Indonesia has adopted a disaster risk financing and insurance strategy to better cope with the impact of recurrent natural catastrophes. However, the Asian giant’s hope of improving its response to disasters via the use of risk pools was launched amidst squabbling from various political groups. The strategy comes in the aftermath of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Sulawesi that left more than 2,000 people dead and over 5,000 missing. The country’s Finance Minister, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, said that such an integrated strategy was critical to protect public assets and to accelerate recovery in a country where disasters between 2004 and 2013 caused sizeable material losses of around 126.7trn rupiah ($11.bn).