Towards an Integrated Policy, Strong Governance, and High Citizen Awareness on Disaster Response: Case Study of COVID-19 Control Measures in Indonesia

This article examines three investigated variables, namely regulatory framework, governance in action, and citizen awareness, as the basis to explore the lessons of Indonesia in managing the fighting against the spread of the pandemic. The result analysis shows that the disharmony among the laws and regulation increase the complexity of the control measure and weaken the vertical and horizontal coordination. Moreover, the absence of strong leadership and lack of bureaucratic capability hamper the agility of governance. The society preparedness aspect highlighted the emergence of innovation from various stakeholders and, on the contrary, also portrayed the lack of compliance culture. Therefore, this paper suggests to enact an integrated policy, establish a health emergency governance with strong leadership from the President, provide an accountability system in budget allocation and policy implementation, and increase policy enforcement and extensive education to society.