar, civil society activist and former Director, Women, Gender, and Children’s Welfare, BRR,
Banda Aceh, Indonesia, October 25, 2010. Unless noted, subsequent quotations from and attributions to Arabiyani Abu Bakar
are from this interview.
28
Kuntoro pointed out, however, that as time went on and projects expanded in scope and complexity, he and his deputies
screened carefully for skills and experience.
29
BRR, Finance.
30
Wayne Arnold and Eric Lichtbau, “At the Epicenter, Tales of Death and of Stubborn Fights for Life,” New York Times, Decem-
ber 29, 2004; and Rachel Schiller, Cumulative Impact Case Study: The Impacts of Peacebuilding Work on the Aceh Conflict, Au-
gust 2008, available at http://www.internal-
displace-
ment.org/8025708F004CE90B/%28httpDocuments%29/DE47AF1E18349B7EC125779700461FC6/$file/rpp_cumulative_cases_a
ceh_final_20091207_Pdf_1_1_1.pdf [accessed January 10, 2014].
[probably had]!” If he had come to the province without any Acehnese on board, Kuntoro said, he would have
31
found himself “in trouble …. in deep trouble.”
Among the Acehnese Kuntoro brought on at the start was Said Faisal. Born in Aceh, Faisal received his mas-
ter’s degree in the United States. Then, in the aftermath of the Asian financial crisis of the late 1990s, he returned
to his native country to work on a debt restructuring program initiated by the Indonesian government. Prior to the
tsunami striking, he had been with the World Bank. Faisal described his reaction when Kuntoro offered him a posi-
tion with BRR (he would eventually serve as Deputy for Economy and Business): “The disaster happened in Aceh,
32
which is my home. So when Pak Kuntoro called, the only word that I could say was ‘yes.’” According to Maggy
Horhoruw (who, through a contract with USAID, began consulting with BRR on human resources issues), Faisal
typified the Acehnese who joined the agency. Most had grown up in Aceh, receiving their basic education in the
province before going on to Jakarta or abroad for advanced degrees and to pursue professional careers. They con-
sidered themselves Acehnese – as did BRR – but, Horhoruw admitted that they were not always thought of as “or-
33
ganically local” by those who had stayed behind. All the same, she emphasized, they proved to be a particularly
valuable and dedicated part of the team as BRR implemented recovery in their home province. “They wanted to
come back to Aceh, because they saw that this was a great opportunity to work, to build their own community,”
she observed.
Kuntoro’s recruitment efforts were by no means easy, and at times he encountered stiff resistance. In particu-
lar, by offering positions to some of the central government’s best officials, he ruffled the feathers of several min-
isters, who resented him for poaching their staff. Out of respect, Kuntoro said he made a point of visiting the min-
isters to explain what he was doing. “Well, that was tough,” he acknowledged, continuing:
Because the reaction coming from the ministers was: ‘Hey! Who are you?’ They knew
about the bill [establishing BRR and its authorities], but they didn’t know about the es-
31
Further complicating matters was that in early 2001, Indonesia had begun implementing a set of sweeping decentralization
reforms, with the goal of transferring a large number of political and economic authorities to sub-national entities. Additionally,
Law 44/1999 had specifically recognized “the Special Status of the Province of Aceh Special Region” and granted Aceh autono-
my over select affairs. The collapse of the CoHA in 2003 effectively brought an end to special autonomy in Aceh, but when BRR
came on the scene two years later, the agency’s very existence, as a newly created national body with the authority to operate
extensively throughout Aceh, stood in sharp contrast to Indonesia’s recent move away from a heavily centralized system of
government. The signing in August 2005 of the Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), which brought an end to the
conflict in Aceh, and the passage one year later of the Law on Governing Aceh (LoGA), made BRR’s existence all the more strik-
ing, as both the MoU and LoGA once more gave the province special authorities vis-à-vis the national government. All the same,
many observers believed such an entity was critical for the successful management of recovery efforts, given the tsunami’s
devastating effect on Aceh and on local government’s capacity to operate effectively. (For detailed accounts of the events lead-
ing to the signing of the CoHA and MOU and the passage of LoGA, see: Michelle Ann Miller, “What’s Special about Special Au-
tonomy in Aceh?”; and Multi-Stakeholder Review (MSR), Multi-Stakeholder Review of Post-Conflict Programming in Aceh: Iden-
tifying the Foundations for Sustainable Peace and Development in Aceh, December 2009, available at http://www-
wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2010/07/09/000333037_20100709004753/Rendered/PDF/
556030WP0v20Bo1l0Report0MSR0English.pdf [accessed February 29, 2012]).
32
Interview with Said Faisal, former Deputy, Economy and Business, BRR, Jakarta, Indonesia, October 21, 2010. Unless noted,
subsequent quotations from and attributions to Said Faisal are from this interview.
33
Interview with Maggy Horhoruw, Office of the Director, BRR, by telephone, September 9, 2010. Unless noted, subsequent
quotations from and attributions to Maggy Horhoruw are from this interview.
sence of the bill. And I didn’t have much time. I had to fly [to Aceh], and I wanted to get
that guy now, because he had to fly with me. …. That was a tough interaction with the
ministers. And then there was a backlash. They didn’t want to support me about this or
34
that. [But] I didn’t care!
BRR Gets its Bearings
Throughout early 2005, as Kuntoro and national leaders finalized details on BRR’s structure and underlying au-
35
thorities, recovery in Aceh proceeded at an excruciatingly slow, almost indiscernible pace. Symbolizing the iner-
tia, tens of thousands of survivors were still residing in tents months after the tsunami, with little indication of
when they might move into more permanent forms of shelter. Key players in the relief and nascent recovery tried
to explain the delay. In early April, Margareta Wahlstrom, the UN’s deputy emergency relief coordinator, alluded
36
to the on-going talks over BRR’s make-up in Jakarta. “Governments need to take time,” she asserted. Imogen
Wall, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), added that officials faced consid-
erable unknowns as they debated how best to approach recovery. “It is very difficult to rebuild, especially perma-
nent structures, if you don’t have a clear idea who the land belongs to and how many people are going to be living
37
there,” she argued.
Arriving in Aceh
But no one could ignore the fact that advances had to be made – and fast. Fortunately, in mid-April, almost
four months after the tsunami, signs of momentum emerged: on April 16, the Government of Indonesia issued
Regulation in Lieu of Law No. 2, 2005, officially establishing BRR. Presidential Regulation No. 34/2005, which stipu-
lated the organization’s structure, staffing, and administration, came two weeks later, on April 29; and the next
38
day, President Yudhoyono formally appointed Kuntoro as the agency’s head and swore in its top deputies. In just
39
a matter of days, a core staff of about fifteen BRR officials arrived in Banda Aceh to set up shop. (In a symbolical-
ly powerful move, Kuntoro based the agency in the midst of the disaster zone, as opposed to Jakarta, where most
other national ministries and agencies were headquartered.)
BRR’s Said Faisal described the barebones nature of the organization during its first few months of operation:
“We went to Aceh one or two days after [our] inauguration by the president. …. And then the first questions
[arose]: ‘Do we have a budget?’ We didn’t. ‘Do we have an office?’ We didn’t. ‘Do we have furniture?’ We didn’t.”
34
But some ministers provided Kuntoro with important support. Sudirman Said emphasized, “I think the role of Sri Muliyani was
really critical, because she was there as head of BAPPENAS [Indonesia’s national development planning agency], and she also
understood that if this institution [BRR] was managed in the same way as other government institutions, it wouldn’t succeed.”
35
“Rebuilding ‘Sluggish’;” Mydans, “Where Tsunami Ravaged;” and Joe Leahy, “Indonesia Unveils First Large Aceh Building Pro-
ject Since Tsunamis,” Financial Times, June 24, 2005, 2.
36
Quoted in Mydans, “Where Tsunami Ravaged.”
37
Quoted in Ibid.
38
BRR, Story.
39
BRR, Tsunami.
Eager to get the agency on its feet, international partners provided critical assistance, with the Australian aid agen-
cy (AusAID) flying the newly formed team to Banda Aceh and the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner
for Refugees, which happened to be vacating its offices, loaning BRR work space. Noting that BRR basically jumped
into the situation feet first, Faisal remarked,
[BRR] broke a lot of traditional concepts of management, because when we talk about
management, then we talk about proper planning, we talk about organizing, we talk
