MDF Holds Photo Exhibition on Aceh Tsunami Museum

Banda Aceh, TAG – The people of Aceh will have an opportunity to retrace their remakable journey and impressive achievements supported by the Multi Donor Fund (MDF) for Aceh and Nias during the past seven years.

The MDF held the Aceh tsunami-post reconstruction process at the Tsunami Museum of Banda Aceh on Tuesday. The exhibition put on the display of 30 full color selected pictures which depict the MDF journey in supporting the recovery effort of Aceh and Nias regions since 2005.

Other various events also held at the venue in conjuction with the exhibition, including an expo showcasing MDF projects and a seminar on the importance of road maintaince in resource-based rural road development. The seminar to be held on Wednesday.

These events, that will run for six coming days opened by the World Bank Country Director, Stefan Koeberle. In his remarks, he mentioned, “these photo truly convey a strong, visual story of how far Aceh and Nias have rebuilt themselves to reach where they are today.”

He added the MDF and delevopment community are honored to be partners in this remarkable effort from the beginning. The success of MDF highlights how strong multi-stakeholder collaborations play a significant role in a post-disaster recovery and help lay solid foundations for sustainability growth, he said.

Such accomplishments are also evident in MDF’s recently launched progress report 2011 entitled ‘Partnerships for Sustainability’. The report highlights key achievements in the reconstruction and rehabilitation efforts in Aceh and Nias to date, which include building of nearly 20,000 houses and 670 schools as well as key transportation infrastructure, including five critical port and 700 kilometers of national, provincial and districts road.

The substantial reconstruction effort widely considered to be a success and has attracted global attention. The MDF report attritutes the success to a unique, highly collaborative approach amongst stakeholders, and the strong leadership and coordinating role played by Indonesian government.

“The partnerships created by the MDf have played a key role in the strong performance of MDF program and the robust results achieved, most notably in harmonizing donor efforts and bringing together stakeholders from various levels of government, donors, communities and civil society,” the second assistant of Aceh government, Said Mustafa, representing acting governor, Tarmizi A. Karim.

Mustafa added that the Aceh government is particularly pleased that MDF has always maintained such an open communication with the central and regional governments and ensured their contributions and programs are in line with government priorities.

The MDF program is now entering its final year, with its mandate ending in December. “The remaining projects are now focusing on final implementation and exit strategies, transfering reconstruction assets, promoting sustainability and documenting lessons learned for future responses to ensure the benefits of recounstruction are secured for the future,” Shamima Khan, manager of MDF, said.

The MDF has fully allocated US$654,7 millions available funds to its portfolio of 23 projects which 12 have been completed and 11 others are on going. Most of the allocated funds been disbursed to projects and will be spent on project implementation during 2012.[]