This article is also available in Indonesian here.

During my studies in Japan, fulfilling various administrative obligations rarely felt like a burden. About a five-minute walk from my apartment stood a Yamazaki konbini (convenience store), open nearly around the clock. There, I would routinely stop in to pay everything from health insurance premiums to rent to various other administrative fees.

The process was disarmingly simple. I would hand a payment slip to the cashier, who would scan it with a warm smile as though it were no different from ringing up a cup of coffee and a snack. Once the transaction was done, the slip would be stamped with a distinctive red Japanese seal, a hanko, faintly reminiscent of the stamps one sees in grand Asian historical epics.

No long queues, no shuffling between counters, and it could all be done at any time, even on weekends. One cashier, one scanner, every obligation settled in minutes. It felt like a small, unremarkable thing, and yet in that moment, I felt the presence of the Japanese government, even without ever having voted or met any of its representatives face to face.

When I returned to Indonesia in 2023, the reality I encountered back home in Southeast Sulawesi felt starkly different. To pay a single type of vehicle tax, I had to queue at the Vehicle Document Registration Center (Samsat) office for thirty minutes, sometimes hours. What should have been a straightforward errand often dragged on, as people were forced to go through multiple service windows just to complete a single payment.

That contrast planted a simple question in my mind: why does public service, which is supposed to make life easier, so often end up making it harder? That question was ultimately what drove me to request a transfer from my previous post at the Economic Bureau of the Southeast Sulawesi Provincial Government to the Regional Revenue Agency (‘Bapenda’) of Southeast Sulawesi, the body directly responsible for managing regional taxes and levies.

As luck would have it, the timing could not have been better. Given my academic background and research focus on regional revenue management during my studies in Japan, the incoming leadership entrusted me as the person in charge of the Acceleration and Expansion of Regional Digitalization (P2DD).

The assignment aligned perfectly with what I had set out to do: make it easier for people to pay their taxes and levies. But the task began from a difficult starting point. At the time, Southeast Sulawesi ranked last among all 34 provinces in Indonesia in the implementation of Regional Government Transaction Electronification (ETPD).

In other words, our province sat at the very bottom of the national rankings, behind even Papua at the far eastern edge of the country. This index essentially reflected what the people of Southeast Sulawesi had long been living with: the vast majority of regional tax and levy payments were still made in cash, through physical service counters. It was far from ideal, and particularly burdensome for those living far from service centers.

Reforms under local constraints

In early 2024, as we began pushing for the digitalization of regional payments, the first obstacle we faced was infrastructure. Southeast Sulawesi’s regional development bank, Bank Sultra, was still in the process of strengthening its digital systems.

As the primary financial partner of the regional government, the bank played a central role in the payment ecosystem, but the technology needed to support integrated digital payment channels, including payment gateways, QR payments, and multi-platform integration, was not yet fully in place. This left us with an uncomfortable choice: waiting for the systems to be ready meant preserving an inefficient status quo, while forcing change without the necessary infrastructure risked creating new problems of its own.

In the end, we chose a collaborative approach. Through discussions facilitated by the Bank Indonesia Representative Office for Southeast Sulawesi, we began exploring the possibility of working with an external payment gateway provider to lay the early groundwork for a digital payment ecosystem.

Bank Indonesia recommended Espay, a payment technology company with experience integrating government payment systems into national digital payment networks. That recommendation became the starting point for a partnership between Bapenda Southeast Sulawesi and Espay, though building that collaboration was by no means straightforward.

Facing bureaucratic skepticism

Implementing the digital payment system required a budget support of around Rp 195 million to cover installation, rental costs, and payment gateway infrastructure integration. In the context of a provincial government budget, this was a relatively modest sum.

But because regional levy revenues had been volatile over the preceding five years, the Regional Financial and Asset Management Agency (BPKAD) questioned the urgency of the investment. In one meeting, they raised the concern that allocating additional funds to an unstable sector was not an easy decision, with no guarantee that the new system would produce a positive impact on regional revenues, and a real possibility that it could actually harm the regional finances.

In response, I posed a question of my own.

“How can we expect anything to change if we keep using the same approach year after year? Digitizing the tax sector is a new approach, and one we are obliged to try.”

I tried to make the case that in efforts like this, there are no guarantees. What we can do is act based on experience and best practices from other regions, such as Jakarta, West Java, East Java, and beyond. If the system works, it can serve as the foundation for something much larger. And if it falls short of expectations, there would have at least been a transfer of knowledge, both within government and among our strategic partners, giving everyone the experience and understanding needed to build similar systems in the future without incurring the same costs again.

That argument proved persuasive, and the funding was approved.

When digitalization began to show results

When the partnership with Espay was finalized and rolled out across Southeast Sulawesi, it enabled us to implement a QR-based regional levy payment system. Through this system, people could pay their levies via a range of digital platforms, including mobile banking, e-wallets, and any other application supporting the national Quick Response Code Indonesia Standard (QRIS) infrastructure.

For the first time in the region, residents no longer had to carry cash or visit a bank counter just to fulfill their tax payment obligations. By the end of 2024, the impact had begun to show. Several regional agencies responsible for collecting levies recorded revenue growth for the first time in years. Southeast Sulawesi’s ETPD ranking also climbed from 34th to 27th out of 36 provinces in Indonesia.

On a personal note, I was honored to receive an award from Bank Indonesia Southeast Sulawesi as the “Most Accelerative Individual Champion of Regional Government Digitalization.”

Expanding access to digital services

In 2025, we launched a new program called SIGAP, a proactive outreach service designed to bring tax services directly to the public. Rather than waiting for taxpayers to come to government offices, the SIGAP team actively visited communities, businesses, and public spaces to help people access digital payment services.

We also began developing a digital administration platform for businesses, particularly those in the mining sector, which contributes significantly to regional revenues. Through this platform, companies can register, upload documents, and process payments electronically, without needing to visit a government office in person. These incremental steps gradually changed the way people interact with local government services.

A digital payment culture began to take root. Southeast Sulawesi’s digitalization ranking rose again, this time to 16th, and the province went on to receive a national award from the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs, recognized as “Rookie of the Year” for the most rapid digitalization acceleration in Indonesia in 2025. And in December 2025, the provincial government recorded a surge in locally generated revenue of more than Rp 100 billion, an increase of 8.12 percent compared to the same period in 2024.

Leaving behind footprints for future reformists

In the end, this is not simply a story about shifting tax payments from physical counters to virtual ones. It is about a process built up layer by layer: establishing trust between institutions, answering the doubts of the bureaucracy, and learning together to understand systems that were genuinely new to everyone involved. The road to change is still far from finished, and there is much work to be done. But this small journey has left behind at least one lesson worth passing on, not because the story is extraordinary, but because it grew from a simple desire to deliver better service to the public.

Perhaps in time, people will no longer remember who started it. But hopefully the spirit behind it endures: that within the bureaucracy there is always room for small ideas to grow, for the courage to try something new, and for the hope of continually improving how the state serves its people.

If this story ever reaches those who feel the same restlessness, perhaps it can serve as a reminder that reform does not need to wait for a grand moment. Sometimes, only courage is needed to take the first step, and the persistence to see it through until it means something, so that this reform does not stop as this story comes to a close, but continues in the transformative steps for those who will come after.

Read winning articles from our first Writing Competition on our site: thereformist.id. The Bahasa Indonesia series can be found in the “Insiders” section. New article every week!

Artikel ini tersedia juga dalam Bahasa Inggris di sini.

Selama saya menempuh studi di Jepang, membayar berbagai kewajiban administrasi hampir tidak pernah terasa merepotkan. Sekitar lima menit berjalan kaki dari apartemen tempat penulis tinggal, terdapat sebuah konbini Yamazaki, toko serba ada yang buka hampir sepanjang hari.

Di toko minimalis itu, saya biasanya menyempatkan diri membayar berbagai tagihan mulai dari iuran kesehatan, biaya sewa, hingga beberapa kewajiban administrasi lainnya. Prosesnya sangat sederhana: saya hanya perlu menyerahkan slip pembayaran kepada seorang kasir, lalu dengan senyuman yang ramah, ia memindai slip tersebut seolah itu hanyalah transaksi biasa, seperti jika saya membeli segelas kopi hangat beserta cemilannya. Setelah transaksi selesai, slip tersebut diberi cap merah khas Jepang, sebuah hanko, yang sekilas mengingatkan pada stempel yang sering kita lihat dalam kisah-kisah kolosal Asia.

Tidak ada antrean panjang, tidak perlu berpindah dari satu loket ke loket lainnya, dan bisa dilakukan kapan saja, bahkan di akhir pekan. Cukup satu petugas kasir dengan satu alat pindai sederhana, semua kewajiban tuntas dalam hitungan menit. Pengalaman yang terasa sederhana, namun dari situ saya merasakan kehadiran pemerintah Jepang, bahkan tanpa pernah memilih atau bertatap muka secara langsung.

Namun, ketika kembali ke Indonesia pada tahun 2023, realitas yang saya temui di kampung halaman di Sulawesi Tenggara terasa begitu berbeda. Untuk membayar satu jenis pajak kendaraan, saya harus mengantre di kantor Samsat selama tiga puluh menit, bahkan kadang berjam-jam lamanya. Proses yang seharusnya sederhana sering kali terasa panjang karena masyarakat harus melalui beberapa loket pelayanan hanya untuk menyelesaikan satu transaksi pembayaran.

Perbedaan pengalaman tersebut memunculkan pertanyaan sederhana di benak saya, “Mengapa layanan publik yang seharusnya memudahkan masyarakat justru sering kali terasa begitu merepotkan?”

Pertanyaan itu pula yang kemudian mendorong saya untuk mengajukan perpindahan dari kantor lama saya di Biro Ekonomi Pemerintah Provinsi Sulawesi Tenggara ke Badan Pendapatan Daerah (Bapenda) Provinsi Sulawesi Tenggara, instansi yang secara langsung menangani pengelolaan pajak dan retribusi daerah.

Pucuk dicinta, ulampun tiba

Dengan melihat latar belakang pendidikan serta fokus penelitian penulis mengenai pengelolaan pendapatan daerah selama studi di Jepang, pimpinan yang baru kemudian mempercayakan saya untuk menjadi person in charge (PIC) untuk program Percepatan dan Perluasan Digitalisasi Daerah (P2DD). Penugasan tersebut sejalan dengan tujuan awal saya, yakni memudahkan masyarakat untuk membayar pajak dan retribusinya.

Namun, tugas tersebut dimulai dari kondisi yang tidak mudah. Pada saat itu, Sulawesi Tenggara berada di posisi ke-34 dari 34 provinsi di Indonesia dalam implementasi Elektronifikasi Transaksi Pemerintah Daerah (ETPD). Artinya, provinsi kami berada di peringkat paling bawah secara nasional.

Indeks ini pada dasarnya mencerminkan layanan yang selama ini dirasakan oleh masyarakat Sulawesi Tenggara, di mana sebagian besar pembayaran pajak dan retribusi daerah masih dilakukan secara tunai melalui loket-loket pembayaran. Kondisi ini sangat tidak ideal karena sangat merepotkan masyarakat, terutama bagi mereka yang berdomisili jauh dari pusat pelayanan.

Memulai reformasi di tengah keterbatasan

Awal tahun 2024, kami mulai mendorong digitalisasi pembayaran daerah. Tantangan pertama yang dihadapi adalah keterbatasan infrastruktur. Bank Pembangunan Daerah kami, Bank Sultra, saat itu masih dalam tahap awal memperkuat sistem digitalnya. Sebagai mitra utama pemerintah daerah dalam pengelolaan transaksi keuangan, bank daerah memegang peran penting dalam ekosistem pembayaran daerah. Namun, kesiapan teknologi untuk mendukung kanal pembayaran digital terintegrasi, seperti payment gateway, QR payment, dan integrasi multi-platform, belum sepenuhnya tersedia.

Situasi ini menempatkan kami pada pilihan yang tidak mudah. Menunggu kesiapan sistem berarti mempertahankan kondisi yang tidak efisien, sementara memaksakan perubahan tanpa dukungan infrastruktur juga berisiko menimbulkan masalah baru.

Pada akhirnya, kami memilih pendekatan kolaboratif. Melalui diskusi yang difasilitasi oleh Kantor Perwakilan Bank Indonesia Sulawesi Tenggara, kami mulai mengeksplorasi kemungkinan bekerja sama dengan penyedia payment gateway eksternal untuk membangun fondasi awal ekosistem pembayaran digital.

Bank Indonesia kemudian merekomendasikan Espay, sebuah perusahaan teknologi pembayaran yang memiliki pengalaman dalam mengintegrasikan sistem pembayaran pemerintah dengan jaringan pembayaran digital nasional. Rekomendasi tersebut menjadi titik awal kerja sama antara Bapenda Sulawesi Tenggara dan Espay, meski tentu membangun kolaborasi ini tidaklah sederhana.

Menghadapi skeptisisme birokrasi

Untuk menerapkan sistem pembayaran digital, kami membutuhkan dukungan anggaran sekitar Rp 195 juta untuk instalasi, biaya sewa, dan integrasi infrastruktur payment gateway. Jumlah ini sebenarnya relatif kecil dalam konteks anggaran pemerintah provinsi. Namun, penerimaan sektor retribusi daerah yang cenderung fluktuatif selama 5 tahun terakhir membuat Badan Pengelola Keuangan dan Aset Daerah (BPKAD) mempertanyakan urgensi investasi ini.

Dalam satu rapat, mereka mengutarakan bahwa mengalokasikan anggaran tambahan untuk sektor yang tidak stabil tentu bukan keputusan yang mudah karena bukankah tidak ada jaminan bahwa sistem baru ini akan memberikan dampak positif bagi penerimaan daerah? Malah justru bisa merugikan keuangan daerah!

Untuk menjawab keraguan tersebut, saya menjawabnya dengan mengajukan balik satu pertanyaan:

“Bagaimana kita bisa berharap ada perubahan jika pendekatan yang kita gunakan setiap tahun selalu sama? Digitalisasi sektor retribusi adalah pendekatan yang baru dan wajib untuk dicoba”

Saya mencoba meyakinkan bahwa dalam upaya seperti ini tidak ada jaminan yang mutlak. Yang bisa kita lakukan adalah berikhtiar berdasarkan pengalaman dan praktik terbaik dari daerah lain seperti Jakarta, Jawa Barat, Jawa Timur, dan sekitarnya. Jika sistem ini berhasil, maka ia dapat menjadi fondasi bagi perubahan yang lebih besar. Namun, jika tidak memberikan dampak yang diharapkan pun, setidaknya ada proses transfer of knowledge bagi internal pemerintah maupun mitra strategis sehingga keduanya jadi punya pengalaman belajar dan gambaran untuk membangun sistem serupa tanpa dikenakan biaya lagi. Argumen singkat itu terdengar logis bagi mereka, sehingga akhirnya pembiayaan pun disetujui.

Ketika digitalisasi mulai memberikan dampak

Kerja sama dengan Espay akhirnya disetujui dan mulai diterapkan di Sulawesi Tenggara. Perubahan ini memungkinkan kami untuk menerapkan sistem pembayaran retribusi daerah berbasis QRIS. Melalui sistem ini, masyarakat dapat membayar retribusi melalui berbagai platform digital seperti mobile banking, dompet elektronik, maupun aplikasi lain yang mendukung QRIS.

Untuk pertama kalinya, masyarakat tidak lagi harus membawa uang tunai atau datang ke loket bank hanya untuk menunaikan kewajiban perpajakannya. Pada akhir tahun 2024, dampaknya mulai terlihat. Beberapa perangkat daerah yang memungut retribusi mulai mencatatkan pertumbuhan penerimaan untuk pertama kalinya dalam beberapa tahun terakhir. Selain itu, peringkat ETPD Sultra pun meningkat dari ke-34 menjadi ke-27 dari 36 provinsi di Indonesia. Secara pribadi, saya juga dianugerahi penghargaan sebagai “Insan Penggerak Digitalisasi Pemerintah Daerah Paling Akseleratif” oleh Bank Indonesia Sulawesi Tenggara.