about how to deliver the plan, we talk about all of this monitoring – all of this [being] a
complete set of management. But when [handed] a big crisis like a disaster, it some-
times matters what is in front of [you].
Meanwhile, Kuntoro made a point to immediately, and publicly, acknowledge the government’s (and its part-
ners’) failure to transition quickly from relief to recovery in Aceh. “It’s shocking,” he declared during his first week
on the job. “There are no roads being built, there are no bridges being built, there are no harbors being built.
40
When it comes to reconstruction – zero.” Although he was able to highlight some advances just a few weeks
41
later – namely, the approval of several key infrastructure projects – he readily and sympathetically admitted,
42
“The people are really frustrated.” He also sought to put some distance between the newly-formed BRR and
conditions on the ground, pointing to a serious lack of coordination of the institutions involved in rebuilding Aceh.
“There was no authority here [prior to BRR],” he pointed out. “One minister would say we have to go to the left,
43
another agency would say we have to go to the right, and the provincial governor said something different.”
Teuku Ardiansyah (Ardi), a long-time community activist in Aceh, added that with so many organizations pur-
suing their own projects, the chaos from the relief period had simply flowed into the early stages of recovery.
“Many of the problems after the disaster were about coordination, defining what help was needed, responsibili-
ties, who was doing what,” he observed, emphasizing that until BRR’s arrival, hundreds of NGOs were working di-
rectly in the field, largely uncoordinated, with each group “planting its own flag,” eager to demonstrate its im-
44
portance.
Improving Coordination
In order to get a better sense of who was doing what – and where – BRR’s leaders organized a sort of census,
asking all organizations working on recovery in Aceh to complete a questionnaire that collected basic project and
personnel data. “That’s another [level of] bureaucracy,” Kuntoro admitted – but, in his view, a critical one for
bringing greater cohesion to the then scattered recovery effort.
40
Quoted in Sullivan, “Aceh Shows Best, Worst of Tsunami Spending.”
41
Leahy, “Indonesia Unveils First Large Aceh Building Project.”
42
Quoted in “Rebuilding ‘Sluggish.’”
43
Quoted in Ibid.
44
Interview with Teuku Ardiansyah, civil society activist, Banda Aceh, Indonesia, October 26, 2010. Unless noted, subsequent
quotations from and attributions to Teuku Ardiansyah are from this interview.
In fact, BRR found the questionnaire so useful that recovery officials soon made it an integral element of their
overall coordination strategy. The forms, which they termed “project concept notes” (or PCNs), were routinely
reviewed in workshops that included BRR staff, government counterparts from various ministries, officials from the
provincial governor’s office, and representatives of NGOs and the international community. Maggy Horhoruw ex-
plained the intent of the workshops: “It was not to say you are not approved or to express disapproval, but it was
to bring things in alignment with each other, to avoid overlapping projects, to make sure that the money, the fund-
ing was going to the right community, things like that. ... It was just to make sure that everybody was not stepping
on each other’s toes.”
BRR also incorporated the PCNs into its web-based, publicly accessible Recovery Aceh-Nias (RAN) Database,
which contained data on projects involving hundreds of agencies and thousands of villages. In addition to increas-
ing overall transparency, RAN helped recovery officials to more easily conduct gap analysis, identify project over-
45
lap, and generate maps indicating what projects, managed by what agency, were taking place where.
But BRR officials first had to compel aid workers to complete the PCNs. To do so, they made it clear that for-
eigners would have to go through the recovery agency to extend their work visas and procure tax exemptions for
project equipment and the like. The arrangement seemed to pay off. According to Kuntoro, once the aid agencies
realized BRR’s importance to the continuation of their work and residency in Aceh, they became far more recep-
tive to BRR’s coordination efforts, which, in turn, led to a much greater degree of collaboration. Ardi, the commu-
nity activist, agreed, saying that through this “coordination through regulation,” BRR managed to reduce the chaos
significantly.
Increased attempts at coordination were, in fact, not only advantageous to BRR; they also benefitted relief or-
ganizations in several important ways. In particular, by centralizing permitting processes in a “one-stop shop,” BRR
significantly cut down on bureaucratic delays, which had hampered the efforts of valuable international aid part-
ners. Officially termed Tim Terpadu, or the “Integrated Team,” this office included representatives of government
agencies responsible for issuing visas and work permits, reviewing import documentation, and providing tax ex-
46
emptions.
At the same time, BRR officials recognized that no one agency had the capacity to manage coordination entire-
ly on its own. Thus, they worked with representatives of some of their largest international partners to create a
system of sub-coordinators. Heru Prasetyo, BRR’s Director of International Relations, explained,
So we talked to the UN to create the UNORC [the United Nations Office of the Recovery
Coordinator for Aceh and Nias], which actually coordinated the activities of the 24 or so
UN agencies, [all of which] normally have their own budget, their own line of com-
45
BRR, 10 Management Lessons; BRR, Story; and Maggy Horhoruw, Breaking through Bureaucracy for Speedy Recovery: Lessons
from Rehabilitation and Reconstruction in Aceh Province and Nias Islands, Indonesia, presentation at Harvard Kennedy School,
Cambridge, MA, November 18, 2010.
46
Ibid.
47
mand. ... And that was actually a good addition, because not only did it create [one]
UN agency, but [it] also became a place where NGOs could ask questions [besides al-
ways going to BRR]. IFRC [the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent
Societies] is another one. IFRC had to coordinate the Red Cross agencies from 25 coun-
48
tries.
One other external body, the Multi-Donor Fund for Aceh and Nias (MDF), proved to be an especially important
partner in facilitating coordination. At approximately the same time as the formation of BRR, the Indonesian gov-
ernment had requested that various donors pool their recovery aid money; and in response, 15 countries and in-
ternational institutions agreed to do so through the MDF. The World Bank served as trustee of the fund, which
was governed by a steering committee co-chaired by Kuntoro (on behalf of the Indonesian government); a World
Bank official; and a representative of the fund’s largest donor, the European Commission. Additional members of
the steering committee included representatives of other national-level entities, provincial government, and civil
49
society. The UN and the international NGO community, meanwhile, held observer status. Although the total
amount of money channeled through the MDF (~$685 million) represented only about 10% of all pledged funds,
BRR officials, MDF representatives, and donors agreed that the body played an integral role in facilitating coordina-
tion. Said Heru Prasetyo,
The MDF was very important. Why? … [Because] there was a regular meeting of the
MDF, whereby donors who were part of that actually sat and got updated on the situa-
tion. … People [got] to know the updates from the field and the problems that they
faced. … So [the MDF] was where coordination [through] the sharing of information
could happen.
Despite these advances, however, substantial coordination challenges continued to hang over BRR throughout
much of the first year of its existence. In particular, many of the ministries from the central government insisted
that they continue to manage their own recovery projects. “The cooperation with the line ministries was not very
good in maybe the first six months – if you start counting from May, that means up to month eleven [after the tsu-
nami], almost a year,” Heru acknowledged. “That was a problem.” A problem, BRR officials said, that had especially
serious ramifications for the pace of reconstruction, as ministry-led projects continued to lag. (By the end of 2005,
50
the Indonesian government had managed to disburse just 10 percent of its own recovery funds.)
47
UNORC coordinated a total of 27 UN agencies and partner field operations active in Aceh and Nias (BRR, 10 Management
Lessons).
48
Interview with Heru Prasetyo, former Director, International Relations, BRR, Jakarta, Indonesia, October 29, 2010. Unless
noted, subsequent quotations from and attributions to Heru Prasetyo are from this interview.
49
BRR, 10 Management Lessons; and Multi Donor Fund for Aceh and Nias (MDF), About the Multi Donor Fund for Aceh and
Nias, available at http://www.multidonorfund.org/about.php [accessed January 14, 2014].
50
BRR, 10 Management Lessons.
Reversing Policies
