The Netherlands has pledged $8.5 million in grants to develop a strategy for sea defense and flood protection and an early-warning system in the tsunami-ravaged areas of Aceh and Nias. A cooperation agreement for the two-year project was signed here on March 13 by Aceh and Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) chairman Kuntoro Mangkusubroto and Dutch Ambassador to Indonesia Nikolaus van Dam. According to the Jakarta Post, the BRR has said the absence of a sustainable coastal protection strategy would endanger the progress of Aceh's reconstruction, especially the development of houses in coastal areas, which were not sufficiently protected from the sea. The program would include consultations, disaster modeling, surveys and investigations, trial structures and embankments.