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Companies in disaster-prone Indonesia plan to use their resources to prepare for and respond to calamities by adapting the World Economic Forum’s partnership model.

Willem Rampangilei, a deputy minister at the Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare, said on Sunday that the Indonesia National Network of the WEF’s Disaster Resource Partnership would serve as an independent network of private companies in which the aim was to save lives and alleviate suffering by harnessing the strength and assets of the engineering and construction sector.

“The main idea is that we are exploring what the private sector can do in responding to the challenges of natural disasters which are very complex and multi-dimensional,” Willem said at a press conference to launch the DRP network on the first day of the World Economic Forum on East Asia in Jakarta. This initiative would be independent and the private companies in the network would coordinate among themselves in their pro bono work when responding to natural disasters in accordance with their own line of businesses, which range from transportation and logistic to telecommunications infrastructure, he said.

Natural disasters that affected Indonesia in the past decade include the 2004 tsunami and the eruption of Mount Merapi in 2010. The idea to localize the network had been initiated by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when he attended the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, in January.

Murdaya Poo, who heads conglomerate Central Cipta Murdaya, said the CCM group had been appointed at the WEF in January as main coordinator for the Indonesian DRP network.

The government’s role in this project, Willem said, is only as a facilitator for the private initiatives.

“Having a proper and coordinated mechanism is very important in connecting various agencies” when a natural disaster happens, said Jagan Chapagain, Asia-Pacific director of the International Federation of the Red Cross. Ismira Lutfia