Memperluas akses layanan digital

Selanjutnya, pada tahun 2025, kami kembali meluncurkan program SIGAP, sebuah layanan jemput bola yang dirancang untuk mendekatkan layanan pajak kepada masyarakat. Alih-alih menunggu wajib pajak datang ke kantor pemerintah, Tim SIGAP secara aktif mendatangi komunitas, pelaku usaha, dan ruang publik untuk membantu masyarakat mengakses layanan pembayaran digital.

Selain itu, kami juga mulai mengembangkan platform administrasi digital bagi perusahaan, terutama bagi sektor pertambangan yang memiliki kontribusi besar terhadap penerimaan daerah.

Melalui platform ini, perusahaan dapat melakukan registrasi, mengunggah dokumen, dan memproses pembayaran secara elektronik tanpa harus datang langsung ke kantor pemerintah. Langkah-langkah kecil ini secara bertahap mengubah cara masyarakat berinteraksi dengan layanan pemerintah daerah.

Budaya pembayaran digital mulai berkembang. Peringkat digitalisasi Sulawesi Tenggara kembali meningkat menjadi ke-16 dari 36 provinsi di Indonesia, dan provinsi kami kemudian menerima penghargaan nasional dari Kementerian Koordinator Perekonomian “Rookie of the Year” sebagai daerah dengan percepatan digitalisasi paling masif di Indonesia pada tahun 2025.

Lebih dari itu, pada Desember 2025, Pemerintah Provinsi Sulawesi Tenggara mencatat lonjakan Pendapatan Asli Daerah (PAD) sebesar lebih dari Rp 100 miliar, naik sebesar 8,12 persen jika dibandingkan dengan periode yang sama tahun 2024.

Tentang jejak yang ditinggalkan

Pada akhirnya, kisah sederhana ini bukan hanya tentang peralihan pelayanan pajak dari loket tunai menuju bilik virtual, melainkan suatu proses yang dibangun secara berjenjang mulai dari membangun kepercayaan antarinstitusi, menjawab keraguan birokrasi, hingga belajar bersama memahami sistem yang benar-benar baru bagi banyak pihak.

Walaupun langkah perubahan ini masih jauh dari garis finis karena masih banyak pekerjaan rumah yang harus diselesaikan, setidaknya perjalanan kecil ini telah meninggalkan satu pelajaran berharga yang layak untuk diwariskan. Bukan karena kisah ini luar biasa, melainkan karena ia lahir dari niat sederhana untuk menghadirkan pelayanan yang lebih baik bagi masyarakat.

Mungkin, di masa depan, orang tidak lagi mengingat siapa yang memulainya. Tetapi semoga semangat di balik cerita ini tetap hidup, bahwa di dalam birokrasi selalu ada ruang bagi gagasan kecil untuk tumbuh, bagi keberanian untuk mencoba hal baru, dan bagi harapan untuk terus memperbaiki cara negara melayani warganya.

Jika suatu hari kisah ini sampai kepada mereka yang sedang merasakan kegelisahan yang sama, barangkali ia dapat menjadi pengingat bahwa reformasi tidak harus menunggu momentum besar.

Kadang ia hanya membutuhkan satu keberanian untuk mulai melangkah dan ketekunan untuk menjalani hingga memberi dampak berarti, agar reformasi ini tidak berhenti pada testimoni penulis di ujung cerita ini, melainkan terus berlanjut dalam langkah-langkah transformatif yang mungkin akan ditulis oleh mereka yang datang setelahnya.

The recent escalation of tensions around Iran and the Strait of Hormuz is often framed as a geopolitical risk for oil markets. But for Indonesia, it is better understood as a stress test of structural exposure, unveiling the need to move away from coal dependence and treat decarbonization as a key to maintain industrial competitiveness. Let me explain:

Indonesia has long wrestled with a quiet yet consequential problem: premature deindustrialization. Manufacturing peaked early, way before the country could fully capture the productivity gains typically associated with industrial transformation. Data show Indonesia’s manufacturing share at about 19 percent of GDP in 2024, down from a historical peak of 32 percent in the early 2000s.

In recent years, the government has responded with a renewed ambition, placing downstreaming at the center of its economic strategy. Indonesia aims to move up the value chain and reclaim industrial momentum by prioritizing strategic sectors, including fisheries, agriculture, energy, and mineral-based industries. The scale is significant. Government estimates suggest that downstreaming initiatives could mobilize close to Rp 600 trillion (~US$ 35 billion) in planned investment, positioning Indonesia as a key node in global supply chains linked to the energy transition.

But as I reflect on this strategy, I find myself returning to a critical tension that is often left unspoken: while downstreaming is framed as a forward-looking industrial policy, its energy foundation remains firmly rooted in fossil fuels.

Much of Indonesia’s mineral processing industries, particularly nickel, is powered by captive coal plants, built specifically to supply industrial operations. The data is striking: captive coal capacity has expanded rapidly in recent years, reaching around 30 GW when including projects in development, with nickel smelters alone accounting for a significant share. In effect, coal is embedded in the very architecture of Indonesia’s industrial strategy.

This matters because energy is an important determinant of competitiveness. If the industries Indonesia is betting on are structurally tied to carbon-intensive energy, then fossil fuel dependence is more than an environmental issue. It is shaping the future viability of those industries.

This is where events far beyond Indonesia’s borders suddenly become relevant.

The Strait of Hormuz carries roughly 20 million barrels of oil per day (about a quarter of global seaborne oil trade) and nearly 20 percent of global LNG flows. Around 80 percent of that oil is destined for Asia. Any disruption, even temporary, sends shockwaves through global prices.

Indonesia may not import all its oil directly from the Middle East, but it does not need to. As a net oil importer, Indonesia is exposed primarily through prices, not routes. And those price shocks have real consequences. A research shows that a 10 percent increase in global oil prices can lead to roughly a 3 to 4 percent increase in Indonesia’s consumer price index (CPI) over time. The transmission mechanisms are well understood: higher subsidy burdens, adjustments in administered fuel prices, rising transport costs, and broader inflation expectations.

The fiscal implications are equally significant. Estimates suggest that even a modest US$ 1 increase in oil prices can add about Rp 7 trillion to Indonesia’s fiscal burden, once subsidy and compensation mechanisms are taken into account. In other words, oil price volatility is not just an abstract risk anymore. It directly affects Indonesia’s budget, inflation, and macroeconomic stability.

What strikes me is how this intersects with Indonesia’s long-standing policy approach.

For decades, energy policy has been anchored in a simple logic: affordability supports growth. Fuel subsidies, price controls, and compensation mechanisms have been used to shield consumers and industries from global volatility. This has delivered short-term stability, but it has also entrenched a deeper vulnerability. When affordability depends on global fossil fuel prices, stability becomes contingent on forces outside Indonesia’s control.

The lesson from Hormuz, then, is not that Indonesia needs to secure more fossil fuel supply. It is that fossil fuel dependence itself is the source of insecurity.

This raises a more fundamental question: if not cheap fossil fuel, what should underpin Indonesia’s growth?

Here, international experience offers useful contrasts. Malaysia, for instance, has historically relied on subsidies to maintain affordable energy. While effective in the short term, this approach has imposed persistent fiscal costs and required repeated reforms. China, on the other hand, has pursued a different trajectory. Over the past two decades, it has systematically invested in energy efficiency, electrification, and industrial upgrading, enabling economic growth to increasingly decouple from energy consumption growth.

For Indonesia, the implication is not to abandon affordability, but to redefine how affordability is achieved. Stable, predictable, and increasingly domestic sources of energy, particularly from renewables, offer a more durable foundation than imported fossil fuels subjected to geopolitical risk.

This is where decarbonization takes on a different meaning.

Too often, decarbonization is framed narrowly as a climate agenda. But in the context of Indonesia’s current trajectory, decarbonization is fundamentally about industrial competitiveness. If downstreaming continues to rely on coal-based power, Indonesia risks locking itself into a high-carbon production model just as global markets shift toward low-carbon supply chains. Investors, buyers, and regulators are increasingly sensitive to the carbon intensity of production. What is competitive today may not be competitive tomorrow.

At the same time, the opportunity is equally clear. There is growing evidence that renewable energy can support the next wave of economic growth, particularly when combined with efficiency improvements. Energy efficiency alone is estimated to deliver returns of three to five times the initial investment, while reducing overall system costs.

For industrial sectors, this translates into lower operating costs, greater resilience to price shocks, and improved market positioning.

In practical terms, this means Indonesia’s industrial policy must evolve. Downstreaming should focus beyond scaling production towards transforming the energy systems that power it. Reducing reliance on captive coal, integrating renewable energy into industrial zones, and prioritizing efficiency are not peripheral adjustments anymore. These efforts are central to ensuring that Indonesia’s industrial strategy remains viable in a changing global landscape.

As I think about the implications of the Iran crisis, I do not see it as an isolated geopolitical event. I see it as a signal that reinforces a broader pattern we have witnessed repeatedly. Fossil fuel dependence exposes countries to risks that are increasingly difficult to manage, whether through fiscal policy, subsidies, or market interventions.

For Indonesia, the response should not be reactive. It should be strategic. Decoupling from fossil fuels, particularly oil, will reduce exposure to external shocks. Investing in clean, reliable, and efficient energy systems will strengthen industrial competitiveness. And doing so while maintaining Indonesia’s non-bloc foreign policy stance will preserve the country’s strategic autonomy in an increasingly fragmented world.

In the end, the question is not whether Indonesia can afford to decarbonize.

It is whether Indonesia can afford not to.

Because in a world shaped by both energy transition and geopolitical uncertainty, the countries that succeed will not be those that simply extract resources but those that build resilient systems around them.

Want to share your views on public policy reforms or other political issues?

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The Reformist Podcast has just released a new episode on our YouTube channel on reforming Indonesia’s justice system. We sat down with Rifqi Assegaf, an expert staff member at the Corruption Eradication Commission and a former member of the Supreme Court’s judicial reform team.

In our conversation with Rifqi, he spoke about the structural and bureaucratic reforms made to the Indonesian justice system over the past three decades after the 1998 Reformasi and the systemic challenges that continue to linger despite efforts to eradicate them.

Perhaps his most inspiring tale was at the peak of Reformasi. After the collapse of the authoritarian New Order regime, Rifqi, a recent Law graduate at the time, marched with his friends—fresh out of school—to the Supreme Court with a set of demands and a blueprint for reforming the country’s judiciary.

Not only did the Court accept their demands, but it also opened its doors for these students and other representatives of civil society to repair the broken system from within.

Moments like this are why The Reformist exists: to unveil hidden stories from actors who were, and are still present in changing Indonesia, one meaningful reform at a time.

However, while inspiring and certainly noteworthy, Indonesia’s justice system today remains faulty at best and neglected at worst.

With the unjust indictments of hundreds of students and activists, intra-governmental overreach in the judiciary, and legal impunity for attacks on human rights defenders, much more still has to be done to uplift Indonesia’s rule of law.

If you would like to learn more about the ins and outs of our country’s justice system, listen in on this episode and share your thoughts on the state of our country’s “rule of law”.

Find more reform stories from in- and outside of the system on our YouTube channel: The Reformist. Subscribe to get notified when a new episode is released.

What reform stories should we cover next? Who should we invite to our studio? Comment below or reply to our email!

This article is also available in Indonesian here.

Mornings in the rice fields always begin with a thin mist that slowly lifts as the sun rises. Among the paddies that look ordinary, hope grows without much noise. A grain of rice never announces its contribution to national stability. It simply grows, turns golden, and is harvested.

At the national level, we are accustomed to impressive figures announced in ceremonies. During various harvest events, President Prabowo Subianto declared that Indonesia would achieve food self-sufficiency by 2026. Rice production reached a remarkable 34.71 million tons, an increase of 13.36 percent compared to 2024. Rice reserves strengthened to 2 million tons, the highest in the nation’s history.

The president’s speech at the most recent grand harvest in Karawang Regency earlier this year was not mere rhetoric. Yes, the figures are true. But before those numbers were showcased at the podium and quoted by the media, there was a long and quiet journey.

For nearly two years, I was entrusted with the role of daily data reporting for Kotawaringin Barat Regency in Central Kalimantan. I came to understand that food self-sufficiency is not simply about producing statistical figures showing how much rice appears on presentation slides. At a deeper level, it is a story about coordination repeated time and again.

Sometimes, it is about maps drawn with fingers on mobile phone screens. Or sometimes about small discussions between agricultural community workers and farmers at local community centers, rarely heard beyond those walls.

And here is where this story begins.

When data becomes a game-changer

When I first took on the data reporting task in 2023, I assumed it would confine me to a laptop running ArcGIS. In reality, the work carried me into rice fields, small meeting rooms with community workers, and large-volume statistical dashboards that looked abstract from my desk in Jakarta. Our directive from leadership was straightforward: accurate planting data and spatially coordinated harvest data, so that they could be officially recorded by Statistics Indonesia (BPS).

Originally, planting data was collected by community workers in each village. It was then passed up to the district level, summarized by the local coordinator, and finally reported by the regency agriculture office to the Agriculture Ministry.

Before the ministry’s representatives were directed to come down and conduct spatial data collection, these figures frequently diverged because the method was manual and heavily dependent on individual community workers’ judgment. Several studies confirm that errors in crop area estimation can introduce significant bias into national production projections.

Once we took responsibility for the process, we began slowly and collaboratively with the local community to clean up the process. The goal was to demonstrate that a polygon-based spatial approach using satellite imagery could improve the precision of harvest area estimates, ultimately producing a crop distribution map to support national food policy. Data governance reform at the regency level, therefore, became an essential foundation for the credibility of national self-sufficiency claims.

Across much of the scientific literature on agricultural productivity and remote sensing, spatial accuracy in planting data is regarded as a key to understanding volatile production dynamics. Our foundational reference, “Remote Sensing for Crop Mapping”, emphasizes the role of remote sensing imagery and spatial data in generating detailed crop type maps.

On paper, this is scientific discourse. In the field, it is about maintaining the trust of all parties so that data can be truly accounted for.

Story from the fields: From administrative to spatial

The problem we encountered was classic: planting and harvest data were still managed administratively. They were just rows of numbers without a strong spatial context. Their data differed from the statistical sampling method used by BPS through its Area Sampling Frame (KSA), which calculates harvest area, and the Crop Cutting Survey (‘ubinan’), which estimates productivity. This made me realize that many community workers in Kotawaringin Barat were unable to draw simple polygons for KSA submissions, an act that would have allowed BPS a wider selection of sample areas for harvest measurements.

To close this gap, we had to learn a great deal from the BPS team, particularly at the Kotawaringin Barat’s BPS office. Through several meetings with community workers, we introduced and ran workshops on a simple application called Field Area Measurement. This app allows community workers to draw land polygons directly in the field using just a smartphone.

The approach was new in practice but familiar in concept. Previously, community workers and BPS teams received their KSA locations from the central level as given coordinates. This time, the polygons they could now draw have provided spatial context previously absent from daily administrative reports, helping to narrow discrepancies.

Gradually, though not all polygons had yet been mapped and gaps remained between the Agriculture Office and BPS figures, particularly for harvest area, community workers who had been hesitant began to see that the data they collected could appear on a map and become part of the national statistical narrative.

The story of ‘Padi Gogo’: Seen for the first time after decades of invisibility

One advantage of being a civil servant working at the grassroots level is having a greater opportunity to verify quantitative reports through direct field visits. The most emotionally meaningful field experience for me was participating in a communal planting ceremony with farmers growing upland rice, locally known as padi gogo, which also became the central topic of our polygon training sessions.

