Van 17 tot en met 23 januari 2009 bezocht staatssecretaris Huizinga van Verkeer & Waterstaat Indonesië. In Banda Aceh bezocht zij enkele projecten op het gebied van de wederopbouw na de tsunami van 2004. Tevens woonde zij een ondertekeningsceremonie bij van Nederlandse en Indonesische waterbedrijven die het drinkwaterbeheer in Aceh verder zullen gaan vormgeven. In Jakarta overhandigde zij baggerboten aan de gouverneur van de provincie Jakarta, die Jakarta moeten gaan helpen bij de overstromingsproblematiek in de stad door middel van het uitbaggeren van de afvoerkanalen. Tevens woonde zij de ondertekening bij van de samenwerkingsovereenkomst tussen KNMI en Deltares en hun Indonesische partners BMKG en PusAir. Deze samenwerking heeft tot doel de Indonesiërs instrumenten in handen te geven om een Early Warning System voor overstromingen en droogte op te zetten en het watermanagement in het land te verbeteren, zodat de schadelijke gevolgen van rampen als overstromingen en tsunami's verminderd kunnen worden.

Ondertekening van de samenwerking met de provincie Jakarta en overhandiging van de baggerboten aan gouverneur Fauzi Bowo.

Ondertekeningsceremonie van de samenwerking tussen KNMI, Deltares, BMKG en PusAir, onder het toeziend oog van staatssecretaris Huizinga en ambassadeur Van Dam.

Persbericht 22 januari 2009:

Jakarta – 22 January 2009. In the office of Indonesian meteorological institute BMKG (formerly known as BMG), a new cooperation agreement was signed between the Netherlands and Indonesia in the fields of meteorology, water management, climate change and Early Warning System for disasters.

In the presence of Dutch Vice-Minister for Transport, Public Works and Water Management, Mrs. Tineke Huizinga-Heringa, and Indonesian Directors-General from the Ministries of Public Works and Transport, the Indonesian meteorological institute BMKG, Dutch meteorological institute KNMI, and the Indonesian and Dutch institutes for water research PusAir and Deltares, signed an agreement to set up a long-term cooperation and capacity building programme (2010-2015) in order to assist Indonesia with the mitigation of its problems in the fields of flooding and drought by improving its water management systems.Many of Indonesia’s problems are related to water, weather and the climate. This new Dutch-Indonesian cooperation aims at giving Indonesian meteorological and water research institutes the tools to be able to better cope with these problems.

Indonesia and the Netherlands have a long standing successful relationship regarding the development and implementation of water management, including integrated river basin management, flood and drought management, peat water management and Early Warning. From the 1970s the Indonesian and Dutch Water Research Institutes, PusAir and Deltares (formerly Delft Hydraulics) worked closely together and developed the basis for water management. The meteorological institutes BMKG and KNMI started cooperation in 1999. As part of the continued Dutch-Indonesian cooperation, BMKG and KNMI will restore and analyse historic data series dating back till 1870.

For sustainable future water management, the combined effort of the Water Research and Meteorological Institutes is required. Therefore, a new cooperation programmeis established. Intensifying knowledge sharing between national research institutes is one of the priorities in the continued relation between both countries. The programme will strengthen the integration of meteorology and water management especially to:

• Strengthen hydrology and develop the basis for flood and drought early warning in Indonesia;
• Exchange and jointly analyze the fields of:
  • Interaction between meteorology and hydrology
  • Interaction between climate change and integrated water resource management
  • Flood and drought management and early warning
  • Sea water level prediction
  • Assessment and monitoring.
  • Tsunami modeling

For more information please contact the Embassy’s spokesperson, Ms. Gonneke de Ridder, 0811886044.