Meanwhile, in another early move, BRR’s leadership had made a point to reassess and refine policies devel-
oped prior to the agency’s establishment. In fact, very soon after assuming his post, Kuntoro discarded much of
51
the recovery blueprint previously developed by the National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS). The 12-
volume guide had its advantages, chief among them helping to establish a general framework for reconstruction
52
activities – but it had also overwhelmed local residents and aid officials alike. Reflecting on his decision, Kuntoro
recognized BAPPENAS’s efforts; but he also argued that given the conditions on the ground in the first few months
after the tsunami, when BAPPENAS did much of its work, “the degree of error was so big.” He continued, “So basi-
cally, the blueprint that was produced [had to] be totally revised.”
Soon after arriving in Aceh, BRR officials rejected a heavily centralized planning in favor of a community-
53
centric approach, which included allowing villages to map their own land. As this entailed a variety of tasks, such
as fixing property boundaries and determining new plots in places where the tsunami had permanently altered the
terrain, BRR and partner organizations dispatched thousands of facilitators to help communities navigate the com-
54
plex process.
55
Kuntoro also terminated a policy banning resettlement within two kilometers of the coast. Conceptualized
as a way to reduce risk from future tsunamis and other sea-based hazards, the edict was wildly unpopular among
56
the local population, as it ignored cultural traditions and economic realities. “The government wanted to put us
on a hilly place,” complained the Secretary General of Aceh’s 400-year-old fishing cooperative Panglima Laot. “I
57
said [in response], ‘Fisherman cannot be farmers!’” Radhi Darmansyah, an Acehnese activist who eventually
joined BRR, added that people in the region tend to stay in one place their entire lives. “You live and die in your
village,” he explained, arguing that it was unreasonable for government officials to expect people to easily and
58
willingly relocate. Kuntoro, it turned out, concurred with such sentiments. “The people living in [the] area are
51
On March 2, 2005, realizing the need to move forward on recovery even as negotiations over the formation of BRR contin-
ued, President Yudhoyono had issued Presidential Instruction 1/2005, which tasked BAPPENAS with drafting a “Master Plan for
Recovery Activities.” During this period, BAPPENAS also played a key role in managing relations with the many donor groups
and countries offering aid to the Indonesian government (BRR, Story).
52
Mydans, “Where Tsunami Ravaged.”
53
“At Last, Progress;” and BRR, Tsunami.
54
Mark Forbes and Karuni Rompies, “In Need of a Future Now,” The Age, December 24, 2005, 14; and Andrew Steer, “Aceh One
Year On: Reflections and Lessons; Planners Quickly Realise That Rebuilding Communities Is As Important As Rebuilding Houses,”
The Business Times, December 20, 2005.
55
“Rebuilding ‘Sluggish.’”
56
The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimated that 70% of the province’s economy either directly or indirectly de-
pended on fishing and fish farming (Paul Wiseman, “On Tsunami Shores, a Foundering Recovery; One Year after the Disaster,
Indonesian Fishing Communities Have Too Few Good Homes and Too Many Bad Boats,” USA Today, December 15, 2005, 13A).
57
Quoted in Wiseman, “On Tsunami Shores.”
58
Interview with Radhi Darmansyah, civil society activist and former Manager, Social Affairs, BRR, Banda Aceh, Indonesia, Octo-
ber 24, 2010. Unless noted, subsequent quotations from and attributions to Radhi Darmansyah are from this interview.
59
fisherman,” he declared in explaining the policy reversal. “How can they live more than 2 km from the seashore?”
60
He added, “[They] have lost everything, except for that land, so let them go back.”
Said Faisal, BRR’s Deputy for Economy and Business, identified another important reason for changing course:
the independence struggle, which still loomed large over recovery efforts. “Land is very important [in Aceh],” he
explained:
That’s why Pak Kuntoro made the right decision that we wouldn’t touch that. If people
wanted to live there, they should live there. … If they wanted to move, they should
move. … People here are not sensitive about expressing how they feel about land. …
[And] the risk was too big, it could have hampered all this reconstruction. And at the
time, the conflict was still on.
Bringing an End to Armed Conflict
Indeed, throughout the first half of 2005, the conflict between GAM combatants and the Indonesian military
was still very much on everyone’s mind. Officials in Jakarta had realized from the very beginning that if they were
to make any progress with post-tsunami recovery, they had to reach some sort of peace settlement with the sepa-
ratists – and that they had to do so quickly. Explained Indonesia’s Vice President Jusuf Kalla,
We could not face two big problems simultaneously: to rehabilitate and reconstruct
post-tsunami Aceh while confronting GAM. I thought about the thousands of expats
working in Aceh. If just one or two of them were taken hostage or shot, we could be
dead if they all decided to withdraw. Who would want to help us then? That’s why be-
fore construction began, the problem of security had to be solved. … So, right after the
tsunami we put ourselves to work hard. In the morning we handled the coordinating
agency [for emergency response and relief], at night we talked to Helsinki [where peace
61
talks were taking place].
BRR’s senior leaders were among the Indonesian officials making overtures to GAM. Sudirman Said, the agen-
cy’s Deputy for Institutional Development, recalled: “I personally went to the jails in Bandung, Surabaya, to meet
those GAM leaders, [having been] introduced by some Acehnese activists. I talked to them and explained to them
what the intention [of recovery] was.” For their part, leaders of the separatist movement now had good reason to
engage in talks with the central government – and BRR, in particular. “GAM had a responsibility to our people for
reconstruction in Aceh,” a senior leader of the group explained. “We as GAM members had a lot of responsibility
62
to our people and our families.”
59
Quoted in “Rebuilding ‘Sluggish.’”
60
Quoted in Forbes and Rompies, “In Need of a Future Now.”
61
Quoted in “Indonesian Vice-President Views Aceh Reconstruction,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, January 3, 2006.
62
Interview with senior GAM leader, Banda Aceh, Indonesia, October 25, 2010.
But even as talks progressed (and although GAM had declared a cease-fire in the immediate aftermath of the
tsunami), tensions remained high. Following the establishment of BRR, Kuntoro remembered, “My car was
stopped several times, we could not operate in one area. There were shootings – twice, I believe.” One such inci-
dent prompted particular concern within the international community: in late June 2005, an aid worker with the
IFRC was shot in the neck while driving about 80 kilometers south of Banda Aceh, the provincial capital. Although
63
the gunmen were not identified, the Indonesian military blamed the shooting on GAM. For his part, Kuntoro
banned his staff from traveling in the countryside after dark and put a stop to some recovery activities, emphasiz-
64
ing, “With no peace there is no way you can recover Aceh.”
Negotiators had made progress, however; and on August 15, 2005, the two sides signed the Helsinki Memo-
randum of Understanding (commonly referred to as “the MOU”), bringing the conflict to an end. Although the pre-
vious eight months had been a terrible time for the region, BRR’s Said Faisal spoke for many when he noted, “One
of the positive outcomes [that the disaster in Aceh] brought is peace.” Among other things, the signing of the MOU
meant that recovery in Aceh could now proceed, no longer impeded by the constant threat of violence. Yet it also
65
meant that BRR suddenly found itself with a whole new set of responsibilities.
To address the daunting challenge of employing the thousands of ex-combatants returning to the province (an
important issue, given concerns on both sides of the conflict that pervasive joblessness in an economically de-
pressed Aceh could unravel the fragile peace), the parties to the MOU agreed that they should be given recovery-
related jobs whenever possible. In response to this provision, Kuntoro designed a special “communications” struc-
ture within BRR to which he assigned a number of ex-combatants. He explained, “I had to take care of these peo-
ple: the district leaders, combatants, commanders in the districts – a very long list. …. And I just told them, ‘OK,
you’re part of my communication network. I just want to make sure that nothing happens to my people, to NGOs,
and [anything that’s] related to reconstruction.’”
At first, some BRR staff members were not sure what to make of the ex-combatants joining their ranks. But
Kuntoro made it clear to his team that they would be welcome. Said Faisal recalled, “[Kuntoro] said, ‘What’s the