Upland rice farming, consistent with the customs of the indigenous Dayak Tomun people in Kotawaringin, is practiced through shifting cultivation. This tradition, passed down through generations, involves clearing forested land to grow a variety of crops, including rice, medicinal plants, and horticultural produce. To me personally, this is food self-sufficiency in its truest form.

Upland rice, grown on dry land, holds high yield potential but has often gone unrecorded in harvest data because it is difficult to include in KSA sampling categories, despite contributing 47.16 percent of total rice planting area in the regency (as of 2025 data from the Kotawaringin Barat Agriculture Office). From a technical productivity standpoint, upland rice is drawing increasing attention for its potential to boost production without requiring large additional inputs.

By transferring knowledge to community workers, we gave them a direct role in improving harvest area potential, especially from upland and shifting-cultivation rice. Results from this step remain premature, but once integrated, the data revealed that upland rice’s contribution to production was quite significant.

From estimation to precision

Our “small intervention” produced quite the quantitative impact.

A sharp contraction had, in truth, been anticipated. Structural pressures, particularly the conversion of rice paddies to non-rice commodities, like oil palm, represent a serious threat. Data from the Kotawaringin Barat Agriculture Office shows that the certified rice field area has continued to decline, reaching only 1,621 hectares in 2024, with further declines ongoing.

In 2025, irrigated rice planting area increased by 4.93 percent from the previous year, while upland rice planting area grew by an even larger 68.98 percent, adding 253 hectares, bringing total planting area to 718 hectares, an increase of 21.08 percent from the year before.

On the harvest side, irrigated rice harvest area fell by 10 percent due to crop failures in several food production zones and flooding, pulling overall harvest area down by 6.72 percent to 593 hectares. Regardless of structural improvement efforts, the rice sector continues to demonstrate a high level of vulnerability to climate-related shocks, which remain the greatest risk to final production outcomes at the micro level.

The effort to clean up data and record polygons made these interventions more measurable. While the gains cannot be attributed solely to data improvement and land intensification, the work of documentation in this area holds the promise that previously unrecorded potential can be captured more fully going forward.

Our innovation was later documented and entered into the ministry’s Anti-Corruption System hackathon, combined with efforts toward an early-warning system for agricultural infrastructure. We won second place. For me, the institutional recognition and validation offered by Agriculture Minister Amran Sulaiman was a first step, a signal that data-driven reform carries strategic value, even if realizing that value fully remains a long-term aspiration.

Epilogue: A reform grown from small, quiet details

I remember the repeated trips to Pangkalan Bun. I remember long discussions with community workers who were initially hesitant to use digital tools. I remember farmers’ hands pointing to the boundaries of their land, then smiling when they saw their rice plots drawn neatly on a map. I remember reconciliation meetings with BPS that stretched into the late afternoon, making sure that not a single hectare was double-counted or overlooked.

The reform we carried out never made headlines. Yet it was from these seemingly small processes that production improved, data grew more credible, and the work eventually became the material of presentations delivered by officials from podiums.

Yes, food self-sufficiency is declared by the central government. But it is built in the regions. It lives in the details. A quiet reform, yet a real one. One that is not always given a stage, but that holds the stage up from beneath.

Someday, in the years ahead, when I look out over golden rice fields stretching across that small corner of Central Kalimantan, I will know that the quiet work was not in vain. It may not always be celebrated. But it grows. And it strengthens the nation.

To me, that is what true reform looks like.

Artikel ini tersedia juga dalam Bahasa Inggris di sini.

Pagi di hamparan sawah selalu dimulai dengan kabut tipis yang perlahan terangkat oleh matahari. Di antara petak sawah yang tampak sederhana, ada harapan yang tumbuh tanpa banyak suara. Bulir padi tidak pernah berteriak tentang kontribusinya terhadap stabilitas nasional. Ia hanya tumbuh, menguning, lalu dipanen.

Mungkin kita telah terbiasa melihat angka-angka digdaya disebut dalam seremoni tingkat nasional. Presiden Prabowo Subianto dalam berbagai kesempatan panen raya menyampaikan Indonesia sukses swasembada pangan tahun 2026. Produksi beras secara luar biasa mampu mencapai 34,71 juta ton, meningkat 13,36 persen dibandingkan tahun 2024. Cadangan beras menguat hingga 2 juta ton, tertinggi sepanjang sejarah bangsa kita.

Pidato presiden dalam panen raya terakhir di Kabupaten Karawang awal tahun ini memang bukan sekadar retorika. Statistik yang ia sebut benar adanya. Namun, sebelum angka-angka terpampang di podium dan dikutip media, ada perjalanan panjang yang sunyi.

Selama hampir dua tahun, saya mendapat amanah untuk menjadi bagian dari tim pelaporan data harian untuk wilayah Kabupaten Kotawaringin Barat, Provinsi Kalimantan Tengah. Saya menyadari bahwa swasembada bukan sekadar pembentuk angka statistik; berapa banyak beras yang dihasilkan di bahan tayang. Lebih jauh, ini cerita tentang adanya koordinasi yang berulang. Ada peta yang digambar dengan jari di layar telepon genggam. Ada diskusi kecil antara penyuluh pertanian dan petani di balai penyuluhan yang jarang terdengar gaungnya.

Di sinilah kisah ini dimulai.

Saat data jadi kunci perubahan

Awalnya, saya mengira tugas pelaporan data yang saya jalani sejak 2023 itu hanya berkutat di depan laptop dengan aplikasi ArcGis saja. Nyatanya, tugas itu membawa saya masuk ke sawah-sawah, ruang rapat kecil bersama penyuluh, dan dasbor statistik bervolume besar yang tampak abstrak di Jakarta.

Fokus kami dari pimpinan sederhana saja: data tanam yang akurat dan data panen yang terkoordinasi secara spasial hingga tercatat resmi oleh Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS).

Awalnya, data tanam dicatat oleh setiap penyuluh yang ada di desa. Data tersebut lalu masuk ke kecamatan dan dirangkum oleh koordinator penyuluh untuk dilaporkan ke Dinas Kabupaten dan ke Kementerian Pertanian.

Sebelum ada arahan dari Kementerian untuk turun melakukan pendataan, termasuk data spasial, sering terjadi perbedaan angka karena pendataan dilakukan secara manual dan di bawah pengaruh subjektivitas penyuluh. Akibatnya, rawan terjadi kesalahan estimasi luas tanam, yang menurut sejumlah studi dapat menghasilkan bias signifikan dalam proyeksi produksi nasional.

Akhirnya, saat saya dan tim turun menjadi penanggung jawab, pendekatan ini kami pelan-pelan perbaiki bersama menggunakan poligon dan citra satelit. Harapannya, pendekatan baru ini bisa membuktikan peningkatan presisi estimasi area panen, sehingga melahirkan suatu peta distribusi tanaman untuk kebijakan pangan nasional.

Inilah mengapa reformasi tata kelola data di tingkat kabupaten menjadi fondasi penting bagi kredibilitas klaim swasembada nasional.

Dalam literatur ilmiah tentang produktivitas pertanian dan remote sensing, akurasi data spasial tanam dipandang sebagai kunci untuk memahami dinamika produksi yang volatil. Sebuah kajian landasan kami, Remote Sensing for Crop Mapping, pun menekankan bahwa citra penginderaan jauh dan data spasial berperan penting dalam menghasilkan peta jenis tanaman yang terperinci.

Di atas kertas, ini adalah diskursus ilmiah. Tetapi di lapangan, ini adalah soal menjaga kepercayaan seluruh pihak demi terciptanya data yang dapat dipertanggungjawabkan.

Cerita dari sawah: Dari admin ke spasial

Permasalahan klasik yang pertama kami temui adalah data tanam dan panen yang masih dikelola secara administratif semata: baris angka tanpa konteks spasial yang kuat. Ini berbeda dengan metode pengambilan sampel statistik yang digunakan oleh Badan Pusat Statistik (BPS) melalui Kerangka Sampel Area (KSA) untuk perhitungan luas panen dan ubinan (pendugaan produktivitas hasil panen).

Saya jadi menyadari bahwa penyuluh pertanian di Kabupaten Kotawaringin Barat banyak yang belum bisa membuat poligon sederhana (poligon adalah metode pemetaan digital menggunakan titik koordinat tertutup untuk menentukan batas, luas, dan lokasi lahan). Padahal, poligon dapat digunakan untuk pengajuan KSA agar dapat dihitung sebagai pertimbangan BPS Pusat dalam memilih area sampel luas panen.

Lokakarya pemetaan sederhana menggunakan Field Area Measurement oleh penyuluh pertanian se-kabupaten (Dokumentasi pribadi penulis).

Untuk menutup kekosongan keterampilan ini, kami tentu harus belajar banyak dengan tim BPS, utamanya di BPS Kabupaten Kotawaringin Barat. Melalui pertemuan beberapa kali dengan penyuluh, kami mencoba melakukan lokakarya penggunaan aplikasi sederhana, yaitu Field Area Measurement. Aplikasi ini memungkinkan penyuluh menggambar poligon lahan di lapangan hanya dengan ponsel. Cara ini adalah pendekatan baru dari upaya lama, karena selama ini baik penyuluh maupun tim BPS mendapatkan lokasi KSA yang sudah ditentukan dari pusat.

Poligon yang dibuat penyuluh kemudian bisa memberikan konteks spasial yang sebelumnya hilang karena tidak terekap dalam laporan harian secara administrasi, agar selisih data tidak jauh.

Penyuluh melakukan uji coba poligon di lokasi tempat Luas Tambah Tanam (LTT) (Dokumentasi pribadi penulis)

Perlahan, meski belum seluruh poligon berhasil dipetakan dan masih terdapat selisih antara angka dari Dinas Pertanian dan BPS, utamanya untuk data luas panen, penyuluh yang awalnya ragu kini dapat melihat bahwa data yang mereka kumpulkan bisa terlihat di peta dan menjadi bagian dari narasi statistik nasional.

Kisah Padi Gogo: Terlihat dalam data setelah puluhan tahun tak tercatat

Kelebihan bagi saya, seorang PNS yang terjun di sektor riil, adalah saya punya kesempatan lebih banyak “membuktikan” laporan kuantitatif dengan pengalaman dinas langsung di lapangan.

Namun, ada sebuah pengalaman “kualitatif” yang emosional bagi saya: ketika saya turut serta dalam kegiatan tanam bersama petani padi ladang atau biasa disebut juga padi gogo, yang menjadi topik utama dalam pelatihan poligon kemarin.

Pengalaman ini menyentuh saya karena saya jadi belajar sifat tanam padi gogo yang sesuai dengan adat masyarakat Dayak Tomun di Kotawaringin: ladang berpindah. Adat turun-temurun ini membuka lahan yang awalnya hutan untuk berbagai macam tanaman; tidak cuma padi, tapi juga tanaman “apotek hidup” serta hortikultura.

Bagi saya pribadi, inilah wujud swasembada pangan.

Padi gogo, yang tumbuh di lahan kering, memiliki potensi hasil yang tinggi. Tetapi, hasil padi gogo sering kali tidak tercatat dalam data panen karena tidak masuk kategori sampling dari KSA. Padahal, padi gogo berkontribusi 47,16 persen dari total luas tanam (LT) padi total (per data Dinas Pertanian Kotawaringin Barat, 2025). Dari segi produktivitas teknis, potensi padi gogo semakin menarik perhatian karena dapat menyumbang peningkatan produksi tanpa perlu menambah input yang besar.

Bersama petani dan penyuluh di Arut Utara, Kabupaten Kotawaringin Barat (Dokumentasi pribadi penulis)

Dengan membagikan pengetahuan (knowledge transfer) kepada penyuluh pertanian, kami mendukung agar penyuluh dapat mengambil peran langsung dalam peningkatan potensi luas panen, utamanya dari padi gogo. Hasil dari langkah ini masih sangat prematur, namun ternyata setelah diintegrasikan, data menunjukkan bahwa kontribusi produksi dari padi gogo cukup signifikan.

Dari estimasi menuju presisi

Perubahan yang kami bawa ke lapangan sudah memperlihatkan dampak nyata secara kuantitatif:

Grafik Perbandingan Luas Tanam dan Luas Panen Kabupaten Kotawaringin Barat 2018-2025 (dalam Hektare) (Sumber: Dinas BPS Kabupaten Kotawaringin Baru, diolah penulis)

Kontraksi tajam sebenarnya sudah diprediksi. Tekanan struktural di mana faktor alih fungsi lahan dari sawah ke komoditas non-padi (terutama sawit) menjadi ancaman serius. Data dari Dinas Pertanian Kabupaten Kotawaringin Barat menunjukkan luas baku sawah terus menurun hingga 1.621 hektar pada tahun 2024.

Pada tahun 2025, luas tanam padi sawah meningkat 4,93 persen dari tahun sebelumnya. Luas tanam padi ladang meningkat lebih tinggi lagi: 68,98 persen (luasnya mencapai 253 hektar). Artinya, total luas tanam pada tahun 2025 adalah 718 hektar, lebih tinggi 21,08 persen dari tahun sebelumnya.

Sementara itu, terjadi penurunan pada tren luas panen padi sawah hingga 10 persen akibat banjir dan gagal panen di beberapa area lumbung pangan. Secara total tren, luas panen menurun 6,72 persen dari tahun sebelumnya, yaitu di angka 593 hektar.

Sebesar apa pun usaha dalam perbaikan sistem ini secara struktural, sektor padi akan tetap menunjukkan tingkat kerentanan yang tinggi terhadap climate-related shocks, yang menjadi risiko terbesar dalam hasil akhir produksi di tingkat mikro.

Namun, upaya perbaikan data dan pencatatan poligon ini membuat intervensi tadi menjadi lebih terukur. Meski kenaikan tersebut bukan semata-mata karena perbaikan data dan intensifikasi lahan, ikhtiar pencatatan yang lebih baik inilah yang menjadi harapan bahwa ada potensi di area yang sebelumnya tidak tercatat.

Inovasi ini kemudian kami dokumentasikan dan ikutsertakan dalam kompetisi hackaton Lomba Sistem Anti Korupsi tingkat Kementerian Pertanian, digabung dengan upaya early warning system dalam sarana pertanian lainnya. Inovasi kami meraih Juara 2. Bagi saya, pengakuan institusional dan validasi reformasi yang diberikan oleh Menteri Pertanian Andi Amran Sulaiman jadi langkah awal bahwa reformasi berbasis data memiliki nilai strategis dan tetap dapat menjadi cita-cita akhir in the long run.

Epilog: Reformasi yang tumbuh dari detail kecil yang sunyi

Saya teringat perjalanan berulang ke Pangkalan Bun. Saya teringat diskusi panjang dengan penyuluh yang awalnya ragu menggunakan aplikasi digital. Saya teringat tangan petani yang menunjukkan batas lahannya, lalu tersenyum ketika melihat petak sawahnya tergambar rapi dalam peta. Saya teringat rapat rekonsiliasi dengan BPS yang berlangsung hingga sore, memastikan bahwa satu hektare pun tidak tercatat ganda atau terlewat.

Reformasi yang kami lakukan tidak pernah jadi berita utama. Namun, dari proses yang tampak kecil itulah produksi meningkat dan data menjadi lebih kredibel untuk diberitakan atau dijadikan sorotan dalam bahan paparan pejabat di atas podium.

Swasembada pangan memang diumumkan dari pusat. Namun, ia dikerjakan di daerah. Ia hidup dalam detail. Reformasi yang sunyi, namun nyata. Reformasi yang tidak selalu diberi panggung, tetapi menopang panggung itu sendiri.

