Despite ongoing flood mitigation efforts, the March 2025 Greater Jakarta Flood revealed increasing vulnerabilities driven by urbanisation, environmental changes, and the intensifying threat of climate change. With water levels reaching 15–300 cm and over 100,000 residents affected, this disaster underscores the need for a more integrated approach to flood risk management. This policy brief examines the key challenges in building long-term urban resilience and developing flood risk management in Indonesia’s Jakarta, Bekasi, and other flood-prone areas. These findings suggest that strengthening early warning systems, improving land-use practices, and enhancing community preparedness can help mitigate future flood risks in a changing climate.

On March 28, 2025, massive 7.7 and 6.4M earthquakes affected Myanmar’s 58 townships, resulting in more than 3,500 deaths, 5,233 buildings collapsed, and displaced 69,000 people. This commentary highlights Myanmar’s complex challenges by exploring the intersection of the cascading seismic-induced disasters with civil war, volatility in governance, international isolation and complex institutional arrangements. We offer some alternative views on what needs to be done in the first three months of Myanmar’s immediate response.

Widespread flooding across Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi (Jabodetabek) area, Indonesia, with water depths of 15–300cm, remained as of March 5, 2025. It was triggered by extreme rainfall in Bogor on March 2, 2025, which led to river overflows in Ciliwung, Cikeas, and Pesanggrahan. Field observations by the Multi-hazard Preparedness (MHP) team of the Resilience Development Initiative (RDI) in Bekasi highlight that some areas, such as Pondok Gede Permai, experienced water levels reaching close to four metres, submerging homes despite prior flood mitigation efforts like house elevation. The failure of the 3-metre flood barrier in this area exemplifies the inadequacy of existing flood defences. The flood has affected more than 120,600 people in six cities/regencies. Annual economic losses from floods in the region are estimated to reach approximately IDR 5 Trillion or USD300 million. The 2025 flood also revealed critical deficiencies in governance and disaster preparedness. The emergence of the Jabodetabek Flood in 2025 is not merely caused by the intensity of the rainfall, but also due to inadequate flood management in the area. In line with the Build Back Better (BBB) approach, rehabilitation and reconstruction efforts during the post-disaster phase should prioritise long-term resilience. Therefore, the recommendations provided take a holistic approach, encompassing both structural and non-structural mitigation and adaptation improvements, including resilient infrastructure improvement, Nature-based Solutions (NbS) implementation, land use control and monitoring, adaptive social protection implementation, and data management improvement for better rapid assessment.

ndonesia’s coastal area is exposed to natural hazards while home to highly vulnerable communities. Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) and Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) are needed to reduce the effects of climate change on coastal communities and enhance their resilience against future disasters. Combining CCA-DRR governance with community-led initiatives has been proven by many scholars to be effective in strengthening coastal communities’ resilience compared to top-down CCA-DRR programs. Community-led initiatives are also mentioned in the Sendai Framework for Disaster Risk Reduction (SFDRR) 2015-2030 as vital in understanding and addressing risk. This policy brief elaborates a series of recommendations on implementing community-led CCA-DRR to improve resilience in Indonesia’s coastal communities.

Coastal communities and impoverished people are identified as more vulnerable to climate change and other natural hazards. Sustainable development enhancement through disaster risk reduction (DRR) and climate change adaptation (CCA) is necessary to reduce the risk of disaster occurrence and build coastal communities’ resilience. However, despite the various efforts and progress taken on CCA and DRR, there is still a lack of focus, especially at the local level, where the disaster impacts are more pronounced, and policies should be translated into action. Prior research also identified that coastal communities should initiate decentralized actions on DRR and CCA to reduce vulnerabilities toward coastal hazard risk. Community-led initiatives are integral to CCA-DRR to strengthen resilience and contribute to better implementation in collaboration with local governments. Community-led CCA-DRR can be used to harness existing and build new community assets and capacity in order to address, manage, influence, and adapt to social, economic, and environmental change and disasters. Examples include appropriate recovery actions or mitigation for better coastal community resilience. This paper examines the implementation of community-led CCA-DRR in Indonesia as a case study through an extensive literature review of community-led approaches and CCA-DRR for coastal communities’ resilience. This paper explores practical examples from the global context, draws lessons learned, and gives recommendations to enhance coastal community resilience in Indonesia. Existing experiences on integrated CCA-DRR in various countries demonstrate how a community-led approach can incorporate local community members, local government, external stakeholders, and appropriate support and funding mechanisms.

Artikel ini membahas pentingnya implementasi Perlindungan Sosial Adaptif (PSA) di Indonesia untuk menghadapi bencana, perubahan iklim, dan kemiskinan. Studi kasus di Kabupaten Sumba Timur mengidentifikasi tiga bentuk PSA: program pemerintah, inisiatif berbasis kearifan lokal, dan kontribusi lembaga nonpemerintah. PSA bertujuan tidak hanya sebagai respons krisis tetapi juga untuk meningkatkan resiliensi sosial-ekonomi masyarakat. Tantangan utama meliputi koordinasi lintas sektor, keterbatasan sumber daya, dan integrasi data. Artikel ini merekomendasikan penguatan kebijakan, pengembangan kegiatan masyarakat, dan kolaborasi dengan lembaga nonpemerintah agar PSA lebih inklusif dan berkelanjutan.