problem? Our principle remains that this is a professional organization. If the Free Aceh Movement comes with
professional staff, then we accept.’”
63
Leahy, “Indonesia Unveils First Large Aceh Building Project;” and Dean Yates, “Indonesia: Foreign Aid Worker Shot in Indone-
sia’s Aceh,” Reuters, June 23, 2005.
64
Quoted in Forbes and Rompies, “In Need of a Future Now.”
65
BRR was by no means the only (or, for that matter, primary) body involved in reconciliation initiatives. Between September
2005 and December 2006, the European Union, Norway, Switzerland, and five ASEAN countries jointly maintained the Aceh
Monitoring Mission to help facilitate the implementation of the MOU. In addition, the Aceh Peace-Reintegration Agency (Badan
Reintegrasi-Damai Aceh, or BRA) was formally responsible for overseeing the economic and social reintegration of former com-
batants. But while the Government of Indonesia provided funds to the Acehnese provincial government in support of BRA’s
activities, many critics pointed out that the money committed to BRA (about 150 million USD from 2005-2007) fell far short of
the billions channeled to recovery efforts. Moreover, they said, BRA lacked the broad authorities and support afforded BRR. All
of this, they concluded, resulted in striking disparities between coastal communities that received extensive recovery aid and
the Acehnese hinterland, which experienced the worst of the conflict (Adrian Morel, Makiko Watanabe, and Robert Wrobel,
Delivering Assistance to Conflict-Affected Communities: The BRA-KDP Program in Aceh, 2009, available at
http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2009/12/12022794/delivering-assistance-conflict-affected-communities-bra-kdp-
program-aceh [accessed January 12, 2014]; and Schiller, Cumulative Impact Case Study.)
In fact, one accomplished GAM leader came to play a particularly prominent role within BRR. When then-
President Megawati had imposed martial law in 2003, Teuku Kamaruzzaman (known as Ampon Man) was sent to
Bandung Prison to serve out a 13-year sentence. Following the signing of the MOU, Ampon Man found himself a
free man; and soon he was heading a GAM delegation tasked to discuss with BRR’s leadership ways to involve ex-
combatants in the recovery. Ampon Man personally saw great value in the agency (as he put it, BRR “wanted to
66
help us, our families … to help the Acehnese”), and in October 2005, he officially joined the organization, serving
first as special staff to Kuntoro and then as Deputy for Monitoring and Evaluation. But he soon grew frustrated
with the fact that unlike other deputies, he had no budget of his own. Consequently, Ampon Man stressed to
Kuntoro that he wanted to be more deeply involved in decision-making and policy formulation – and that he had
no interest in serving as a figurehead. He told the BRR Director: “I don’t care about the money, but I must be given
authority regarding decisions!” With tension and distrust continuing to prevail in Aceh, Ampon Man argued that
Kuntoro could help the situation by appointing a GAM member to a meaningful position within the organization.
Kuntoro initially rebuffed Ampon Man’s entreaties, but over time the two came to trust one another, and
67
eventually Kuntoro gave the former GAM leader the post he desired – that of Secretary. As Secretary, Ampon
Man assumed a number of responsibilities, including overseeing the development of human rights policy and
heading the agency’s communications section. Although Kuntoro had established this unit as a way to employ
GAM members, both he and Ampon Man were convinced that it also had considerable value for BRR operationally,
serving as a key way for headquarters to monitor progress and learn about problems with reconstruction at the
village level.
Ardiansyah, the civil society activist, agreed that collaboration between BRR and GAM benefitted both sides.
In providing jobs to many of the ex-combatants, he said, BRR played an essential part in sustaining peace. At the
same time, Ardi continued, BRR desperately needed to retain GAM’s support in order to successfully carry out its
full set of programs, as the movement continued to wield considerable influence in many parts of Aceh. Another
local activist, meanwhile, put it simply. “If Kuntoro had not recruited GAM into BRR,” she said, “then … oh!”
Slow Progress with Reconstruction
As the months progressed and with BRR becoming more fully rooted in Aceh, attention turned to the plight of
the tens of thousands of survivors still living in temporary shelters. In October, the World Bank’s Indonesia Country
Director, Andrew Steer, declared, “We [have] all agreed that with 65,000 people still living in tents, we need to
68
redouble our efforts, quickly identify gaps and bottlenecks and work together unselfishly.” For his part, Kuntoro
66
Interview with Teuku Kamaruzzaman, former Secretary, BRR, Banda Aceh, Indonesia, October 25, 2010. Unless noted, subse-
quent quotations from and attributions to Teuku Kamaruzzaman are from this interview.
67
In August, 2008, Ampon Man stepped down as BRR Secretary, having once again grown frustrated with the level of authority
delegated to him. Kuntoro, he said, had failed to consult with him before cutting back on staff, including those who worked for
Ampon Man, in preparation for BRR’s closing. Although Kuntoro rejected his resignation several times, Ampon Man refused to
change his mind. Yet because he also recognized that BRR was doing good work and that it and GAM shared a common goal –
to help the Acehnese – he eventually rejoined the agency as expert staff for Kuntoro.
68
Quoted in Devi Asmarani, “Wake-up Call for Aceh Donors; Reconstruction Agencies Admit They Need to Redouble Efforts as
65,000 are Still Living in Tents,” The Straits Times, October 5, 2005.
sought to step up the pressure on his partners at the national and local levels, complaining that authorities in both
Jakarta and Aceh continued to stymie BRR’s attempts to streamline operations and eliminate red tape. “Clearly,
the government needs to step up and be responsible,” he said. “Many of my Cabinet colleagues do a wonderful
69
job, [but] others need to lift their game.”
Meanwhile, complaints grew ever louder over the living conditions of the many tsunami survivors who re-
70
mained in canvas army tents, corrugated metal shacks, and cheaply-constructed barracks. (According to one
estimate, in addition to the 65,000 plus people in tents, another 70,000 lived in other forms of temporary shel-
71
ters.) In mid-October, Banda Aceh’s mayor, Mawardy Nurdin, openly worried that the tents would fall apart dur-
ing the rainy season. He directed much of his frustration at BRR, asserting that it had failed to deal with the situa-
tion quickly enough. Students in the provincial capital went a step further. They took to the streets to demand that
Jakarta shut down the agency, claiming that it had “failed to fulfill the legitimate expectations of tsunami survi-
72
vors.”
Key leaders of the recovery effort did not deny that conditions had become deplorable. Eric Morris, the UN’s
Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias, was direct in remarks he made to the Associated Press: “For the survivors
73
who are in the tents, the conditions are unacceptable. There is no other word for it.” And Kuntoro acknowledged
74
flat-out: “BRR is too slow.” Several weeks after the protests, relief officials began rolling out a temporary fix: the
IFRC had agreed to fund the construction of over 20,000 steel-frame “instant houses,” each measuring 25 sq me-
ters and featuring metal roofs and raised floors to protect against flooding. Over the next few months, people
would be moved from the tents as well as from barracks, where residents had lived crowded in windowless rooms
75,76
that the UN’s Morris described candidly as “god-awful.”
As for the construction of permanent housing, officials pleaded for patience. Andrew Steer of the World Bank
acknowledged that Kuntoro’s decision to adopt a reconstruction strategy “led firmly by the affected communities
69
Quoted in ibid.
70
In November, the IFRC would conclude that out of the 170 camps it had surveyed, 168 required some level of “emergency
intervention,” with basics like sanitation and drinking water in short supply (Forbes and Rompies, “In Need of a Future Now”).
71
Simon Montlake, “Tsunami Priority: Homes,” Christian Science Monitor, December 27, 2005, 1.
72
John Phillips, “Protesters Cite Bureaucracy for Lax Relief from Tsunami; Homelessness Persists into Rainy Season,” The Wash-
ington Times, October 15, 2005, A1.
73
74
Quoted in Sian Powell, “Wheels Grind for Tsunami Victims,” The Australian, November 7, 2005, 14.
75
IFRC, “Red Cross Red Crescent Shelters Take Shape in Aceh,” November 7, 2005, available at http://www.ifrc.org/en/news-
and-media/press-releases/asia-pacific/indonesia/red-cross-red-crescent-shelters-take-shape-in-aceh/ [accessed January 15,
2014]; Powell, “Wheels Grind for Tsunami Victims;” and Sullivan, “Aceh Shows Best, Worst of Tsunami Spending.”
76
This project would soon hit a major roadblock: by early February 2006, only 800 of the 20,000 shelters had been completed,