Ketika suatu saat nanti, di masa yang akan datang, saya melihat hamparan padi menguning di daerah kecil di Kalimantan Tengah itu, saya tahu bahwa kerja sunyi itu tidak sia-sia. Ia mungkin tidak selalu dirayakan. Ia tumbuh. Ia menguatkan negeri.

Dan bagi saya, itulah reformasi yang sesungguhnya.

Heading into the Eid al-Fitr weekend, President Prabowo Subianto held a three-hour roundtable with prominent journalists and experts covering a wide range of issues, one of which was the recently signed Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART).

The ART was signed just hours before the US Supreme Court ruled Trump’s tariffs unconstitutional. That ruling entirely gutted the legal basis for the US tariff regime, but Indonesia remains trapped. Because we prematurely converted our tariff rate into a bilateral treaty obligation, we locked in a 19 percent rate. Meanwhile, countries that waited or simply did nothing are now looking at rates between 10 and 15 percent.

We gave up local content policy, critical mineral export restrictions, publishing sector ownership rules, and a dozen other hard-won regulatory positions—and in exchange, we got a tariff rate higher than what countries that signed nothing are paying.

Pressed on these massive concessions during the roundtable, Prabowo repeatedly deflected with a single defense: the agreement includes an all-encompassing clause stating that commitments will be executed “in accordance with domestic laws and regulations.“ If a treaty provision conflicts with our laws, the logic goes, we are not bound by it. It sounds reasonable. The only problem: it doesn’t exist where the president thinks it does.

“In accordance with domestic laws and regulations”

The phrase does appear in the ART, but only in five specific clauses, all of them clustered in Section 5 on economic and national security cooperation. These cover things like Indonesia restricting transactions with companies on the US Entity List, adopting anti-transshipment measures, and aligning with US export controls. The domestic-law qualifier was placed there deliberately, as a concession to the fact that these are sensitive sovereignty-adjacent commitments.

It was, however, not placed anywhere near the three commitments Prabowo was asked about.

Take local content requirements, for example. Article 2.2 of Annex III reads: “Indonesia shall exempt U.S. companies and U.S. goods from local content requirements.” Full stop. If Indonesia currently has local content rules that apply to everyone—and it does—this agreement requires Indonesia to exempt American companies from them. It is not ambiguous; it’s the entire text of the clause.

The same absence of protection applies to rare-earth minerals and nickel, which Indonesia currently places an export ban on in support of our downstreaming efforts. Article 6.1 of Annex III states that Indonesia “shall remove restrictions on exports to the United States of industrial commodities, including critical minerals.” Indonesia’s downstream processing policy—the ban on exporting raw nickel that has anchored our industrialization strategy for over a decade—is indeed a restriction on exports of critical minerals. There is no domestic-law carve-out, the way the President thinks there is.

The final, and perhaps most culturally sensitive, is on foreign ownership of the publishing sector. Prabowo was asked why we agreed to remove the maximum foreign ownership regulations on media companies, which we instituted with the 1999 Press Law. Article 2.28 of the ART requires Indonesia to “allow foreign investment without ownership restrictions for U.S. investors in... publishing.” This would open up a sector we have long considered sensitive enough to protect. Again, no domestic-law qualifier appears anywhere in the clause.

He then deployed the same “domestic laws” defense when pressed on a separate clause gutting our publisher rights regulations in relation to US social media companies. The agreement explicitly dictates: “Indonesia shall refrain from requiring U.S. digital services providers (platform services) to support domestic news organizations through paid licenses, user data sharing, and profit-sharing models.“ This completely neutralizes recent national efforts to make tech platforms pay for local journalism as mandated under Presidential Regulation No.3/2024. We have long considered this sector sensitive enough to protect, yet neither the ownership clause nor the digital platform clause contains any domestic-law qualifier.

The President should know that a contractual carve-out exists where it is written, not where you wish it had been written.

Let’s not ratify this deal

President Prabowo must not ratify the agreement and return to the negotiating table. Use the time to actually read what the agreement says, identify which commitments serve Indonesian interests and which don’t, and push back on the rest. Other countries have done exactly this; Malaysia declared the agreement null and void following the Supreme Court ruling and are waiting for the US to come up with a new proposal for them. We should do the same.

Making amends with tense geopolitical realities

Pertalite fuel is still Rp 10,000 per liter today. The price will stay like this at least until Eid comes. At the pump, nothing appears to have changed. What has changed is everything behind it.

Since the Iran conflict escalated, oil prices have become deeply volatile. Brent oil surged past US$100 a barrel for the first time since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, briefly touching US$119 before pulling back as markets processed mixed signals from Washington about the conflict’s duration.

As a result, the state budget absorbs a net Rp 6.7 trillion for every dollar oil climbs above the government’s own benchmark. Every dollar rise in the Indonesian Crude Price adds Rp 10.3 trillion in subsidy expenditure while generating only Rp 3.6 trillion in additional revenue. The net loss is Rp 6.7 trillion per dollar, based on the figures from the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs.

Indonesia has budgeted Rp 210.1 trillion for energy subsidies in 2026, up from Rp 203.41 trillion the previous year. That allocation represents more than a quarter of the entire national education budget, an inversion of priorities worth sitting with.

At the same time, Indonesia still consumes 1.6 million barrels of oil per day, while producing less than half of the consumption. The consumption gap is now filled with imports. Of all petroleum imports, gasoline alone accounts for 45 percent, which is heavily subsidized.

The subsidy structure compounds the problem further. Designed to protect low-income families, such as the online ride-hailing driver or the factory worker commuting by motorcycle, the subsidy instead disproportionately benefits upper-income households who own cars and consume more fuel in absolute volume. Redirecting even a fraction of that allocation toward incentives for lower-income households would reach the commuters the subsidy was originally designed to protect.

Indonesia became a net oil importer in 2004 and formally left the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) in 2008. For decades, every major oil shock has produced similar measures: subsidies, absorption, and monitoring. From the 2008 shock to the Ukraine conflict in 2022, the response was always the same: hold the price and absorb the cost.

Today’s geopolitical escalation, however, is different in degree. Oil prices surged 35 percent in a single week, the largest weekly gain for U.S. crude futures in the history of the contract dating back to 1983. Indonesia’s 2026 state budget assumed oil at US$70 per barrel. It is already trading above that, with no solution to the conflict in sight.

Furthermore, the fiscal burden has not come in one dimension. A waning rupiah means more pressure on the state budget. These two vulnerabilities reinforce each other, and neither resolves without structural intervention from the government.

An electric solution to the structural gap

There is a structural exit from this exposure. Indonesia has already partially built it: transport electrification.

In Indonesia, the transport sector accounts for 36% of energy demand. A huge part of it is consumed by two-wheelers, which comprise more than 130 million registered vehicles as of now. Almost every household now owns at least one motorcycle.

Each gasoline motorcycle, averaging 30 to 40 kilometers of daily commuting, consumes roughly one liter of gasoline per day. A significant part of it is imported, globally priced, and exposed to whatever happens next in the Strait of Hormuz.

Given that dependency, electric two-wheelers offer a structural alternative. At current tariffs and oil prices, electric motorcycles carry up to 72percent lower total cost of ownership (TCO) over five years compared to gasoline motorcycles.

For lower-income households running on tight margins, that operational saving is not abstract. It is money that stays in the household rather than going to the fuel pump and straining the state budget with costly fuel subsidies. Electricity is domestically priced and, while not yet fully renewable, is structurally insulated from geopolitical disruption.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) estimates that aggressive two-wheeler electrification, backed by consistent policy and urban mobility measures, could save Indonesia US$3.4 billion annually from reduced fuel imports and emissions costs. With the state budget under mounting pressure, those savings are a fiscal necessity.

Presidential Regulation No.55/2019 targets 13 million electric motorcycles by 2030, a framework the government actively reinforced as recently as 2023 through Presidential Regulation No.79/2023, adding new incentive mechanisms and updated provisions.

A valiant push forward for a more resilient future

The destination was never abandoned. The policy mechanism was temporarily removed. What is required now is policy consistency from all levels.

The electric passenger car market can be the ideal example. With coordinated policy on incentives, the battery electric car market share surpassed 5 percent in 2024 and reached 13 percent by 2025. A key driver was a consistent incentive policy that brought more models to market and increased price competition.

Electric two-wheelers can follow the same path even at a far greater scale with policy certainty. At a lower price point and a larger market base, the two-wheeler transition has stronger structural conditions than the car transition that already succeeded.

On the other hand, the upfront purchase price remains the clearest barrier. Sticker price parity, the stage at which an electric vehicle is equal in price to its non-electric counterpart, is not expected until around 2030, which remains a real constraint for lower-income households making immediate purchasing decisions.

Nevertheless, the total cost of ownership for electric two-wheelers is now competitive, especially when the oil price fluctuates. By switching to an electric motorcycle, a commuter riding 30–40 km daily saves meaningfully on fuel and maintenance, with those savings compounding over the first five years of ownership.

Deploying even a portion of the subsidy budget as electric vehicle purchase incentives would make the transition more equitable and more durable, targeting the commuters the current subsidy was meant to serve. The question is whether Indonesia wants to spend that money absorbing the current shock or building insulation against the next one.

After all, the incentives program for electric two-wheelers is not new for the Indonesian government. The government introduced an electric motorcycle incentive program, then terminated it abruptly in 2024, just as the market was responding.

Electric motorcycle sales peaked at 1.4 percent of total sales in Q2 2024, then fell to 0.6 percent by the end of the year. The lesson is not that the subsidy failed the market. It worked well, but the program withdrawal ended the sales growth prematurely. The car market succeeded for precisely the same reason the motorcycle market contracted: policy consistency, not product readiness, determines the outcome.

That misstep must not be repeated. Reinstating and sustaining commitment to enabling policies is essential, especially during oil price spikes. Electrification is not an immediate answer to this crisis. It is the structural answer to the next one if Indonesia commits now.

Nothing has changed at the pump. The price of oil still reads Rp 10,000 per liter. But behind that stillness, the state budget is silently absorbing Rp 6.7 trillion for every dollar oil climbs. The oil price is climbing faster than the budget can accommodate.

The structural answer is already within reach. The next war is not a matter of if. The only question is whether Indonesia is still paying for it at the pump.

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How ironic it is that Indonesia holds the presidency of the United Nations Human Rights Council, setting the global human rights agenda, while back at home, a human rights activist suffered an acid attack.

Andrie Yunus, Deputy Coordinator of the Commission for the Disappeared and Victims of Violence (KontraS), is well known as an advocate and critic of military encroachment into civilian administration. Due to the nature of his work, civil society groups have renounced that Andrie’s attack was targeted and therefore can be classified as a premeditated murder attempt.

The UN secretariat’s own Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) has condemned the attack as “horrific”. This shows a jarring disconnect between our diplomatic posturing on human rights in Geneva and the bleeding reality of civil society at home.

For over two decades, KontraS has done the grueling, necessary work of documenting state-sponsored abuse and demanding accountability from institutions that prefer to operate in the dark. And for over two decades, the state has allowed a culture of impunity to choke rights defenders.

In 2004, KontraS founder Munir Said Thalib was murdered, poisoned with arsenic on a Garuda Indonesia flight. More than twenty years later, the masterminds remain untouched. The case is technically still open; the system’s way of ensuring it goes nowhere. On 3 March 2026, nine days before the attack, Andrie was one of the advocates representing the Solidarity Action Committee for Munir (KASUM) that submitted a letter to the National Human Rights Commission (Komnas HAM) to demand a resolution for Munir’s murder by bringing the actual perpetrators to justice.

Usman Hamid, former KontraS Coordinator and current Director of Amnesty International Indonesia, has faced endless death threats. Other former KontraS coordinators, Haris Azhar and Fatia Maulidiyanti, were dragged through exhausting criminal defamation trials for daring to connect a high-ranking public official to mining interests in Papua. The KontraS office has been bombed more than 3 times in terror attacks, in addition to countless acts of intimidation. And now this acid terror attack.

We cannot keep treating these attacks against rights activists as isolated tragedies. They are data points in a long-standing pattern of intimidation. When activists are threatened, sued, or physically harmed without consequence, the authorities are practically sending a clear, unofficial directive: speaking truth to power in this country carries a lethal risk, and the state will not protect you. Worse, they might be out to get you…

Andrie’s attack is clearly specific and targeted. Beyond his daily work at KontraS, he is a driving force in the Coalition for Security Sector Reform and KASUM. He spends his time fighting for actual civilian oversight of the police and military—both institutions that have historically (and fiercely) resisted public accountability. A violent attack on an advocate and pro-democracy figure committed to this specific work is never a random street crime but a calculated message.

On Wednesday, 18 March 2026, the Indonesian Military announced that it had detained four of its personnel in relation to this attack—an apparent admission that the military is indeed behind this terror attack. The four have been identified as agents of the military’s strategic intelligence body (BAIS). Separately, the Jakarta Metropolitan Police also announced that they have identified four suspects, but have not ruled out the possibility of there being more.

In line with the civil society coalition’s demand, we urge the government to establish a dedicated, independent task force to investigate this attack. We do not need another ad-hoc committee designed to quietly dissolve as the news cycle moves on. We need a transparent process with a hard mandate, civilian oversight, and actual consequences for the perpetrators.

The cost of attacking activists has remained comfortably low for decades; their masterminds have largely acted with impunity. If Indonesia wants to look the world in the eye from the seat of the UN Human Rights Council presidency, we have to clean our own house first.

Dear readers,

A few weeks ago, we asked public sector professionals from across the country to write about a personal, candid, and untold story behind a reform they had been a part of.

We are pleased to have received a strong field of submissions from all over Indonesia. From the islands of Nusa Tenggara to regional state institutions that rarely make headlines, it is incredible to learn that things are being done from within the system to initiate change.

The stories that came in reminded us exactly why we started this competition: the country is full of reformists doing unglamorous yet meaningful work in places away from the spotlight.

It is a tough decision to pick just five winners out of 46 strong submissions. Therefore, we decided to award 6 (six) of the best pieces we read.

This year’s winners

In no particular order:

“Dari Loket Tunai ke Bilik Virtual: Sebuah Cerita Reformasi Digitalisasi Daerah dari Sulawesi Tenggara”

(A Story of Digital Transformation from Southeast Sulawesi)

by Laode Buzyali Sanbigs from Bapenda Provinsi Sulawesi Tenggara

—

“Poligon di Bawah Terik Matahari: Reformasi Sunyi Menuju Swasembada Pangan”

(Under the Scorching Sun: A Silent Reform towards Food Security)

by Muhammad Ridho Gunawan from Kementerian Pertanian

—

“Antara Nurani dan Birokrasi: Kemenangan Kecil di Persimpangan Perbatasan”

(When Empathy Meets Bureaucracy: A Small Win by the Border)

by Qistina Satriavi Yusuf from Kementerian Pelindungan Pekerja Migran Indonesia

—

“Sebuah Kisah dari NTB: Orkestrasi Kemitraan, Bergerak Bersama untuk NTB yang Lebih Baik”

(A Story of Orchestrating Partnership for a Better NTB)

by Maulida Illiyani from Bappeda Nusa Tenggara Barat

—

“Antara Dorongan Politis dan Hambatan Teknis dalam Implementasi Teknologi”

(Implementing Technology: Political Buy-In vs. Technical Hurdles)

by Edwin Iskandar Dinazar from Direktorat Jenderal Bea dan Cukai Kementerian Keuangan

—

“Peta Tumpang Tindih Informasi Geospasial”

(The Untold Story Behind Indonesia’s Geospatial Information Reform)

by Akbar Muammar Syarif from Kementerian Koordinator Bidang Perekonomian

How we chose our winners

We asked ourselves these key questions as we read through your story:

1. On authenticity and personal stakes: How much did this story belong to you?

2. On reform insights: How much did we learn about your reform story?

3. On narrative depth and specificity: How detailed were you in describing your reform story?

4. On geographic and institutional freshness: Does this story come from an institution and/or region that rarely gets coverage?

