Managing resources to build back and create a better future for Nias

The 28 March 2005 earthquake devastated the island of Nias, an already very poor region before the disaster hit . The March earthquake - coming less than three months after the December 2004 tsunami that also affected Nias - killed almost 1,000 people and left about 10 percent of the population homeless. Infrastructure and public buildings suffered widespread damage and destruction, with the total repair bill estimated at US$392 million, an amount larger than the total GDP of the entire island. Not surprisingly, the island’s under-developed economy was severely disrupted by the double disasters, contracting by 3.4 percent in 2005. As in Aceh, in the wake of the disasters Nias received an unprecedented amount of financial resources from the Government of Indonesia, donors and NGOs to finance the reconstruction of the island. The reconstruction budget for 2006 is estimated at about Rp 1.1 trillion,four times the size of the normal district government budget.