due in large part to a serious timber shortage. The IFRC had imposed strict regulations on the type of timber that could be used
in the project, sensitive to environmental concerns regarding the illegal and unsustainable logging practices that were far too
common in Indonesia. (In fact, other agencies had run into the same problem; and BRR had also banned wood from Aceh’s
vulnerable forests.) Because of this, IFRC and its partners had to look farther afield in order to obtain acceptable types of wood
(Shawn Donnan, “Timber Shortage Hits Aceh Rebuilding Strategy,” Financial Times, February 9, 2006, 8).
themselves … [had] slowed down the start-up of visible reconstruction.” But, he argued, this approach would
77
“have a high pay-off in quality and even speed as we enter 2006.” BRR’s Said Faisal also reflected on the trade-
off between expediency and fostering community engagement:
You have to choose. If you want to have community participation, you have to sacrifice
time – because community participation means dialogue, to get everyone to agree on
things, which means time. And then if you want community involvement in the project –
that means skills need to be upgraded [to deal with complex professional issues].
All the same, Faisal remained sensitive to the survivors’ plight. “Housing was a big issue,” he acknowledged.
“Why did it become an issue? Because it’s a [personal] issue, it’s a component of private life. … It’s emotional.”
Indeed, by the end of 2005, emotions among the exhausted and frustrated survivors were running high. Zoel-
fitri, a 32-year-old man living in a shanty on the edge of Banda Aceh, spoke for many when he pleaded, “We know
78
a lot of money is going to Aceh, but where is it? Where are the buildings? Where is the construction?”
Recovery … In Fits and Starts
As the first anniversary of the tsunami passed, recovery officials – both in and outside the Indonesian govern-
ment – came to the defense of BRR. Vice President Jusuf Kalla, for instance, insisted in a lengthy interview with the
Indonesian newsmagazine Tempo, “There has been much progress, foremost in the area[s] of security and recon-
79
struction.” The World Bank’s Andrew Steer, meanwhile, argued, “Starting an agency from scratch is not cheap,
easy or quick, and it was [only] after mid-year before [BRR] was capable of adding real value.” Urging critics to
place the recovery in a greater context, Steer continued, “Reconstruction after disasters is almost always much
slower than expectations, mainly because we fail to grasp how difficulties interact and multiply. We tend to plan
our programmes as if land titles, ports, roads and power supply still exist, and as if public officials suddenly learn to
80
cooperate in a manner never seen before.”
New Authorities, New Relationships
For their part, BRR officials said that it was only in the agency’s second year that it started to make real pro-
gress. Above all, they noted that the conversion of Regulation in Lieu of Law No. 2, 2005, which had established
BRR, to official law in October 2005 made an enormous difference by elevating BRR’s legal status. Moreover, be-
ginning in January 2006, all ministries were now required to direct their recovery-related activities through BRR,
which also began executing its own projects. Maggy Horhoruw detailed the implications of this shift: “In the first
year [BRR] had to work with the normal government development projects … with public works, with the ministry
77
Steer, “Aceh One Year On.”
78
79
Quoted in “Indonesian Vice-President Views Aceh Reconstruction.”
80
Steer, “Aceh One Year On.”
of transportation. … It did not have its own capacity. ... [But] in the second year, it had its own deputies, it had its
own teams, it did its own procurement for contractors, etc.”
Heru Prasetyo, the agency’s Director of International Relations, considered the changes a major step forward
– but added that they also presented some new challenges. “There were some situations whereby some of the
ministries said, ‘What’s going on in Aceh, it’s not my responsibility. It is [now] the responsibility of BRR,’” he re-
counted. “So BRR had to do work with very little support from the ministries; but on the other hand, it had the
flexibility of using its own management practices to get the job done.” In fact, agency officials noted, this new way
of operating would ultimately result in an impressive list of achievements; by the time BRR’s mandate had expired,
it had implemented and coordinated an extensive array of recovery activities, including housing construction; agri-
cultural land reclamation; large-scale infrastructure development [roadways, bridges, seaports, and airports]; job
training for teachers and other professionals; and the rebuilding of numerous public facilities, including schools,
81
government offices, and hospitals.
Meanwhile, by the start of year two, BRR had also begun to reap the benefits of improved relations with local
civil society. Teuku Ardiansyah (Ardi) noted that when BRR was first formed, many of his fellow Acehnese activists
had rejected the agency, perceiving it as a “super body to control Aceh from Jakarta.” Coordination, a BRR
buzzword, did not necessarily have the best connotation in Aceh, especially when facilitated by the central gov-
ernment. Yet gradually, Ardi said, a good number of his counterparts came to recognize BRR’s value in helping
Aceh overcome the tsunami. Consequently, by early 2006, some local activists had begun to cooperate more
closely with the agency. They even started to join BRR’s ranks, serving primarily in middle management positions,
82
as the agency began to roll out more and more of its own projects.
Arabiyani Abu Bakar, a local activist who had worked with international aid groups in the months immediately
following the tsunami, assumed a particularly prominent role as Director for Women, Gender, and Children’s Wel-
fare. But, she said, adjusting to life within BRR took some time. Like others in the Acehnese activist community,
Arabiyani had originally perceived BRR as a foreign, unhelpful entity. Moreover, she admitted that at first she was
astonished by the number of bureaucratic procedures involved in BRR’s day-to-day operations. Over time, howev-
er, she came to realize that BRR was far from an inflexible institution, and that its size, which dwarfed the NGOs
with which she was accustomed to working, necessitated such procedures and systems.
Perhaps the most difficult challenge for Arabiyani, however, was finding a way to balance, as she put it, her
dual identities. On one hand, she frequently found herself speaking up for local concerns within the agency, as
83
senior officials were sometimes unaware of the particularities of the region’s culture and history. On the other,
81
BRR, Story. (For more on the agency’s accomplishments, see the BRR Book Series, which comprehensively covers an extensive
array of recovery initiatives managed or coordinated by BRR:
http://www.recoveryplatform.org/countries_and_disasters/country/6/indonesia [accessed February 14, 2012]).
82
For his part, Ardi never joined BRR, although he did maintain connections, submitting policy papers and facilitating work-
shops funded by the agency.
83
Arabiyani remembered one such example vividly: at one point, BRR staff began moving forward with plans to cut down a
number of towering trees, which had been planted by occupying Dutch forces more than 100 years earlier, to make way for a
new roadway. “There was history to those trees,” she said, noting that for the Acehnese, they served as a symbolically powerful
she had to answer to activist friends who remained opposed to the agency’s presence in the province. Yet, despite
understanding her friends’ perspective, Arabiyani firmly believed in BRR’s mission and she remained with the or-
ganization until it ended its operations.
Another Acehnese activist-turned-BRR-official, Radhi Darmansyah (he served as a manager for social affairs),
asserted that Kuntoro was wise to recruit people like him and Arabiyani. He explained that recovery officials had
initially experienced considerable difficulty in engaging with local residents, but hiring Acehnese, “made it easier to
talk to our buddies.” Once onboard, however, Radhi grew increasingly frustrated with what he considered to be an
excessive focus on the physical aspects of recovery (rebuilding homes, infrastructure, and public facilities), which
he believed came at a significant cost to improving social welfare across the province – for him the cornerstone of
a healthy and sustainable recovery. He eventually quit in protest.
For their part, however, BRR officials emphasized that they implemented a number of projects that far ex-
ceeded the guidelines of the government’s original Master Plan for Recovery, adhering to a motto of “Build Back
Better” as they dedicated themselves to strengthening community welfare throughout the tsunami-ravaged re-
84
gion.
Housing Reconstruction: A Question of Quality
Meanwhile, in a sign of an accelerating recovery, permanent homes began to appear in ever greater numbers
85
across the landscape throughout 2006. And in some communities, model developments had even started to