5. On writing quality and readability: How well did your story flow from start to finish?

Congratulations to all winners, and thank you to everyone who participated in our first competition!

Tough choices had to be made, and the above framework has helped us with our scoring process. Above all, we want to show the world that there are reforms, big and small, being pushed from within the system by reformist public sector professionals. They are all worth telling, but in today’s limited space, we share with you six stories we hope you enjoy too!

Starting the week after Eid break, we will publish winning articles on our site, thereformist.id, so you can also read and learn more about meaningful reforms from all over the country, perhaps never heard before!

Warm regards,

The Reformist Desk

Sixteen months in, President Prabowo Subianto’s first term has been eventful… to say the least. From announcing the 100 gigawatt solar power ambition to nominating himself for mediating geopolitical rows, you can say that his plate’s been full.

Yet one program continues to stand out from the rest: the “free” nutritious meal or Makan Bergizi Gratis (MBG). With a Rp335 trillion price tag—roughly 8.7 percent of the 2026 state budget—this is, in every way, shape, or form, Prabowo’s flagship program.

A year ago, I read The Reformist’s piece on MBG. I recommend reading this one first, as this builds on the strong case it already made. Unfortunately, things have not improved much since then. MBG’s problems unraveled over time: from food poisoning to fictitious partner kitchens (Satuan Pelayanan Pemenuhan Gizi or SPPG).

Before you dig in…

A 2025 report by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) estimates that 43.5 percent of Indonesians cannot afford healthy and nutritious food. That said, I think we can all agree that MBG is not an inherently bad policy in and of itself. In fact, school meals provision is common across the world. What is alarming from MBG is the “how.”

MBG is a signal that President Prabowo prioritizes electoral appeal over structural improvements. Of course, he is far from the only politicians who think this way. However, the problem lies in the fact that MBG has evidently constrained Indonesia’s already-weak fiscal structure: a low tax-to-GDP ratio, heavy reliance on income and value-added taxes, and significant spending on social, infrastructure, and vanity initiatives.

One might argue that perhaps MBG’s current implementation is plagued with problems because we’re not giving it enough time to succeed. Perhaps things will fall into place as we learn more about how to do it properly. But the thing is, MBG is not the first program of its kind. We already had a version of it—way before—and it is a superior one, I would argue, as it didn’t trade off prudent decision-making for the sake of scaling up.

New Order-era school meal program that made sense, unlike MBG

Okay, I know that putting the “New Order” regime and “sense” don’t really, well, make sense, but hear me out.

In 1997, then-President Suharto issued Inpres No. 1 of 1997, formalizing the Supplemental School Feeding (Pemberian Makanan Tambahan Anak Sekolah, hereafter ‘PMT-AS’) project. Some forms of it had already existed since earlier in the decade, but this regulation established a structure and remit around the practice.

Here is how it differs from present-day MBG:

I. Clarity in intention

PMT-AS was specifically designed for students in underdeveloped areas first and foremost. Unlike MBG, it did not create a massive infrastructure and hierarchy that required trade-offs across other sectors to run.

It’s almost like PMT-AS was designed as a trigger: over the course of 9 months, elementary students get PMT-AS intake at least 3 days per week for a total of roughly 108 days. That means no food delivery while the students are on school break, also unlike MBG.

Moreover, PMT-AS was targeted and anchored in how nutritious meals are leveraged to improve education. Whereas MBG clearly lives by “the bigger, the better” principle.

See how PMT-AS is distinct from MBG on key aspects from this comparison table:

After reading the table above, it’s tempting to think that MBG is the superior project. After all, it feeds more people and the government centrally manages it—something that we often read as a signal of stronger political will.

Interestingly, the evidence suggests otherwise.

Consider this: The World Food Programme (WFP) advocates school feeding programs globally as they are widely recognized as an effective tool for very specific purposes: improving school attendance, increasing short-term concentration and learning, enhancing dietary diversity, and providing social protection buffers for students from low-income households.

But this is where MBG stops making sense. It sets out to do one thing and then claims to have accomplished something entirely different.

What MBG does is provide school lunches. What it purports to achieve is—let’s pick one from the many on the list—to reduce stunting. There is a logical acrobat here. To start with, science says that stunting prevention is concentrated in the first 1,000 days of life, roughly until a child reaches age 2. That is years before they begin receiving MBG in schools, which typically starts at age 6–7.

Alas, this “confusion” may not be surprising if we look at the governance of the institution mandated to implement MBG: the National Nutrition Agency (Badan Gizi Nasional, or BGN). Among its 10-person leadership structure, none has public health or education credentials, and six are retired police and military personnel. Infamously, Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives, Cucun Ahmad Syamsurijal, claimed that MBG does not need nutrition experts to run effectively. Well, what gives?

Ultimately, there was one thing that PMT-AS was clearly superior in: intention.

It did not try to make the grandiose claim of providing lunches and magically eliminating stunting abruptly. It was honest about what it was aiming for: promoting local food with its “I love Indonesian Food” (Aku Cinta Makanan Indonesia, or ACMI) jargon, healthy diet, and the importance of breakfast for children who otherwise would have skipped it. Most importantly, PMT-AS was run by the aunties and uncles; the moms and pops of your communities, who wanted nothing more but to put great care into the food served on the table.

II. Procurement irregularity risks

Both PMT-AS and MBG require the government to deal large-scale, centralized contracts with many vendors. This process should be transparent, competitive, and accountable. In Indonesia, government procurement is overseen by the Government Procurement Policy Agency (LKPP), the Supreme Audit Board (BPK), and the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU).

But MBG operates within a hollow space where procurement rules do not seem to apply. Deploying such a budget size within a single fiscal year is a feat—sure, but it comes with major risks. It is particularly worrisome when you consider that, according to the Anti-Corruption Commission (KPK), procurement fraud is the second most common after gratification and bribery.

I am not saying that corruption risk is entirely absent from PMT-AS. But the decentralized model does mitigate risks better compared to MBG’s direct appointment model.

But if the government must initiate an open tender process for every MBG partner kitchen (SPPG), how long would that take?

Well, exactly. That’s my point.

There is a reason why procurement is designed in sequence. It is exactly to prevent hasty decision-making, conflicts of interest, and irregularities that cause the misuse of public funds. Building a programme with a daily turnover year-round like MBG requires a vast, complex supply chain that simply cannot—and should not—be rushed, as it has been made apparent.

Imagine if Borobudur were built on a swamp. That’s what President Prabowo is doing now. MBG drains so much of the state budget, but there is no structural integrity that protects it from crumbling down.

By all means, go big, but do it at scale, please.

III. The lost opportunity cost

So many others have made this point already—most especially this Project Multatuli’s masterpiece—so I’ll be brief.

For every rupiah spent on MBG, the government is sacrificing another priority. From healthcare provision, school expansion, early childhood support, climate adaptation, infrastructure maintenance, to so many other things that could create a bigger, more sustainable impact lasting beyond the day’s lunch break.

The main contrast between MBG and PMT-AS in this respect is that PMT-AS was financially “controlled” and geographically targeted. It didn’t claim to create impact beyond what it actually did. It had an effect on attendance, dietary habits, and dropout rate—nothing more. Because of that, it was able to actually achieve its goals.

MBG’s model of SPPG kitchens also defies FAO’s recommendations, which advocate home-grown school feeding models that link local agriculture to school meal procurement. And this goes beyond “local wisdom” or creating jobs. It supports smallholder farmers, stabilizes demand and supply at the local level (hence more resilient and independent communities), encourages economic diversification, reduces transport costs, and most importantly, instills community ownership of the feeding programme.

But PMT-AS was not without its flaws

In 2013, a thorough evaluation of PMT-AS underlined several structural problems: lack of funding, unclear guidelines, insufficient training for technical staff, inconsistent food quality, insignificant nutritional increase, poor hygiene, and weak integration with other social assistance initiatives.

MBG, as things stand now, seems to have “solved” the first of these problems—lack of funding—and glossed over the rest.

But there is a reason universal programmes like MBG are politically popular. After all, they are an effective tool to build broad constituencies of support—even if they do not materially and structurally make lives better for people in the longer term.

After all, how can anyone hate feeding children?

This debate is not about whether or not feeding children is a good policy. There is virtually no argument there. It is about whether Prabowo’s policy ambition comes at the expense of other key sectors or, even worse, a fiscal collapse.

MBG neither builds on nor improves the foundation established by its predecessors. It instead rolled back the objectively good aspects it had already been on track to achieve.

To fulfil the promise of MBG, President Prabowo must first begin at the most fundamental part: Reframe it as an education-linked social protection initiative, not a public health policy.

Only once that happens should he revisit scaling MBG nationwide—with a phased rollout plan that begins from the most disadvantaged regions and only expands into wider locations once operations mature at the top-priority spots.

In doing so, adopting an open, transparent procurement process through public tendering would be key to ensuring that MBG doesn’t haunt him in the future. Otherwise, I think it’d be remiss not to end with the cautionary tales of Hambalang in Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s otherwise net-positive legacy or KPK’s disarming which continues to define Joko Widodo’s administration and weakens government accountability today.

It’s just like when you climb a mountain too fast, and your body collapses from not having enough time to adjust to lower oxygen levels and reduced air pressure. MBG’s hasty redirection of trillions in public funds risks collapsing the country’s fiscal health and, when that happens, nobody benefits from saying, “I told you so.”

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Write to us: connect@thinkpolicy.id

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What does an ideal family look like to you? Is having a life partner with two or three children just the right amount? Or are kids not at all in the picture? If your answer happened to be a family of four with two children, this preference may not entirely be authentic. Instead, it may have come from decades of social engineering.

Sixty years ago, Indonesian women were having nearly six children on average, doubling the population every generation. But what followed was one of the most successful family planning programs of the 20th century, dubbed Keluarga Berencana (KB).

Politically neglected by Indonesia’s first president, Sukarno, family planning became a flagship program under Suharto’s authoritarian New Order regime—perhaps not out of goodwill but of necessity. Despite being top-down in nature, the program employed innovative social campaigns and bottom-up approaches, which contributed significantly to its overall success: reducing the country’s total fertility rate (TFR) from 5.8 children per woman in the 1950s to 2.1 by 2025, reaching the global standard.

In this edition of The Reformist, we look back six decades to understand what made Indonesia’s family planning program work as a reform.

But first, let’s talk about why it didn’t happen during Sukarno’s Old Order.

Dissecting Sukarno’s pro-natalist Old Order

After gaining independence in 1945, Indonesia’s population was growing at a rate that would cost the government significantly in the long run. By the mid-20th century, the country’s population was expanding at roughly 2.8 percent per year, with an infant mortality rate of 145 deaths per 1,000 births, contraceptive prevalence among women below 5 percent, and a Total Fertility Rate (TFR) of 5.8 children per woman.

As an infant nation with a fragile economy, development would have been difficult if no action were taken. Something had to give, and founding father Sukarno was not budging.

Sukarno was known for his pro-natalist stance, often flaunting Indonesia’s power by highlighting its large population. He once boasted that “Indonesian people breed like rabbits. Ten, twelve, fourteen children. This is normal, and we have a large country.”

Instead, family planning initiatives under the Old Order were mostly driven by private actors. Doctors, academics, physicians, and progressive elites quietly promoted birth control from the early 1950s despite the unfavorable political climate. In 1952, a group of prominent women in Yogyakarta established a Family Welfare Foundation that included contraception among its services, carefully avoiding the phrase “birth control” for fear of its social implications. By 1957, the Indonesian Family Planning Association (PKBI) was formally established, notably with Sukarno’s own personal physician as its head.

Things changed rapidly once Sukarno fell and Suharto came into power.

Here are three takeaways on how Indonesia launched a relatively successful family planning program in the new era:

I. Technocratic approach supported by strong political will

Foundations of state-sponsored family planning

The zeitgeist of the mid-20th century was the perceived existential threat that Earth’s available natural resources would not sustain the rapidly growing human population. This phenomenon was coined Neo-Malthusian, after the English economist Thomas Malthus, whose theory stated that food supply would never be able to keep pace with unregulated population growth, inevitably causing widespread poverty, famine, and war.

This craze spread across Western governments and international institutions alike, driving a wave of donor-funded population control programs across the developing world.

In addition to international pressure, local technocrats from the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) also warned President Suharto that Indonesia’s population growth rate had to be controlled for sustained economic development to happen.

Having just seized power under an economic development platform, Suharto gave the family planning initiative high priority, showcasing that ‘political will’ does factor into whether a policy can or cannot work.

Political and economic structure behind family planning

After signing the United Nations (UN) declaration on the World Population in 1967, Suharto kick-started his family planning program through Presidential Instruction No. 26/1968, creating the National Family Planning Institute (LKBN). The National Family Planning Coordinating Board (BKKBN) was then established under Presidential Regulation No. 8/1970 and listed among the priorities in the New Order’s first five-year development plan (Repelita).

Financial endowments from both the state budget and international donors were crucial to the longevity of this program. In the BKKBN’s infancy, the government provided US$ 1.3 million to the program, with an additional US$3 million from international donors. This figure rose steadily year after year. In 1977, US$28.5 million from the state budget was used, rising further to US$34.3 million the following year.

The large bulk of the program’s funding, however, came from different international donor sources. Countries like the United States, through USAID, the Netherlands, and institutions like the World Bank and the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), have all endowed the Indonesian government and BKKBN since the program’s founding. From 1968 to 1998, these four donors contributed more than half a billion US dollars for the family planning program.

II. Top-down objective, bottom-up implementation

The program had two official objectives from the outset. The first was improving the health and welfare of mothers, children, and the family at large. The second was raising the standard of living by reducing the birth rate, ensuring that population growth would not outpace economic production. In practice, the program pursued these goals through two main channels: contraceptive service delivery and information, education, and communication—known within the program as KIE.

On the services side, the program began as a clinic-based operation concentrated in Java and Bali. Clinics provided contraceptives—primarily IUDs and birth control pills—through the Health Ministry’s network of community health centers (‘Puskesmas’). But officials quickly realized that clinics alone could not reach the tens of millions of eligible couples spread across 22,000 villages.

By the second Repelita in 1974, the BKKBN had pivoted to a community-based model. Trained fieldworkers were deployed to live and work in the communities they served. Village-level contraceptive distribution centers were established, stocking pills and condoms so that women could access them locally rather than traveling to distant clinics. Village volunteers—often recipients themselves—ran monthly meetings where supplies were distributed, motivation was reinforced, and community activities like nutrition courses and savings lotteries were held alongside family planning discussions.

The KIE effort was equally ambitious. The BKKBN went out of its way to change the way Indonesians thought about family size altogether. Fieldworkers went door to door. Community and religious leaders were enlisted to carry the message. The program made use of traditional local institutions. In Bali, for example, the banjar (a hamlet-level cooperative unit) was recruited to normalize family planning as a community matter, with household heads required to publicly report the contraceptive status of every married woman of reproductive age under their roof.

The BKKBN’s role within all this was formally that of a coordinator rather than a direct implementer. Its major functions were to set policy guidelines, channel funds, and monitor the work of implementing units.

III. Amassing public support: Grounded campaigns and threading religious sensitivities

Even with Suharto’s nod of approval, extensive social engineering had to be done to normalize the program among the masses. Given Indonesia’s large rural and religious population, acceptance of the program meant having to shift national social norms that had been centuries in the making.

Before family planning was initiated, the phrase “banyak anak banyak rezeki” (many children equal many blessings) was the dominant belief. Children were seen as gifts from God and a telltale sign of future prosperity. Under Suharto, this framework was systematically reframed. The new slogan of “dua anak cukup” (two children are enough) was plastered, directly and indirectly, across state-sponsored advertisements, postcards, stamps, national speeches, and every other available medium.

