T

he Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami was the first humanitarian crisis of the 21st century whose impacts were truly global.

It will not be the last, and indeed, with climate change proceeding apace we must be prepared for possibly even greater catastrophes on every shore.

Those who did not lose a loved one, or see their way of life torn apart either as a result of the tsunami or its aftermath, cannot claim to understand the pain of those who did.

But at the same time, we must not let all that has been done and learned retire to the annals of history or be confined to the idiosyncrasies of geography.

The response of a huge cast of governments, organizations, communities and individuals to one of the world'€™s worst natural disasters offers valuable insights for future preparedness and disaster recovery and reconstruction that we cannot afford to ignore.

This was the reason behind the initiation of the Tsunami Global Lessons Learned Project (TGLLP) which, on Feb. 10, 2014, launched its final deliverable, a Disaster Recovery Toolkit.

This Toolkit identifies and compiles lessons learned from recovery and reconstruction processes following the 2004 Indian Ocean Tsunami and also from other catastrophes that occurred between 1993 and 2013.

Although every disaster is unique, we hope that this Toolkit will help us actively transform our institutions, strategies and capabilities to mitigate and respond better in the future.

The most important lessons we have learned do not require large amounts of funding for their replication. Effective leadership and coordination are essential, and are indeed the surest building blocks after disasters, where chaos goes hand in hand with calamity.

Efforts on the part of governments, development partners and civil society organizations to engage the grassroots, and to ensure inclusion and participation from all stakeholders '€” particularly marginalized groups '€” in each stage of the recovery process, can go a long way in helping families and communities to put the pieces back together.

Accountability and transparency are critical, as is a willingness to take risks and embed institutional as well as cultural reform in the DNA of disaster response.

This must include serious reflection and be a continuous process by which weaknesses are overcome and strengths capitalized upon.

While there are general principles to be observed, it remains the case that the nations affected by the tsunami each adopted their own unique approaches to managing the specific circumstances they confronted.

The ordeal of Aceh was particularly complex and harrowing, with massive loss of life and extensive physical destruction.

Moving rapidly, Indonesia created a national agency, the BRR (Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency), to lead the rehabilitation and reconstruction effort by uniting ministries, donors, aid agencies and communities under a single purpose, to restore lives and livelihoods and to build resilient public institutions for a brighter future.

It defined the scope of its actions broadly, inventing all manner of procedures that had never been considered before to get the job done, and being candid about its many mistakes and pitfalls along the way.

There were surely things that could have been done better, and while shortcomings were inevitable, they were not a result of lack of trying. As former US president and UN Special Envoy for Tsunami Recovery, Bill Clinton, expressed it so eloquently, '€œOur tools have yet to catch up with our aspirations, true, but the effort has been genuine and widespread'€.

Preparedness is not a state but a process. With climate change and a host of other development challenges, we cannot be content with what we have achieved '€” the disasters of the future will test our resilience beyond bounds previously seen and make vulnerable all nations and communities alike.

At the launch of the Disaster Recovery Toolkit, Helen Clark, Administrator of the United Nations Development Program, further made the point that investing in disaster risk makes good economic sense. She referred to research undertaken by the UN and the World Bank which shows that, while specific cases may vary, for every dollar invested in minimizing risk, about seven dollars will be saved in economic losses from disasters

Today, a newfound resolve for securing country and community against the threats of natural disasters is emerging among global leaders.

This resolve is bearing fruit with the creation of more thoughtfully-designed disaster preparedness institutions and policies, new regional and national early warning systems, and innovative approaches to promoting community-based disaster awareness and preparedness.

Next month, the Third World Conference on Disaster Risk Reduction will be held in Sendai, Japan.

If this momentum can galvanize the international community to decide, at this conference, upon an effective global framework for disaster risk reduction as a successor to the Hyogo Framework for Action 2005-2015, we will have turned a corner in global disaster preparedness and response.

This will truly stand as a mark of respect to those lost as a result of disasters, in Indonesia and around the world.