Post-tsunami rehabilitation and reconstruction activities in Aceh have been criticised as focusing on vertical reporting at the expense of lateral coordination, leading in some cases to ‘overlaps and redundancies, mistargeting and hastily planned and implemented programs’. Our experience is that effective coordination between implementing agencies, linked to appropriate Indonesian government agencies, can effectively improve the delivery of services, in this case to coastal aquaculture farmers in Aceh. Most importantly, in an environment where numerous agencies are undertaking rehabilitation activities across a broad geographic area, this approach enables the provision of a consistent and standardized technical message to farmers.