PSA campaigns aside, the regime also understood that the program could not succeed through government messaging alone. With Muslims making up nearly 90 percent of Indonesia’s population, the moral authority of Islamic leaders was not something the BKKBN could afford to work against.

As early as 1968, before the BKKBN was even formally established, Suharto’s government held closed-door discussions with national religious leaders to reach a consensus on which contraceptive methods could be religiously sanctioned. Abortion and sterilization were ruled out and kept off the official program. The IUD raised extensive debate, but was gradually accepted by religious authorities, provided insertion was performed by a female doctor or, in emergencies, a male doctor in the presence of the woman’s husband. By the end of the New Order, birth control pills and injections were the main contraceptives used in the program

The two major Islamic mass organizations—the Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah—were the primary targets of this outreach. NU, the organization with a larger rural base, issued a declaration in 1969 framing family planning “not as limiting family size but as spacing pregnancies for the welfare of mothers and children.” Muhammadiyah followed a similar path, ruling in 1971 that family planning was permissible provided it served the well-being of families and society.

Once national religious leaders were on board, the BKKBN worked downward. Family planning fieldworkers were instructed to actively involve local religious figures—the kyai, or Muslim clerics—in their outreach activities. In known strongholds of orthodox Islam, such as East Java, Madura, and Aceh, the legitimizing power of these local leaders was especially critical. For ordinary villagers, whether modern contraception was morally permissible depended in large part on what their local kyais said.

While largely effective in securing local support, the approach was not without friction. Religious opposition never fully disappeared, and family planning would often become a proxy for broader resistance to the New Order regime.

The result speaks for itself

Indonesia’s total fertility rate dropped from 5.6 children per woman in the mid-1960s to 2.1 in 2025. Accompanying this was a parallel drop in infant mortality, from 146 deaths per 1,000 live births in 1960 to around 17 per 1,000 in the present day. In achieving its stated goal of controlling population growth, the program was, by conventional measures, a success.

The program’s emphasis on reaching rural areas has also left lingering effects in the present day. In a 2018 survey conducted by BKKBN, the agency found that contraception use in rural areas stood at 64.2 percent, slightly higher than the 63 percent in urban areas, making villagers more “woke” than their metropolitan counterparts.

Beyond fertility rates, the program reshaped Indonesia’s population growth to a much more sustainable rate. The population growth rate, which stood at 2.8 percent in the mid-1960s, fell to 1.49 percent by the 1990s and 2000s, and has since declined further to around 1.1 percent between 2020 and 2025. The contraceptive prevalence rate, which had been below 5 percent when the program launched, reached 57 percent among married women by the end of the New Order, and around 61 percent by 2025.

Objectively, the family planning program was a major success in achieving its goal of meeting demographic targets. With a controlled fertility rate, Indonesia positions itself strategically as a country that is young enough to continue existing while not growing fast enough to significantly strain the nation’s budget and its limited natural resources.

But it came with a cost

It is unjust to laud the program’s success without mentioning its glaring social costs. Given Suharto’s top-down approach, methods of coercion were commonplace throughout the program’s implementation. This was most evident in the experiences of women—the overwhelming majority of program recipients—who were treated not as individuals with agency but as targets of a demographic goal.

The BKKBN’s conception of women was narrow: wives and mothers, not individuals with independent reproductive rights. It wasn’t uncommon to hear stories of women coerced, pressured, or manipulated into accepting contraception—particularly IUDs—without informed consent.

The military conducted annual “social service” visits called Safari, in which soldiers descended on villages to recruit family planning acceptors, often arriving with quotas to fill. Their presence alone was enough to intimidate; in areas where Safaris were announced, women would hide in their homes to avoid being pressured on the spot.

A lesson for the current administration

President Prabowo Subianto has ambitions arguably grander than family planning, like ensuring free meals for millions of students and developing Indonesia’s village-level economy through 80,000 cooperatives. These are programs that cost our taxpayers hundreds of trillions of Rupiah, whose implementation has been questionable at best and burdensome at worst.

We think the three lessons outlined in this piece could be useful for how these flagship programs should be implemented: careful planning and technocratic solutioning, balancing top-down and bottom-up approaches, and getting widespread public support through understanding local contexts.

Editor’s note: Most of the information gathered for this analysis came from the book Two Is Enough. Family Planning in Indonesia under the New Order 1968-1998, edited by Anke Niehof and Firman Lubis. We cannot recommend this book enough as a comprehensive deep dive into Indonesia’s family planning program.

Do any of our readers work within the public health and family planning sector? We would love to hear your take on this issue and any on-ground stories that could enrich this discourse with more context and nuance! Comment below or reply to this email.

Credits:

Writer/Researcher:

Editors: , , Ravio Patra

Visual Designer:

In late February, white Mahindra Scorpio pickup trucks began arriving at the port of Tanjung Priok in Jakarta, the words Koperasi Desa Merah Putih (Red and White Village Cooperative, hereafter ‘KMP’) stickered across their bodies. Nobody was quite sure what to do with them. They were meant to serve some of the 80,000 KMP planned by the Prabowo administration. But most of these cooperatives did not exist in any operational sense. So the trucks were sent to military district posts to… park.

The confusion didn’t stop there. Instead, more trucks were coming: 105,000 vehicles imported from India by state enterprise PT Agrinas Pangan Nusantara at Rp 24.66 trillion. This was a strange decision disputed by many. The Chamber of Commerce asked the president to cancel the purchase. The automotive association said domestic manufacturers could have supplied them. Indonesia Corruption Watch demanded procurement documents. Even the House Deputy Speaker, Sufmi Dasco, suggested postponing the purchase.

To make matters worse, the government is not only spending Rp 240 trillion on a program villages did not ask for, but it is also doing so by bypassing the open procurement process for vehicle purchases, violating the Cooperatives Law’s principle of voluntary member financing, and seizing village funds that communities are legally entitled to control.

This pickup truck saga is more or less a miniature of the larger KMP kerfuffle: money disbursed at speed, assets delivered before the cooperative units even exist, and questions around the program treated as background noise.

Blatant misallocation of the Village Fund

KMP is the latest in President Prabowo Subianto’s portfolio of megaprojects, each sharing the same DNA: staggering scale, compressed timelines, and eye-watering fiscal commitments. What sets KMP apart, however, is where its money comes from. Not the central budget in any conventional sense, but village funds, quietly repurposed to underwrite a program that villages did not ask for and will be forced to pay for regardless of outcome.

The math is simple. Each cooperative gets a credit facility of up to Rp 3 billion, channeled through state-owned banks (Himbara). Across 80,000 units, the total financing envelope is Rp 240 trillion, roughly a quarter of all ministry spending in the national budget. Himbara provides bridging loans to Agrinas, the sole construction executor appointed by the government. Then, the Finance Ministry repays the banks at Rp 40 trillion per year over six years. The repayment source? Village funds.

In February, the Finance Ministry issued a Finance Ministerial Regulation (PMK) No. 7/2026, mandating that 58 percent of the national village fund allocation, some Rp 34.57 trillion out of Rp 60.57 trillion, go toward KMP. What remains for roads, sanitation, schools, and clean water across 74,000 villages is about Rp 25 trillion.

This is ironic because village funds were designated under the 2014 Village Law to allow communities to set their own priorities through participatory planning. But now this principle has been overridden by a central decree. What happens now—between the central government and villages—is no longer a partnership. It is requisition.

The risk compounds further down the chain. Most KMP board members have no prior cooperative management experience, no bookkeeping skills, and no business planning capacity. A study of 108 village heads across 34 provinces found that 65 percent identified significant governance gaps, with many flagging the program’s vulnerability to fraud.

So what happens if cooperatives fail to generate revenue? Villages still pay through automatic deductions from their fund allocations. The state builds, the state lends, the state guarantees, but the village absorbs the loss.

With huge funds comes a huge responsibility (one that many villages are not equipped to take)

When Prabowo launched the 80,081 KMP in Klaten in July 2025, only 108 were operational. More than 99 percent existed only as legal entities on paper. By late 2025, the Cooperatives Minister himself asked the President to push back the March 2026 deadline to establish all units. Meanwhile, Agrinas had already received Rp 600 billion in construction advances and paid Rp 7.39 trillion as a down payment on the Indian vehicle imports.

The scope, too, keeps expanding. What began as village grocery stores and savings units now includes clinics, pharmacies, cold storage, logistics hubs, solar panel farms of up to 1.5 hectares per village, and over 100,000 imported vehicles.

Side note: We wrote about the administration’s 100 GW solar capacity ambition, 80 GW of which would be supported by village-level plants administered by KMP in this piece.

A cooperative meant to do everything risks becoming nothing clear. And through it all, Agrinas operates with no publicly disclosed cost breakdowns, no competitive procurement, and a CEO who tells parliament that Rp 1.6 billion per outlet is “very rational” without releasing the budget to prove it.

Let’s rethink this before it’s too late

We have been here before. New Order-era Village Cooperatives (‘Koperasi Unit Desa’) consumed vast resources, bred patronage, and collapsed when state support was withdrawn after 1998. Reform-era village-owned enterprises (‘BUMDes’) got a mixed record at best. Each attempt to engineer village prosperity from the top down has produced the same arc: impressive numbers at launch, institutional decay over time, and communities left to bear the costs.

The difference this time is the price tag: Rp 240 trillion. Six years of village fund commitments. 80,000 entities run by untrained personnel. 105,000 imported trucks parked at military posts.

We urge the government to halt the current rollout and conduct an honest assessment of what has actually been built; what is operational, and what is not.

Pause the vehicle imports until cooperatives are ready to receive them. Open Agrinas’ procurement records and cost breakdowns to public scrutiny, as the law requires. Most importantly, redesign the program around the villages themselves. Let communities decide whether a cooperative is what they need; if so, what form it should take, and what business is appropriate for their local economy. Last but not least, return the village funds to village control.

A cooperative imposed from above is nothing but a government-run shop with a different name, not a cooperative in its original sense, where a bottom-up establishment is imperative. Indonesia’s villages deserve better than this.

What do you think about KMP? Have you spotted one in your area? Share your thoughts in the comment box!

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Since 2013, Indonesia has sent around 58,000 students to higher education through its championed scholarship programs under the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education, or LPDP. Half of these awardees pursued their degrees abroad, but what if they came home to find that the skills and knowledge they’ve obtained have no place in their homeland?

This is unfortunately not a hypothetical scenario, and I fear the Indonesian government is raising an army of scientists with no place to exercise their expertise. At the end of the day, no country wants a horde of unemployed talented experts. The question is, what can LPDP do to prevent this and actually foster national growth?

LPDP needs to change the way it’s spending money

At the time of this writing, the LPDP was kicking off another year of awarding scholarships to Indonesian students. An online debate would usually ensue, revolving around the awardees’ ethics and contributions, or whether or not they deserve the scholarship. Finally, by the end of the year, we would have the annual evaluation by the House of Representatives (DPR), often reiterating the same point as the previous year, closing the loop that feels destined to repeat.

While we remain stuck in this endless cycle of debating the fairness of the selection, we overlook why LPDP exists in the first place. To the public, LPDP looks only like a scholarship provider, a machine that hands out tickets abroad. However, when you look at its conception, LPDP was never just meant to print diplomas. LPDP’s raison d’être was (and is) to establish a national innovation ecosystem so that high-caliber individuals can thrive and contribute to the country’s growth.

Conceptually, helping nationals get diplomas and establishing a national innovation ecosystem would complement each other. But the current situation tells a different story, because LPDP has been focusing only on the sending-people-to-school part.

We could first look at LPDP’s past spending. Each year, they spend more than 80 percent of their budget on scholarship programs, hitting an all-time high of 92 percent in 2024.

What is confusing is that with the total budget spiking by 137 percent between 2022 and 2024, research and ecosystem development programs saw a meager increase. This leaves them fighting for a shrinking slice. This spending decision suggests the government believes that by going all-in to produce more highly educated individuals, the dream of national growth will simply fall into place.

Now, here is the core question: given the goal to pursue national growth, prosperity, and inclusion, does the way LPDP utilizes its budget make sense?

I don’t think it does.

Producing more supply without growing the demand

Harvard’s Economic Complexity Index (ECI) tells an uncomfortable truth. Despite spending more than a decade investing in sending people to school abroad, Indonesia’s economic complexity remains at the same rank as it did in 2010.

In 2023, we still do the same thing we did in 2010 to make money. To put it into perspective: We have people capable of making electric vehicles, but our economy still relies on making becak (pedicab) to generate wealth.

Some may argue that 10 years is not enough time to see the ROI of education. However, this data serves as a warning sign: our highly educated individuals lack the tools to translate their knowledge into real economic value. The pressing challenge now lies in providing the tools to materialize this advanced knowledge into productive outputs.

Another study confirms this disconnection. It finds that Indonesia suffers from an education-occupation mismatch: a majority of our university graduates are overqualified for the jobs they take. In other words, there are not enough appropriate jobs for the level of education we have.

This all means that Indonesia is at a critical point where it must develop an industry that can absorb the influx of highly educated Indonesians. If the government fails to do so, Indonesia is on the brink of a brain drain that, in recent years, has been amplified by younger generations through the “#KaburAjaDulu” (#RunAwayFirst) movement.

The missing link that leaves us in this critical juncture is the lack of a national innovation system. This is a system that must be deliberately grown and not left to chance. Conceptually, it will enable a network of institutions, usually government, industry, and research bodies, to coordinate and foster a well-oiled and synchronized innovation culture in a country.

Unfortunately, in Indonesia, the oil is pretty dry.

A key metric that best demonstrates this problem is the Gross Expenditure for R&D (GERD). Indonesia’s R&D spending took up just 0.28 percent of GDP in 2020 (this is Indonesia’s latest available data). To compare, present-day Malaysia and early-2000s China spent 1 percent of their GDP on R&D, while Vietnam’s latest spending stands at 0.42 percent. This commitment contributed to their good, if not great, ECI and national growth.

The bottleneck goes beyond the money. Reports have noted several issues that hinder Indonesia’s ability to improve its innovation environment, including the disconnect in our regulations, private institutions’ disengagement from the national innovation system, and the highly centralized innovation process. Although the same report deemed Indonesia’s conceptualization of the innovation system to be decent, the poor implementation has rendered its design ineffective.

We could contrast our situation with Vietnam. Despite its relatively smaller share of GERD compared to China and Malaysia, it has managed to establish its presence in the semiconductor industry through a robust implementation of its innovation system.

To sum it up, there is a huge disconnect between LPDP’s mission and its spending. The way they have been spending their budget is too concentrated on sending people to higher education without preparing the industry and innovation environment to absorb them. But, in theory, what can they do more?

From scholarship provider to innovation architect

While building the national innovation system sounds like a cross-ministry mandate, LPDP is actually well-equipped to lead this shift. It has the agility, the programs, the funds, and the talent pool to hit the ground running. To shift from printing diplomas to becoming an innovation architect, LPDP should shift three things: its mindset, its wallet, and its actions.

First, LPDP needs to challenge its definition of education. It is currently locked into the traditional frame of formal learning as the legitimate means of education, putting a red carpet for master’s and PhD, while sidelining other forms of education. This is a missed opportunity, since, as OECD has highlighted, non-formal and informal learning has its own merits in equipping individuals for actual industry needs.

A working model for non-formal learning can be seen in Australia Awards Scholarship (AAS) short-course programs, in which participants engage with industry-specific, highly relevant topics. Moving beyond a traditional definition of education will help LPDP establish not only credentialed leaders but also industry-capable leaders.