emerge. For instance, in Lampuuk – a village just outside Banda Aceh that had been almost entirely decimated by
the tsunami – the Turkish Red Crescent Society constructed more than 700 houses that were widely admired by
residents and recovery officials. Spacious and solidly-built (albeit for a relatively high price of $10,000), they fea-
86
tured a number of amenities, including indoor, tiled bathrooms.
In some communities, however, the quality of construction was so poor that survivors opted to remain in their
87
battered tents rather than take possession of their new residences. In addition, NGOs all too often constructed
houses in places lacking basic utilities, such as electricity, drinking water, and sewage – or the institutions and
reminder of the region’s long struggle for independence. Upon learning of the project, Arabiyani directly appealed to Kuntoro
to revise the plans, informing him of the trees’ significance. Only a few minutes later, the deputy responsible for the project
contacted her to discuss the issue. “I was shocked,” said Arabiyani. “I realized that Kuntoro was taking [immediate] action on
my concerns.” According to Arabiyani, this was just one example of Kuntoro personally following up on information reported to
him – and then taking action to find a solution.
84
Moh. Hanief Arie Setianto, Deputy, President’s Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring and Oversight, Government of
Indonesia, personal communication, October 24, 2011.
85
Sebastien Berger, “Banda Aceh; For Some Survivors, the Misery Goes On But for Others, Merlin Weaves its Magic,” Daily Tel-
egraph, December 26, 2006, 18; and Seth Mydans, “Tsunami-Tossed City’s Survivors Struggle to Carry On,” New York Times,
December 26, 2006.
86
Berger, “Banda Aceh; For Some Survivors, the Misery Goes On;” and Simon Montlake, “In Aceh, Building Peace Amid Building
Pains,” Christian Science Monitor, December 28, 2006.
87
Shawn Donnan and Taufan Hidayat, “Weak Foundations Shake Confidence of Aceh Survivors; Building Programme is Beset by
Difficulties,” Financial Times, December 23, 2005, 8.
88
businesses essential to stimulating commercial, social, and civic activity. Even in Lampuuk, many of the beautiful-
ly constructed homes remained vacant at the end of the year, with the village still waiting for a permanent water
89
supply. Such shortcomings, according to several BRR officials, could be attributed in part to some villages having
failed to adequately develop and implement a comprehensive master plan, a downside to decentralized, commu-
nity-based planning.
Other recovery officials noted that few locals had the experience and skills to build on such a large scale. Par-
tially in recognition of this fact, BRR had at first focused on bringing in large, state-owned companies from outside
the province to build the tens of thousands of houses it was now responsible for constructing. Yet, as the agency’s
Director of International Relations, Heru Prasetyo, elaborated, “When that was realized, the people in Aceh were
outraged. ‘How can it be that the money was going to Java?! …. The money must stay here.’” Indeed, various
groups – among them a powerful association of local building contractors – aggressively pressed BRR to open up
the contracting to locals. Under intense pressure, Kuntoro and his advisors eventually agreed to do so. But as a
result, Maggy Horhoruw concluded, “Well, the quality was sacrificed.”
Horhoruw elaborated on the dilemma. “If you sit back now in hindsight, you probably wouldn’t do it, or in
normal conditions you probably wouldn’t do it,” she said. “But at the time, they [her colleagues at BRR] considered
it necessary, so that at least these people would see BRR not as the enemy but as an organization that they could
work with instead of against.” Ultimately, thousands of homes constructed by inexperienced local contractors had
90
to be rebuilt. But Heru Prasetyo pointed to a more positive outcome of the arrangement as well: by providing
locals with valuable experience that they might not otherwise have gained, it helped contribute to capacity build-
ing in the region.
Summer of Upheaval
The pace of recovery continued to quicken throughout 2006; but that summer, BRR endured several incidents
that threatened to disrupt the progress it had begun to make. First, in late August, the agency’s dedication to pre-
venting corruption was put into question when the watchdog group Indonesian Corruption Watch (ICW) revealed
that it had identified irregular transactions related to BRR-run projects. Specifically, it alleged that the agency had
not followed the appropriate contracting procedures for several publicity and printing jobs, resulting in significant
91
mark-ups in cost. The ICW’s report, which received widespread media attention, sparked an investigation on the
part of the Attorney General’s Office, prompting BRR to publicly announce that it “appreciate[d] the ICW’s find-
92
ings” and that it would tighten internal protocols.
88
Berger, “Banda Aceh; For Some Survivors, the Misery Goes on;” and Mydans, “Tsunami-Tossed City’s Survivors Struggle to
Carry On.”
89
Berger, “Banda Aceh; For Some Survivors, the Misery Goes On.”
90
In fact, as noted by Radhi Darmansyah, the local contractors were not the only ones who produced low-quality housing; the
large national firms did not always build to the highest standards themselves.
91
“Indonesia: Aceh Rehabilitation, Reconstruction Agency Under Graft Cloud,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, August 28, 2006.
92
Quoted in Ibid.
The allegations notwithstanding, BRR’s leaders remained dedicated to combating corruption within their or-
ganization. To this end, they adopted several major anti-corruption and transparency measures, most of which
represented entirely new practices for the Indonesian government. These measures included requiring all staff
members to sign an integrity pledge, agree to a performance contract, and report their wealth; the establishment
of an autonomous anti-corruption unit within BRR; and the adoption and implementation of multiple auditing pro-
cesses. In an additional effort to combat corruption and increase transparency, BRR worked with a special treasury
office, which published contractor and vendor payments online. Finally, when BRR identified corrupt practices
93
among contractors, it blacklisted them from future projects.
One other incident that took place that summer left BRR staff particularly rattled, however. In mid-September,
they found themselves in a tense standoff with protesters angry over the still less than ideal living conditions for
94
many survivors. A group, calling itself Forak Aceh (the Acehnese acronym for the Inter-Barracks Communication
Forum), demanded that BRR coordinate its activities with its members – and that recovery officials sign an agree-
ment stipulating that funds be transferred to the group’s bank account. When BRR’s leadership refused to accede
to Forak’s demands, the group held Kuntoro and his staff captive overnight. The next day, as police officers began
to remove the protesters from the BRR compound, a mob numbering in the hundreds went wild, throwing stones
at the police. The officers, in turn, responded by spraying the protesters with water cannons. Reflecting on this
and other protests, Kuntoro remained sanguine. “Well, demonstrations were part of my life there, OK? Because
nobody was happy. … Those who live in their tents, those who have no job, everybody is demonstrating in front of
my office all the time!” Still, the most violent protests disturbed him, and he turned to the president – something
95
he rarely did during his tenure at BRR – to express his security concerns.
Adaptations & Achievements
Although challenges continued to complicate reconstruction efforts, BRR managed to achieve a significant
amount over the remaining two years of its mandate. (In establishing the agency, President Yudhoyono, Kuntoro,
and their advisors had agreed to a four-year timeframe for the national recovery program.) This was due, in part,
to the fact that once BRR and its partners were able to lay the foundation of roadways, ports, and utilities, it be-
came far easier to manage logistics, thereby accelerating other recovery projects. But BRR officials pointed to an-
other factor as well: they said that they learned a number of lessons through trial and error during their first two
years on the job – and that they adjusted accordingly. Among other things, they highlighted the creation of various
coordination mechanisms (e.g., the establishment of the UN Office of the Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias),
BRR’s eventual assumption of project management responsibilities, and the tightening of anti-corruption measures
as ways in which they applied lessons learned.
93
BRR, 10 Management Lessons; and Moh. Hanief Arie Setianto, Deputy, President’s Delivery Unit for Development Monitoring
and Oversight, Government of Indonesia, personal communication, October 24, 2011.
94
“Indonesian Aceh Reconstruction Head Taken Hostage, Riot Under Way,” BBC Worldwide Monitoring, September 20, 2006;
and BRR, Story.
95
Kuntoro and senior BRR staff said that although they always felt that they had the strong backing of President Yudhoyono and
