PPIW 2.0 : Home (for) initiatives and innovation

It is time to implement the (policy and governance) science or to play people-policy interface.

Menimba ilmu di rantau, memupuk rasa rindu terhadap tanah air. Maka dari itu, kemudian rasa sepenanggungan ini membuat mahasiswa Indonesia di luar negeri berkumpul di bawah 'Perhimpunan Pelajar Indonesia' (PPI). PPI Wageningen berdiri (PPIW) sejak 1987, banyak hal telah dicapai untuk memberikan 'rumah' bagi para perantau pelajar Indonesia, dan juga kontribusi lainnya bagi Indonesia serta komunitas lain di sekitar Wageningen.

Global change membuat fungsi PPIW juga terus bertransformasi, tak hanya sebagai 'paguyuban' Indonesia, tapi juga bisa menjadi hub bagi ide-ide inovasi para mahasiswa Indonesia, untuk menjadi cikal bakal 'think tank' bagi isu strategis di tanah air dan membuka potensi untuk kerjasama internasional (Fig 1). Transformasi ini yang diharapkan menjadi PPIW 2.0.

Figure 1. Integrated programmes

Social innovation for energy transition

Last month, Ignasius Jonan, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources released the statement that Indonesia may not be able to achieve target for the energy mix 2025. He said that existing policies are already more than enough to attract investor, but the problem is competition with traditional fuels which is comparatively cheaper. He also argued that despite the price is lower and the technology is available, the development of renewable energy would still take time. Then what we can do to contribute to the acceleration of the renewable energy transition?
 

Beside economic issues, societal acceptance topic is also important in the renewable energy transition. The energy transition includes macro-level innovations that often consist of a series of technological advancements. This is usually followed by changes in societies, their economic and social domains. Therefore, it requires social innovation. 

Promoting sustainable learning for cacao farmers

Concept of farmers' labs

Many provinces could be turned into major cacao producing areas through an intensification program. However, a sustainable agriculture concept should be adopted so that the intensification program would not harm the environment.

Sustainable practices are applied by some farmer groups in Indonesia. Yet many farmers still use the traditional approach to agriculture, which harms the environment and brings little benefit. Immediately after harvesting, they strive to sell their cacao beans to middlemen in order to get quick money, without considering the sustainable market for their product and enhancing their own income.

The main barrier to pro-environmental and sustainable practices is the personal attitude of the farmers. They do not put much effort into gaining knowledge about the negative impacts of their agricultural practices, which can result in a more vulnerable situation for their livelihood. The mind-set of the farmers makes them act and react based on the experiences of their forefathers, not based on knowledge and science. This value creates perceptions among the farmers that their forefathers who used old farming practices for a long time are more reliable than the knowledge that comes from external actors.

Why do we need social scientists in environmental research?

Risk governance framework

There are many environmental challenges which are threatening ecosystem and global biodiversity. Environmental issue is an interdisciplinary topic which has complex interaction between human with nature system. It has substantive uncertainty and strategic-institutional uncertainty among the stakeholders. Scientific research is required to manage risk of the uncertainties. Scientists have to collaborate in interdisciplinary research to solve wicked environmental problems. Interdisciplinary research generally refers to the process of coordination, collaboration, or investigation by researchers are combined into a public issue with sharing, invention, and knowledge mix between disciplines.

The social sciences research produces strong output that contributes to environmental studies. Social scientists are studying humans in some form or another, this output is required to produce various kinds of socially robust knowledge to address environmental issues. Consequently, it creates potential for knowledge transfer and scalability, praxis planning and policy-making bridges to implement solution for the problems. Scientific research on societal environmental issues requires a full collaborative role of social scientists. 

Fragmented climate governance in Indonesia

Fragmentation theory focuses on interaction among different institutions on the architecture of an institutional setting. Competition among different national entities resulting in fragmentation reflects the persistence of domestic power relations.

This situation is happening with climate governance in Indonesia, which includes different cases from various institutions and platforms. One such case is the biogas program as one of the climate change mitigation strategies in the Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Action. This climate governance involves NGOs, local and national governments, businesses and international development organizations. 

Dilemma of energy used for cooking in Indonesia

Indonesia still relies on imports to cope with a shortage of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), which is expected to worsen in the coming years because of surging demand. Indonesia’s consumption of LPG rose to 6.67 million metric tons last year, up 1.5 percent from 2015, according to the data from the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry. The domestic production of LPG, however, dropped to 2...

Read more http://www.thejakartapost.com/academia/2017/04/06/dilemma-of-energy-used-for-cooking-in-indonesia.html

Enabling opportunities to diversify farmers' livelihoods: Blending adaptation and mitigation practice

It is not difficult to source biogas technology. BIRU programmes in partnership with the government and private sector are currently expanding their effort to deliver the biogas to the last mile in order to enable local farmers to increase their adaptive capacity.

Biogas acts as a means of waste alleviation and management, preventing pollution, and enabling a healthy environment for farming communities. The biogas produced from anaerobic digestion can be used in this concept with manure as main feedstock, since this technology is already widely distributed. Bioslurry can also be produced as a side product of the biogas, and can be used as an organic fertilizer on the coffee plantation. A positive impact of this approach is that it reduces reliance on artificial fertilizers, resulting in more sustainable agricultural practice. With the help of the coffee community to increase demand, the concept can make biogas more accessible and make a real, positive impact on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.

Transition pathways and risk analysis for Bioenergy in Indonesia

Governing almost 260 million people dispersed on hundreds of Islands leads to institutional complexities. Indonesia’s form of government is a presidential system where the president is elected directly by the people and draws up legislation together with the parliament (Kawamura 2010) (Kawamura, 2010). There are 34 ministries at national level. The decentralisation policies of the past led to a total of 34 provinces and 82,330 local government units, which all retain certain policy making power(GRAPHIQ, 2016).

The policy architecture itself is also complex. When it comes to climate policy, there is the NDC of Indonesia which sets a 26% emissions reduction target (41% with international help) by 2020 compared to business as usual (Republic of Indonesia, 2015). Nationally, this has been translated into the National Action Plan for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction (RANGRK) which confirms the objectives stated in the NDC. In the energy sector, the flagship project of the government is the 2014 National Energy Policy (NEP 14) which sets out, amongst other things, a target for the national energy mix. By 2025, 30% of energy should be sourced from coal, 25% from gas, 23% from Renewables and 22% from oil (IEA, 2016). In addition, Indonesia has set an interim target of a 19% share of renewable energies by 2019 (Mittal, 2015).