Secondly, LPDP should put the money where the mission is. The innovation system cannot be built if 92 percent of the budget is spent on creating supply, while the demand is struggling. Rebalancing the program portfolio is imperative.

LPDP has to increase its share of spending on its existing (but arguably underused) innovation-enabling programs, such as the productive innovation research (RISPRO) funds. As the supply of highly educated talent keeps growing in Indonesia, sectors that can absorb them (R&D, high-tech, creative sectors, etc.) need to catch up. This development is crucial to prevent exacerbating the current mismatch. In essence, we should avoid planting high-quality seeds on barren soil, where they are destined to wilt.

Finally, to fix the current disconnect with the private sector, LPDP must act as a matchmaker. It could establish strategic partnerships with major industries, providing spaces to foster high-impact research and match awardees’ skills and expertise with industry needs.

These steps could shift the dynamic entirely, pivoting LPDP from a scholarship provider into an active driver of the national innovation system.

These recommendations ultimately aim for one thing: ensuring our investment in education translates into real economic impact, not just vanity statistics. They could also address LPDP’s poor ROI risks by ensuring our graduates have a place to implement their expertise and flourish.

LPDP in itself is a great initiative. However, goodwill is not enough. It needs to evolve from just a scholarship provider to an innovation driver, ensuring that national growth is not just a pipe dream, but a delivered reality.

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Is it true that healthy food in Indonesia is more expensive compared to unhealthy ones, like, say, ultra-processed food? If you go to a local supermarket and look at the price tags, it is sadly true. But do you know that when you buy and consume unhealthy food, there is a price that you pay that is not written on your receipt?

In the latest episode of The Reformist Podcast, our hosts Afu Utami and Rayestu spoke with Romauli Panggabean, an environmental economist from WRI Indonesia and the Knowledge Generation Lead of Koalisi Sistem Pangan Lestari (KSPL). They discussed how there have been ‘hidden costs’ behind our food system – something we all pay with our health, the environment, and the welfare of those working along the supply chain that puts food on our table.

KSPL and WRI’s study showed that the problems in our food system have cost all of us up to 622.3 billion US dollars (that’s about 45.4% of our GDP!). These hidden costs have made around 140 million Indonesians (about half our population) unable to access healthy food, because the system has made it seem more expensive.

Listen to this episode for more interesting findings – there could be many things that you’ve been taking for granted that surprised you.

Enjoy the episode!

Kind regards,

The Reformist Desk

In what seems to be an annual occurrence at this point, the Indonesia Endowment Fund for Education (LPDP) is once again under public scrutiny after a former awardee bragged online about her child getting foreign citizenship. The video, which went viral on social media, sparked uproar, leading to what many have described as a “witch hunt” for LPDP awardees who failed to fulfill their obligation to return to Indonesia upon graduation.

We are not going to chime in on this particular case. Instead, we want to pose a fundamental question: What does LPDP actually want to achieve? If this remains unanswered, public outcry about LPDP will keep recurring. We understand the frustration with awardees: whether they return, whether they “contribute”, and whether they are worth the trillions of public funds spent year after year. But we think that the frustration is currently aimed at the wrong party.

In 2024, we already wrote about LPDP’s lack of a clear Theory of Change (ToC). Today, we want to reiterate this need. Hopefully, a change is coming so we won’t have to make a case for reform again next year and onwards.

Two distinct and legitimate goals

LPDP today is a general-purpose, return-mandatory scholarship with no required employment anchor and no deliberate diaspora strategy. Awardees are admitted on broad criteria, funded generously, and handed a legal obligation to return to a labor market that was not consulted on what it needs and is not prepared to absorb what it gets.

But we think there are ways to fix this. We propose 2 options for LPDP administrators to consider in defining their objectives and reforming their scholarship programs.

Option A: Nation-building

Under this model, LPDP would serve as a tool for nation-building. The state identifies a gap—e.g., in a hospital, a ministry, a university, a sector, and funds the right talent that could potentially fill that gap. As such, the scholarship will be tied to a role that already exists or is being planned for the recipient(s). Before departure, both parties know the plan and sign a concrete agreement: who the employer is, what the position is, and when the scholar returns to take it up.

This is roughly how Singapore’s Public Service Commission (PSC) scholarship model works. Bond scholars are placed into a specific ministry or statutory board upon return—for four to six years—depending on needs. The terms are clear, and the obligation to return comes with a specific guarantee. The returnee is designated to fill a specific role, within a specific institution, for a specific duration—structured enough that both parties understand the deal before the scholarship is awarded.

Under this logic, LPDP should accept only applicants with a confirmed institutional sponsor: a government agency, a hospital, a university, or a private sector institution with clear value-add to the nation. No sponsor, no scholarship. This way, the LPDP will not merely tell its awardees to “just return home” and “figure it out” themselves, which continues to put its awardees between the impossible choices of returning with no prospect and taking opportunities while violating their obligation to return.

Option B: Global standing

Under this model, the LPDP would wager a long-term bet on national prestige. The goal will be to produce a generation of internationally educated Indonesians with credentials from the world’s best institutions, build elite networks, and accumulate the kind of expertise and credibility that can eventually open doors for the country to increase its presence on the global stage.

With this goal in mind, the mandatory return clause naturally becomes irrelevant. If there is no job waiting for them at home or at least a sector or system within which they can try to build things from the ground up, LPDP is basically wasting its own investments.

In its current logic, LPDP is basically sending a message to its awardees that it’s better for them to come back home with, say, a degree in theoretical physics and start another nasi goreng franchise rather than work in another country with leading theoretical physics research institutions, systems, financing, and facilities. All simply because LPDP administrators can’t—and won’t—define what they mean by “contribution,” whereas Indonesia is simply not ready to absorb the different kinds of talents and expertise that come from a sudden influx of graduates with international degrees.

The better bet—one that countries like China and India have implicitly made—is to let them stay abroad and trust that the value of having a well-educated diaspora compounds over time. India did not engineer its way to having its nationals lead Google, Microsoft, and the IMF by demanding they return home after graduation. It happened because a generation of talented Indians was educated at the world’s top institutions, remained connected to their roots, and carried their country’s identity with them as they rose.

A scholarship designed for this purpose would look more like a soft loan or a long-term grant—flexible enough to let recipients build genuine global standing, with structured mechanisms to keep them tied to Indonesia over time, rather than a legal obligation that forces a lazy choice between excelling abroad and getting stuck at home. Surely, it doesn’t have to be an either-or situation, but as things stand now, LPDP is setting itself up to fail.

Is the current design both or neither?

The consequence of LPDP’s lack of clarity is predictable. Awardees who return find that what they studied does not map onto what jobs are available. Meanwhile, those who stay abroad risk a penalty which many are increasingly treating as a buyout option.

As of early 2026, over 600 awardees are under investigation for suspected contract violations. In the meantime, LPDP continues to send a growing cohort of awardees across the world. Many of these awardees take LPDP scholarships because the opportunity is too good to miss, but they do not have a clear vision of what their degrees would unlock. Instead of a career accelerator, LPDP has become an option for many seeking a career break.

By no means are we suggesting the abovementioned proposals are the only two possible options for how to restructure the scholarship. The point is that the current scheme is far from ideal, and that reform is overdue.

And we are not alone in thinking this. In 2024, then-Finance Minister Sri Mulyani met with McKinsey to discuss LPDP governance reform. That same year, a review by the Supreme Audit Board (BPK) found several problems, among others: (1) discrepancy between the number of scholarships granted and the number of recipients finishing their degrees, (2) inconsistent application of admission standards during selection, and (3) full disbursement of funds to recipients who do not finish their degrees. Most recently, Higher Education Vice Minister Stella Christie said they were conducting a cost-benefit analysis to inspect the “fairness and quality” of LPDP scholarships.

These are all reasonable steps. But still, they risk producing refined answers to the wrong questions in the first place. Thus, we hope to ignite wider conversations on how LPDP could be reformed so it could deliver a better impact. It’s about time we put this tired debate to rest—and that has to start with the government setting a strong theory of change for LPDP and actually enforcing it.

In our previous edition, we asked why Indonesia’s decentralization feels like a myth. Why, despite the autonomy, have our localities not succeeded economically? We argued that centralized fiscal structures have largely disincentivized regional governments from creating any meaningful economic growth for their respective localities. But what if one of our regions does have a special privilege over most and is actually allowed larger fiscal autonomy? Would it be more economically successful?

These questions have been asked more frequently in the wake of last year’s Sumatra disaster. Many viewed the government’s response as slow and inadequate, including us. But a major debate particularly ensued on the old-age motion of whether the primary duty ultimately falls on the central or local government. In Aceh, specifically, this debate struck a nerve given its special autonomy status.

To answer these questions, we took a closer look at the special autonomous region of Aceh. In theory, it should be the antithesis of our proposition that decentralization is a myth. It has greater ‘autonomy’ by law, enacts Sharia Law, has its own local political parties, and is even allowed to represent itself in international sports competitions separate from the Indonesian national team.

Quick context

After decades of bloodshed and separatist ambitions, the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government negotiated in Helsinki, Finland. With the historic Helsinki Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in 2025, Indonesia did not just agree to an administrative ‘anomaly’. Jakarta’s decision to grant Aceh special autonomy did not just end decades of armed struggle for independence, but redefined what it means to be a united republic.

The following year, these commitments were codified under Law No. 11/2006 on the Governance of Aceh (’UUPA’). This became the constitutional backbone of Aceh’s special autonomy.

With UUPA set to be revised this year by the House of Representatives, we believe it would be helpful to look back at what has happened over the past 20 years—what worked and what didn’t—to ensure that any changes made by the House uphold the values of Aceh’s long march towards decentralization.

I. Hyperlocal politics, beyond Sharia Law

Most people know Aceh for being one of the only administrative regions in the world that enacts Sharia Law. Yet, there is so much more to it, including a political landscape that allows for a level of self-governance found nowhere else in Indonesia.

While Sharia Law is a significant pillar of this identity, mentioned 34 times in UUPA, another distinctive political feature of Aceh is the right to establish and field local political parties.

Local Political Parties

The Aceh Party, founded in 2007 and the political vehicle for a majority of former GAM combatants, has dominated the local legislature, consistently gaining a plurality in Aceh’s Provincial Legislative Council (DPRA) since local legislative elections were held in 2009.

Of the four Aceh governors who have come to power since 2005, three were former senior GAM officials, and all were fielded by local parties. This includes incumbent governor, Muzakir “Mualem” Manaf, who was GAM’s commander-in-chief during the height of the insurgency in the early 2000s and became Chair of the Aceh Party since its inception in 2007 following the Helsinki MOU.

If there is one success that can be attributed to the peace treaty, it is its ability to shift the way former rebels demanded political change, away from the battlefields and into the local political structure.

This raises the question of whether a similar model could be applied elsewhere in Indonesia. While not tested at scale, this decentralized model provides a more direct channel for societal aspirations that often get diluted within the default framework offered by ‘national’ political parties.

Qanun and the Wali Nanggroe

Administratively, the province is governed similarly to other provinces in the country. The governor leads the executive branch, while the DPRA drafts local regulations (‘Perda’), known as qanun in Aceh. While other localities base their regulations on the 1945 Constitution (‘UUD’) and laws (‘UU’), qanuns are shaped by Sharia Law and local customs. Under Article 23 of the UUPA, the DPRA possesses sole authority in drafting qanuns, with the governor acting as a deliberating partner.

The province also has a special customary body, the Wali Nanggroe, which is led by a senior Acehnese figure of high standing. Its mandate is given under Article 96 of the UUPA to protect the unity and integrity of the Acehnese people.

While the role of Wali Nanggroe remains symbolic, its creation is an important prerequisite in the Helsinki peace talks.

Twenty years on, the presence of local political parties and the Wali Nanggroe is now fully entrenched within Aceh’s version of democracy. By restoring traditional terminologies (e.g., subdistricts to Mukim and villages to Gampong), Aceh ensured the integration of its historic identity into the present. Culture and customs that were once repressed are now able to take center stage. That said, these cultural victories have yet to translate into functional governance and material gains for every Acehnese to enjoy.

II. The rights to woo foreign investors

From the outset, the UUPA grants several autonomous rights allowing for greater Acehnese representation abroad. The provincial government is not only allowed to create and seek economic partnerships with foreign institutions, but also represent itself in international cultural forums and sports competitions, as well as regulate its own foreign investment.

Article 9 (1): The Aceh Government may establish cooperation with foreign institutions or agencies, except for those falling under the authority of the Central Government.

Article 9 (2): The Aceh Government may participate directly in international arts, cultural, and sporting activities.

Article 165 (2): The Aceh Government and regency/city governments, in accordance with their authority, may attract foreign tourists and grant permits related to investment in the form of domestic investment, foreign investment, exports, and imports, while observing nationally applicable norms, standards, and procedures.

Presidential Regulation No. 11/2010 further regulates international cooperation between Aceh and foreign entities, granting them “full power” to finalize overseas partnerships independent of the Indonesian Foreign Ministry. Meanwhile, Article 186 of the UUPA allows Aceh to seek external loans from outside Indonesia, albeit with the central government as an intermediary and prior approval from the Finance and Home Ministries.

As a caveat to this newfound freedom, the provincial government is prohibited from managing and engaging in cooperation that is “national in nature,” which includes “foreign policy, defense, security, justice, national monetary and fiscal matters, and certain matters in the field of religion.”

But despite its special autonomous rights, foreign direct investment (FDI) remains significantly low.

Source: GRDP, FDI (FDI values were converted to IDR at January 1, 2024’s exchange rate of Rp 15,510/USD)

In 2023, Aceh’s FDI to Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) ratio of 1.7 percent ranked 23rd among Indonesia’s 38 provinces. Legal uncertainty, pervasive corruption, central government overreach, and ambiguity over how foreign capital aligns with Sharia Law continue to constrain its economic growth.

III. Special fiscal structure

Extractive sector revenue-sharing

The UUPA prescribes a special revenue-sharing scheme for the exploitation of Aceh’s vast oil and gas reserves.

To an extent, the creation of GAM could be attributed to Aceh’s historic inability to claim credit for its own natural resources. As this grievance paved the way for a structural overhaul of Aceh’s finances, reclaiming a favorable revenue split with Jakarta became a non-negotiable prerequisite during the Helsinki peace talks, eventually granting Aceh a 70-percent share.

Yet, even with these hard-earned concessions, oil and gas revenues contribute an insignificant amount to Aceh’s regional income in the present day, accounting for only a pitiful 0.6 percent of Aceh’s total budget.

Aceh must face the reality of its resource trap. As natural reserves deplete, the energy sector no longer provides a significant boost to the local economy.

​​Over the past decade, economic growth excluding oil and gas has performed better than with it included. Even when growth is larger with oil and gas, its effect on the overall economy is minimal at best. Except for 2022, when oil production exceeded the annual target, oil and gas production have dragged the local economy significantly.

Simply put, Aceh’s extractive sector is shrinking faster than the rest of the economy is growing. Diversification is therefore essential if Aceh wishes to realize its economic potential, especially considering how much oil and gas prices fluctuate in the global market.

Special autonomy fund

The true backbone of Aceh’s economy lies in its dependence on central government aid. On top of the normal central government cash transfers (‘TKD’), Article 183 (2) of the UUPA guarantees 20 years of special autonomy fund allocation from the national budget. These comprise an equivalent of 2 percent of the state’s general allocation fund (DAU) for the first 15 years and one percent for the final five years.

The special autonomy fund has profoundly shaped Aceh’s public finances to this day. In 2022, the final year of the two-percent allocation, the province generated Rp 13.7 trillion in local revenue. Of that amount, Rp 7.5 trillion (54 percent) came from the special autonomy fund. When the allocation was reduced to one percent the following year, Aceh’s annual revenue fell by approximately Rp 3 trillion.