Vice President Kalla, they enjoyed an enormous amount of freedom to manage the recovery. Interaction with Yudhoyono and
Kalla was rare, they noted, occurring just a few times a year.
Kuntoro and his staff emphasized that their willingness to routinely restructure the agency had a particularly
significant effect on pushing recovery forward. Kuntoro remarked,
The first organization [of BRR], was it ideal already? It wasn’t, was it? The crucial thing
was for it to work. Six months in running, anything wrong or lacking, one fixes it. … Each
96
phases [sic] had different needs.
To this end, in July 2006, BRR undertook a major organizational restructuring. By then, the agency had taken
on a considerable number of projects of its own, but the quality of work and the level of coordination with local
partners – in both the public and nonprofit sectors – remained problematic. BRR leaders thus decided that instead
of continuing to operate the agency in a centralized fashion out of Banda Aceh, six new regional offices would as-
sume responsibility for project management, thereby freeing headquarters to focus on shaping overall strategy
and overseeing major interregional projects. At around the same time, BRR also began establishing “Joint Secre-
tariats” to further facilitate coordination with representatives of regional, district, and city governments and to
97
more closely align local development priorities.
BRR officials and key partners in the recovery effort firmly believed that the agency’s new operational struc-
ture succeeded in increasing collaboration with local governments and in allowing for more direct contact with the
affected communities and other recovery partners. This, they said, led to the realization of a higher percentage of
98
BRR’s targets and, ultimately, to a major shift in many people’s perception of recovery efforts.
th
Indeed, by December 2007, with BRR having celebrated the construction of the 100,000 permanent house in
99
Aceh, many of the agency’s critics were now conceding that in terms of physical recovery, at least, it had made
substantial progress. “When you show results, people want to be associated with that,” Heru Prasetyo explained.
“As long as you show results, the tide is going to turn in your favor, because people will now want to join the
bandwagon.”
96
Quoted in BRR, Story.
97
BRR, 10 Management Lessons; BRR, Breakthrough: Thousands of Paths toward Resolution (Indonesia, 2009); and BRR, Story.
98
Adding to overall stability in Aceh was the successful organization of local and provincial elections (the first since the signing
of the MOU), which occurred in December 2006 and January 2007. GAM scored a major victory in the elections, when one of its
former leaders, the American-educated Irwandi Yusuf, decisively won the gubernatorial contest. Irwandi’s election was particu-
larly significant for BRR’s status in the province. During the campaign, a number of candidates had criticized the agency and
called on Jakarta to dismantle it; but once in office, Irwandi’s administration did not push these demands (BRR, Story; MSR,
Multi-Stakeholder Review of Post-Conflict Programming in Aceh).
99
BRR, Story.
Exhibit 1
Chronology of Events
in BRR’s Management of Post-Tsunami Recovery in Aceh Province, Indonesia
2003
Sunday, May 18
The Government of Indonesia declared Martial Law in Aceh Province, following the collapse of the Cessation of
Hostilities Agreement (CoHA) between the national government and the Free Aceh Movement (GAM).
2004
May
The Government of Indonesia replaced Martial Law with Civil Emergency Status in Aceh Province.
Wednesday, October 20
Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was inaugurated as President of the Republic of Indonesia.
Sunday, December 26
A magnitude 9.1 earthquake occurred off the coast of Sumatra Island, Indonesia.
The earthquake triggered a series of tsunamis that subsequently devastated coastal areas around the Indian Ocean
basin, including 800 kilometers of shoreline in Aceh.
Late December
Multiple governmental and nongovernmental organizations converged on Aceh to deliver humanitarian relief to
the survivors of the tsunami.
2005
Early 2005
Indonesia’s National Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS) began an assessment of recovery needs.
Donors pledged billions of dollars in aid for recovery efforts in Aceh and other affected areas.
Senior Indonesian officials began considering the idea of forming an agency to coordinate long-term recovery ef-
forts in Aceh.
President Yudhoyono offered the position of head of the national recovery agency to Dr. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto,
a former minister of mines and energy. They then entered into a prolonged period of negotiation regarding the
nature of his role and the mandate, structure, and underlying authorities for the new agency.
As talks regarding the formation of a recovery agency continued, Kuntoro began recruiting senior staff, reaching
out to individuals from a variety of fields and sectors.
Monday, March 28
A magnitude 8.7 earthquake decimated the Nias Islands, located off Sumatra’s west coast.
Saturday, April 16
The Government of Indonesia issued Regulation in Lieu of Law No 2, 2005, which officially established the Agency
for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh and Nias (commonly referred to as BRR) to manage post-tsunami
and earthquake recovery on behalf of the national government.
Friday, April 29
Presidential Regulation No. 34/2005 stipulated BRR’s structure and senior staffing.
Saturday, April 30
President Yudhoyono officially appointed Kuntoro as head of BRR and inaugurated the agency’s senior staff.
Early May
BRR officials began arriving in Aceh.
Kuntoro publicly acknowledged the inadequacies of recovery efforts thus far.
Late June
An international aid worker was shot while traveling in Aceh. Government authorities blamed GAM combatants
and Kuntoro suspended recovery activities in parts of the province.
Monday, August 15
GAM leaders and representatives of the government of Indonesia signed the Helsinki Memorandum of Under-
standing, bringing an end to roughly 30 years of armed conflict in Aceh.
October
Teuku Kamaruzzaman, a former top commander in GAM, joined BRR as special staff to Kuntoro. He later became
Secretary of the agency, overseeing, among other things, a special “communications unit,” which employed a
number of GAM’s ex-combatants.
BRR’s legal and political standing was strengthened when the regulation-in-lieu-of-law that established the agency
was ratified as full law by parliament.
Late 2005
Tens of thousands of survivors remained in tents and hastily-built barracks. By the year’s end, as the pace of hous-
ing construction continued to lag, the national government had managed to disburse only ~10% of the funds it had
dedicated to recovery efforts.
2006
Early 2006
BRR began to directly implement its own projects.
Housing constructing started to take off, but with mixed results. Eventually, thousands of houses had to be torn
down and rebuilt, due to poor quality of construction.
July
BRR underwent a major organizational restructuring, re-directing much of the activity that had taken place at the
agency’s headquarters in Banda Aceh to six newly-formed regional offices. In addition, it established “Joint Secre-
tariats” to improve coordination with local authorities and aid agencies based in the field.
Late August
Indonesian Corruption Watch, a watchdog group, announced that it has identified irregular procurement practices
at BRR, primarily in regard to printing and marketing jobs.
Mid-September
Kuntoro was held captive and a riot broke out at BRR headquarters after agency leaders refused to concede to
protesters’ demands.
December
Aceh’s first provincial elections since the signing of the MOU took place. GAM scored major victories in the elec-
tions, including winning the Governorship.
2007/2008
Reconstruction accelerated.
December 2007
BRR celebrated construction of the 100,000th house in Aceh.
Exhibit 2
Key Actors
in the Management of Post-Tsunami Recovery in Aceh Province, Indonesia
Government of Indonesia
• Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, President
• Jusuf Kalla, Vice President
Agency for the Rehabilitation and Reconstruction of Aceh and Nias (BRR)
• Dr. Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, Director
• Said Faisal, Deputy, Economy and Business
• Teuku Kamaruzzaman (Ampon Man), Secretary (and formerly a leader of the GAM separatist movement)
• Heru Prasetyo, Director, International Relations
• Sudirman Said, Deputy, Institutional Development
• Arabiyani Abu Bakar, Director, Women, Gender, and Children’s Welfare (also a local Acehnese activist)
• Radhi Darmansyah, Manager, Social Affairs (also a local Acehnese activist)
Contract Staff
• Maggy Horhoruw, Office of the Director
International Partners
United Nations
• Eric Morris, Recovery Coordinator for Aceh and Nias
• Margareta Wahlstrom, Deputy Emergency Relief Coordinator
• Imogen Wall, Spokeswoman, United Nations Development Programme
World Bank
• Andrew Steer, Indonesia Country Director, World Bank
Acehnese Civil Society Activists

