ADMINISTRATIVE CAPACITY AND DISASTER RISK GOVERNANCE IN SMALL ISLAND PROVINCES: LESSONS FROM NORTH MALUKU, INDONESIA

• Muhammad Darsan

  Kementerian Sosial

  Author

Small island provinces face acute disaster risks due to their geographic isolation, ecological vulnerability, and exposure to natural hazards. Effective disaster risk governance in these regions fundamentally hinges on public administrative capacity. This study examines how administrative capacity shapes disaster risk governance in North Maluku, an archipelago province in eastern Indonesia. Employing a qualitative case study design, data were collected through in-depth interviews with local government officials, emergency management agency (BPBD) practitioners, and community leaders, alongside policy document analysis and field observations. The findings reveal that disaster risk governance in North Maluku is constrained by structural administrative deficits, including limited institutional coordination across island clusters, fiscal dependencies, and insufficient technical expertise in risk assessment. However, local administrative adaptation manifested through informal inter-island emergency networks and community-based co-governance arrangements partially mitigates these institutional shortfalls. The study concludes that standard decentralized administrative frameworks are inadequate for archipelago geography without tailored organizational designs. Strengthening disaster resilience in small island provinces requires shifting from conventional top-down administration to adaptive, multi-scalar governance models that incorporate decentralized logistics and flexible fiscal mechanisms. These insights contribute to public administration discourse by demonstrating how geographic fragmentation demands a localized recalibration of administrative capacity in disaster management.

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