For Aceh to become sustainable moving forward, it must find ways to maximize the different provisions endowed to it in the UUPA. It simply cannot rely solely on the special autonomy fund if it wishes to truly be self-governing.

But Jakarta is hardly an innocent party here as it uses the special autonomy fund to exert control on the local government apparatus.

Jakarta’s encroaching hand

It is important to preface that Aceh’s 20-year development cannot be separated from its proneness to natural disasters. After ratification of the UUPA in 2006, the local government only began inheriting the economy from the Aceh-Nias Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Agency (BRR) in 2009.

Since then, Aceh’s economy has grown steadily, albeit rather slowly, at around 4 percent in the last decade. Significant work remains to truly realize Aceh’s unfulfilled potential, especially on these three stubborn problems:

Pervasive corruption

Nothing illustrates systemic corruption in Aceh better than the case of Irwandi Yusuf, its first directly elected governor post-Helsinki. In 2018, during his second term in office, Irwandi was arrested by the Corruption Eradication Committee (KPK) in a high-profile sting operation. He was convicted of accepting bribes and embezzling over Rp 42 billion, including from the special autonomy fund.

The absence of technocrats

However, “bad actors” only account for half of the story. The second hurdle is a lack of technocratic capacity within Aceh’s bureaucracy. While the peace treaty successfully moved former combatants from the battlefields to the bureaucracy, it did not automatically endow them with the technical expertise required to govern and develop the region. Most especially, the province lacks economists and practitioners capable of implementing long-term development programs.

Half-hearted decentralization

As established in our previous volume, Jakarta tends to half-heartedly grant true autonomy to local governments. Aceh is no exception, even with its special autonomy. Over the last decade, a wave of centralizing national regulations quietly chipped away at Aceh’s special autonomy. In 2013, then-President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono threatened to revoke Qanun No. 3/2013 for using the GAM symbol in Aceh’s official flag. It was eventually revoked by the Home Affairs Ministry in 2016 without prior consultation with the DPRA.

Jakarta’s “invisible hand” came into play again in the saga of PT Emas Mineral Murni (PT EMM), which received a 10,000-hectare gold mine concession across Nagan Raya and Central Aceh in 2017 from the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM).

Using Law No. 23 of 2014 on Local Governments (‘UU Pemda’), Jakarta bypassed Aceh’s local authority, arguing that it possessed complete authority to issue permits for foreign investment. The DPRA viewed this as Jakarta undermining Aceh’s special autonomy as mandated by Article 156 of the UUPA.

In 2019, the controversial Omnibus Law on Job Creation was opposed by the local labor force on the basis of Qanun No.7/2014, which provided fairer work hours to Acehnese women, bank holidays to commemorate the tsunami, different compensation schemes for bonuses, and stricter regulations on foreign workers. This, however, fell on deaf ears.

Meanwhile, Government Regulation No. 3/2015 shrinks Aceh’s autonomy by unilaterally rendering an additional 32 areas of governance as national affairs. Among others, these include land administration, education, health, environment, forestry, as well as energy and mineral resources. Central government oversight varies from leading direct implementation to setting norms and best practices for local government to comply with.

While the UUPA was a breakthrough in reimagining decentralization, Jakarta’s overreach and inconsistent regulatory approach showcase the central government’s reluctance to release its tight grip on the region.

The way forward

With revision of the UUPA already underway, the main talking point will center around Aceh’s special autonomy fund. Some factions within the House of Representatives in Jakarta will seek to reduce it, while the Acehnese government and its few allies will seek to retain it, especially as the region rebuilds after the 2025 disasters.

What we do know for sure is that any changes to the special autonomy rule must be paired with greater decentralization in practice. Jakarta needs to trust Aceh to address its corruption problem, reform its bureaucratic ranks, and attract investment within the agreed corridors.

Politically, the UUPA revision must seek to strengthen and fortify local political parties in Aceh, which have played a pivotal role in ushering peace for the last 20 years.

While nowhere near perfect, Aceh is a reminder that autonomy is possible under Indonesia’s unitary framework. And for that to continue to be the case, Jakarta must fulfill its end of the bargain and refrain from reclaiming power back to the central government.

Special mentions:

We consulted Muhadam Labolo, Chair of the Indonesian Society for Government Science (MIPI), and Rozi Beni, an alumnus from the Faculty of Law at Universitas Indonesia, to ground our analyses in the writing of this piece.

Writer/Researcher:

Editors: , , Ravio Patra

Visual designer:

For a lot of Indonesians, the scariest thing you can see isn’t a ghost. It’s an “Inactive” status on the national health care and social security (BPJS) app, JKN Mobile. Especially when that status change happens while you’re queuing at a hospital registration desk with a family member in urgent need of their next round of dialysis or chemo.

Yet this is exactly the situation that unfolded last week when approximately 11 million people lost their BPJS insurance with no prior notice. Apparently, the government had changed the classification of those deemed worthy of the contribution assistance recipient (PBI)—a scheme where the government picks up the tab for the poor. Simply put, the rule change meant that the government decided those 11 million people just aren’t poor enough anymore to receive the subsidies.

To understand the mess, you have to look at the three tiers of BPJS schemes: waged workers (PPU) whose dues are paid through payroll deductions, non-waged workers (PBPU) who pay their dues out of pocket, and PBI. Amid widespread budget cuts, the government has recently set a threshold of 96.8 million people only to be covered under PBI, which explains the ‘sudden’ database purging.

The Social Affairs Ministerial Regulation No. 3/2026 mandates the reclassification to align BPJS database with the National Social and Economic Single Data (DTSEN) from Statistics Indonesia (BPS) and the Social Affairs Ministry, which ranks people based on monthly expenditure per capita. This new 10-decile ranking system effectively turns a statistical welfare score into a rigid “on/off switch” for PBI eligibility.

But we want to be clear here: the DTSEN itself is not the problem. After all, the intention is exactly what we’ve gravely needed for a long while now. A unified registry means that social assistance programs can actually be enjoyed by the most vulnerable among us.

How the DTSEN determines if you’re eligible for assistance

If you’re in Deciles 1 through 5, you’re eligible as PBI recipients. But if somehow you are bumped up to, say, Decile 6, you’re out instantly. That means you’re no longer an eligible PBI recipient and must pay your BPJS dues either as PPU or PBPU.

The logic is fine on paper—subsidies should indeed go only to those who need them—but the sudden implementation is borderline heartless. Even more so when you consider that the government may have bumped you up on the DTSEN for any possible reasons.

Perhaps you recently renovated your house or bought a new vehicle or got a new job. Little is known, though—as the methodology isn’t exactly transparent—if the data collection takes into account, say, that you renovated your house because of a recent flood, or if you bought a new vehicle on credit to make it easier to take care of an elderly member of your family, or if your new job comes with a fixed-term contract only. In other words, we don’t know the extent to which the BPS actually verifies the accuracy of the database.

With lives on the line, why the rush?

The most glaring problem in this case is the rapid, rushed PBI status revocation without giving those affected any chance to contest their reclassification.

When did we decide it was okay to turn off someone’s life support—quite literally so for patients with chronic conditions—without as much as a heads-up? If you’re being moved out of the PBI scheme, you shouldn’t find out about it at the hospital when your scheduled dialysis determines whether or not you get to live the next day.

There needs to be a mandatory notification period of, say, three months, where the status remains something like “Active (Pending Transition)” or something to that effect. This would give people time to either appeal the reclassification or at least figure out how to squeeze a new monthly bill into their budget. That’s not asking for too much.

Yes, the Health Ministry issued a statement warning hospitals and care providers not to turn down patients just because their BPJS status is “temporarily” inactive. But that warning came with no explicit reassurance that the patients’ bills would be reimbursed. In the aftermath, the government has yet again done what they seem to have mastered: shifting their responsibility elsewhere. This fiasco puts healthcare providers in a tight spot as they now must choose between treating patients and going under because nobody pays their bills.

Don’t get us wrong. As we said earlier, we’re all for “trimming the fat” i.e. ensuring that subsidies go only to those who are in genuine need. And yes—we are not blind to the fact that there are many well-off people out there who game the system.

When essential services such as BPJS are treated with a “just do it” mentality, we risk trading one problem for another much larger in scale and consequence. In the case of the 11 million people who now no longer have access to their BPJS coverage, their lives are quite literally on the line.

Whether the government learns from this and controls the damage remains to be seen. But we’ll be watching.

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There are moments in international affairs when history does not turn on wars or treaties, but on something far quieter: a word.

Last week, Indonesia’s language body changed the definition of ‘sawit,’ oil palm, from ‘plant’ to ‘tree.’ This single lexical shift has opened a debate that stretches far beyond linguistics. It reaches into forests, markets, climate diplomacy, and the future credibility of Southeast Asia’s largest economy.

Well, language is never neutral. Especially in policymaking, where words can shape incentives, unlock permissions, and redraw boundaries. Thus, it became important when the Great Dictionary of the Indonesian Language (Kamus Besar Bahasa Indonesia, or ‘KBBI’) classified oil palm as ‘tree’.

Oil palm is botanically a monocot, closer to grass than timber. It does not form wood in the ecological or carbon sense used by forestry science or international climate accounting. By redefining oil palm as ‘tree,’ the country collapses a long-standing legal distinction between agricultural crops and forests.

In Indonesia, that distinction governs where plantations may grow, how emissions are counted, and what qualifies as deforestation. Meaning, this language shift could create a new set of ‘rules’ for how we make decisions about oil palm.

The ‘sawit’ dilemma and the danger of its redefinition

The thing is, sawit is rather important for Indonesia. We produce more than 50 per cent of the world’s palm oil. It contributes roughly 4.5 per cent of our GDP and supports an estimated 16 million livelihoods directly and indirectly. For many rural regions, palm oil has meant roads, schools, and income where few alternatives existed. No serious conversation about Indonesia’s future can ignore this economic reality.

But neither can it ignore the costs. Research from Stockholm Environment Institute’s Trase platform shows palm oil expansion has been responsible for a significant share of Indonesia’s forest loss since the early 2000s. Between 2001 and 2020, more than 3 million hectares of forest were converted for palm plantations. These losses are not abstract. They translate into declining biodiversity, rising flood risks, peatland fires, and transboundary haze; costs borne not only locally but also across regions.

If an oil palm is a tree, then an oil palm plantation is a forest. This redefinition is not semantic pedantry. It risks turning deforestation into paperwork. A forest cleared and replanted with palm could, on paper, become reforestation. Carbon sinks could be counted where emissions are rising. This will be tricky as international partners, investors, and climate mechanisms rely on shared definitions. When those definitions drift in this direction, what’s going to happen to our credibility?

This matters for Indonesia’s strategic position. Jakarta has worked hard to present itself as a responsible middle power under President Joko Widodo: deforestation rates fell to the lowest levels in two decades, supported by a forest moratorium and international partnerships, including results-based payments from Norway and other donors (UNDP reported US$340.7M disbursed as of 2025).

Yet, something changed with the new administration in office. President Prabowo Subianto’s description of palm oil as a ‘miracle crop’ reflects a deeply held belief in sovereign development: Indonesia must not be constrained by rules written elsewhere, including by the international society. This instinct resonates strongly with domestic audiences and with many developing economies facing similar pressures.

The financial, environmental, and cultural costs

Sovereignty exercised through linguistic manoeuvre carries risks. The European Union’s deforestation regulation, delayed but not abandoned, hinges on verifiable land-use data. Australian supply-chain laws are moving in the same direction. Markets increasingly price not only commodities, but credibility. If Indonesia appears to be redefining forests to suit short-term goals, future access to green finance, carbon markets, and premium export markets could narrow rather than expand.

There is also a regional dimension. Southeast Asia’s forests are shared ecological assets. Fires in Sumatra darken skies in Singapore. Carbon released in Kalimantan warms the planet far beyond Indonesia’s shores. ASEAN’s strength lies in collective trust. If environmental data becomes contested, cooperation becomes harder.

The deeper issue, however, is cultural. Indonesia’s language has always been more than vocabulary; it is a social contract. When citizens sense that official language serves power rather than truth, confidence in institutions weakens. Environmental governance depends not only on enforcement, but on belief that rules are fair, data is honest, and sacrifices are shared.

None of this requires rejecting palm oil. The challenge is not palm versus forest, but short-term expansion versus long-term resilience. Yield improvements on existing plantations could meet much of future demand without clearing new land. Agroforestry, landscape restoration, and genuine reforestation can coexist with a profitable palm sector. Many Indonesian companies are already moving in this direction, driven by investor pressure and market logic.

Don’t weaponize language

What is needed now is alignment. Linguistic authority should not operate in isolation from ecological science or legal consequence. Definitions that carry regulatory weight must be developed transparently, with input from environmental scientists, legal scholars, indigenous representatives, and regional partners. Language can evolve, but it should not be weaponised.

Indonesia has a rare opportunity. As a country whose language is celebrated globally, whose economy anchors Southeast Asia, and whose forests matter to the world, it can show that development and integrity are not rivals. By anchoring policy in science rather than semantics, Indonesia can strengthen its negotiating hand, protect its ecosystems, and preserve the moral authority that has underpinned its rise.

In diplomacy, as in ecology, credibility grows slowly and is lost quickly. A nation’s words, like its forests, are most powerful when they are rooted deeply, grown carefully, and allowed to stand on their own truth.

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Dear readers,

If you superimpose Indonesia on the map of Europe, we stretch from the westernmost point in Portugal all the way to the easternmost point in Ukraine. But when you see the news, why is it all Jakarta?

Let’s change that. We want stories from everywhere—Jakarta included, but a greater emphasis on tales from elsewhere. We want to hear from reformists in Lhokseumawe, Sorong, Bone—every other regency, city, village, and local administration that has a reform story to share.

We look forward to hearing stories that have not received their deserved limelight. Think of the Puskesmas Chief in Banyuwangi, who trained a group of vegetable sellers to recognize the signs of high-risk pregnancy. He coordinated with these sellers who meet women in their community every day to eliminate the maternal mortality rate in only a few years. In other words, a dire solution that came out of necessity.

What about a reform initiative in your institution? Have you ever wanted others to learn about what you did to create change from within the system? This is the chance to tell YOUR story.

• Theme: Untold reform stories from the trenches

• Criteria:

  • The article should tell us about the stories behind the reforms you have been a part of.

    • It doesn’t always have to be a ‘success story’ – we also want to hear about the grit, grind, and all the different attempts you have made to fight for change in your capacity inside of Indonesia’s bureaucracy

  • 1000-1500 words

  • Manuscript can be submitted in either English or Bahasa Indonesia

• Who can join:

  • Public sector professionals working at the national and subnational levels, including but not limited to:

    • ASN and non-ASN working in ministries, government agencies, the legislature, and the judiciary

    • BUMN and BUMD employees

    • TNI and Polri

    • Other public policy professionals working directly with government institutions (e.g. consultants and contractors)

    • Or maybe… elected public officials (any local mayors out there subscribed to The Reformist?)

• Winners:

  • 5 winners with the best manuscripts will receive each:

    • Cash prize Rp 1,000,000

    • Exclusive The Reformist merchandise

    • Invitation to be a guest speaker on The Reformist Podcast

    • All winning articles will be published in The Reformist in English

• How to submit:

  • Send your full manuscript to connect@thinkpolicy.id with the subject line: The Reformist Insiders_[Name]_[Your institution]

  • In the body text of the e-mail, state again your name, your institution, and your job title, along with the title and subtitle of your article

  • Attach your manuscript as a Word document (.docx file)

  • Submission deadline: Monday, 9 March 2026, 09:00 WIB

• Terms and conditions:

  • Submitted manuscript must be an original work and has never been published

  • The Reformist retains the right to exclusively publish winning articles

We are looking forward to reading unearthed reform stories from our reformist insiders!

Best regards,

The Reformist Team