• Arabiyani Abu Bakar (also Director, Women, Gender, and Children’s Welfare, BRR)
• Teuku Ardiansyah (Ardi)
 Radhi Darmansyah (also Manager, Social Affairs, BRR)
Exhibit 3
Map of the Republic of Indonesia
SOURCE: U.S. Department of State, Indonesia, 2014, available at: http://www.state.gov/p/eap/ci/id/ [accessed
January 13, 2014.]
NOTE: The island of Sumatra, the area hardest-hit by the December 26, 2004 tsunami, is at the very northwestern
end of the Indonesian archipelago (on this map, directly below the Andaman Sea).
Exhibit 4
Map of Northern Sumatra Island, Republic of Indonesia,
Indicating Location of the Epicenter of the December 26, 2004 Earthquake
SOURCE: BRR, Map: Spread of Effort and Achievements (Indonesia, 2009).
NOTE: The epicenter of the December 26, 2004 earthquake, which triggered the tsunami responsible for devastat-
ing large parts of the Indian Ocean coastline, is indicated by the small black circle directly north of the island of
Simeulue, off the west coast of Sumatra. Aceh Province, Republic of Indonesia, forms the top third of the area de-
picted on this map. The provincial capital, Banda Aceh, is located at the very northern tip of Sumatra.
Exhibit 5
Map of Aceh Province, Republic of Indonesia,
Indicating Areas affected by the December 26, 2004 Tsunami
NOTE: The light red shading, primarily along the coastline, indicates areas of damage resulting from the December
26, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
Exhibit 6
Tsunami Damage in Banda Aceh, Aceh Province
Exhibit 7
Grounded Tanker, Banda Aceh
SOURCE: The author, 2010.
Exhibit 8
Aceh Province after Tsunami Debris Removal
SOURCE: Courtesy of Arist von Hehn.
Exhibit 9
Aceh Province, Newly Constructed Village (Post-Tsunami)
SOURCE: Maggy Horhoruw, Breaking through Bureaucracy for Speedy Recovery: Lessons from Rehabilitation and
Reconstruction in Aceh Province and Nias Islands, Indonesia, presentation at Harvard Kennedy School, Cambridge,
MA, November 18, 2010.
Exhibit 10
New Housing, Aceh Besar District, Aceh Province
Exhibit 11
New West Coast Highway, Aceh Province

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Forming a National Recovery Agency

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Department of State, Background Note: Indonesia, January 20, 2012, available at

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Initially, the president balked at some of the demands. Kuntoro recollected,

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BRR Gets its Bearings

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Bringing an End to Armed Conflict

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Slow Progress with Reconstruction

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Recovery … In Fits and Starts

New Authorities, New Relationships

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Housing Reconstruction: A Question of Quality

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Adaptations & Achievements

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Kuntoro publicly acknowledged the inadequacies of recovery efforts thus far.

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Acehnese Civil Society Activists

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SOURCE: BRR, Map: Spread of Effort and Achievements (Indonesia, 2009).

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SOURCE: BRR, Map: Spread of Effort and Achievements (Indonesia, 2009).

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SOURCE: BRR, Map: Spread of Effort and Achievements (Indonesia, 2009).

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SOURCE: The author, 2010.

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SOURCE: Courtesy of Arist von Hehn.

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SOURCE: The author, 2010.

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SOURCE: The author, 2010.

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