Food, faith, power and big business in Malaysia.
The issue revolves around the MUI’s effective monopoly on Halal certification in Indonesia. Since the inception of the Halal industry in the late-80s, the MUI has been the sole authority to issue certification for food and cosmetics manufacturers in the Indonesian market. The monopoly has been repeatedly criticised by media and civil society as the cause of corruption.
However, the MUI’s monopoly on Halal certification is collapsing. The second Joko Widodo administration, with the former MUI-chairman Ma’ruf Amin as vice-president, seems eager to tackle the issue with state power. The stance is in line with the administration’s approach to religious affairs, which is characterised by increasing central government oversight. However, it is important to take into account the political context of pluralist-Islamist rivalry. From this perspective, it remains to be seen whether the administration will address the primary concern, which is the accountability of the MUI.
The Halal Product Assurance Law and the accountability of the MUI
The dismantling of the MUI’s monopoly on Halal certification is a result of the inauguration of the Halal Product Assurance Body (BPJPH). The BPJPH is a statutory board under the Ministry of Religious Affairs, tasked to oversee domestic transactions on Halal certification. In October 2019, the Halal Product Assurance Law (UU JPH) No.30/2014 took effect, and the BPJPH has officially commenced operation.
The establishment of the BPJPH is monumental from a financial perspective. While there is no accurate figure available, in Indonesia, a state official stated the government would be able to raise Rp. 22.5 trillion (US$1.6 billion) in revenue once the UU JPH is in full effect. The calculation is, accordingly, based on the number of small and medium-sized enterprises (SME)—almost 60 million, according to the Indonesian Body of Statistics (BPS)—and large companies operating in Indonesia. Halal certification covers not only food and beverages but also drugs, cosmetics, and ingredients for these products, meaning a large number of manufacturers and factories, domestic and foreign, are under the scope of this accreditation.
Behind the legislation has been a concern over the unchecked monopoly enjoyed by the MUI. The UU JPH was introduced during the Yudhoyono presidency, with the intention to bring order to the Halal certification industry. The system is highly unregulated, and the MUI has been prone to corruption with no regulatory measures to hold the council accountable.
The most controversial issue has been the MUI’s financial disclosure. Despite being obliged by government regulation No.14/2008 on information disclosure by the public bodies, the MUI does not report its financial status to the Indonesian public. Multiple observers have speculated that the MUI has generated a significant portion of its income from Halal certification, aside from subsidies from national and regional governments. The MUI has repeatedly argued that they are audited by external bodies such as the National Accreditation Committee (KAN) and no issues have arisen.
The MUI escapes the purview of the Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), even though the government partially funds the council. This is because it nominally designates itself as a non-governmental organisation aimed to serve the Muslim community through various means, including the Halal certification. Halal certification has been a domain of Islamic clerics (ulama) in the majority of countries, and only a handful of countries such as Malaysia have established a comprehensive state-sanctioned Halal management system.
On top of this is a political sensitivity. Adnan Topan Husod, a coordinator of Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW), stated to Salaam Gateway that “[there] is no institution or law enforcement that can deal with the MUI. Sometimes when they start to investigate the MUI ulama, [officials] can easily say the government is criminalising them. They can say the government doesn’t support Islam and the ulama, so it becomes politically tricky.” The MUI’s visibility through Halal certification, with their logo attached to every package of food and beverage, certainly lends legitimacy toward the organisation as a champion of Muslim interests in the eyes of the public.
The Indonesian government has attempted to take over the Halal authority multiple times dating back to the Megawati presidency. Observers hope the new system under the UU JPH will finally be able to hold the MUI accountable. However, at the time of the legislation of the UU JPH, the role of the MUI within the new system was not clearly defined. The law introduced a division of labor within the scheme but also assigned the MUI as the final decision maker of all processes of certification.
Specifically, the law formed a new category of an entity, known as the Halal Inspection Agency (LPH). In short, LPH is an agency tasked to audit clients who request certification of their products. Previously, the Institute for the Study of Food, Medicines and Cosmetics (LPPOM MUI), the Halal-certifying subdivision of the MUI, handled all parts of the certification process. In the new system, the BPJPH can assign auditing to qualified third-party organisations. LPPOM MUI will then be confined to the function of final decision-making.
However, the LPPOM MUI was likely confident that the BPJPH will assign them as an LPH, considering their large resources of auditors and expertise on Halal certification. One observer was concerned the bill could elevate the legal status of the MUI’s fatwa to an unprecedented level. Others predicted the MUI would dramatically increase the income from Halal certification in the new system as the new law makes it compulsory for the companies to apply for Halal certification.
History of intimate state-MUI relations
The MUI’s optimism was not wholly unfounded, considering the history of intimate relations between the state and MUI. Founded in 1975, the MUI was formed by the Suharto regime to assist their policy on regulating the Muslim community. Later the Yudhoyono administration reinvigorated the council by providing political and financial patronage to the organisation, expecting to seize the social capital of the burgeoning middle-class conservative Muslim constituency. From there, the MUI managed to redefine itself as an organisation that serves umat (Muslim community) and endeavoured to Islamise the Indonesian society in accordance with the conservative interpretation of the Sunni orthodoxy.
The membership of the MUI executive committee is a testament to this development. The central board of the MUI is an amalgamation of religious intellectuals as well as leaders who represent various Islamic mass organisations (ormas) in Indonesia. As such, there is always an internal contestation between the competing Islamic religious strands within the board. During the Yudhoyono presidency, an increasing number of conservative ulamas joined the executive committee at the expense of pluralist ulamas, establishing the ascendance of conservatism within the council.
This has allowed the MUI to become the chief orchestrator of the “conservative turn” of Islam in Indonesia. Its status as a semi-official clerical body has yielded strong legitimacy to its fatwas, which have aimed at the “purification” of the Indonesian society. Notably, the MUI has had a history of issuing controversial fatwas targeting religious pluralism, liberalism and secularism, as well as the Ahmadiyya community. Many Islamist vigilante organisations took such fatwas into their own hands, resulting in religious violence in some cases.
The Joko Widodo administration attempted to reduce the amount of government support, however, backed by the proponents of pluralist Islam who raised concern over the MUI fatwas. Widodo initially slashed informal financial patronage toward members of the organisation from the Yudhoyono era. Coincidentally, puritanical clerics took over MUI’s national congress in 2015, which determined the management board of the 2015-2020 period. Islamist activists and Salafi Islamic leaders such as Bachtiar Nasir, Zaytun Rasmin, Yusuf Martak and late Tengku Zulkarnain were elected as executives, further propelling the conservative turn of the MUI. In the wake of the national congress, the MUI played a critical role during the infamous Aksi Bela Islam rally which targeted Basuki “Ahok” Tjahaja Purnama, which resulted in then-Jakarta governor being convicted and jailed for blasphemy.
Backlash against the MUI and increasing central government oversight
It seems the role of the MUI within the conservative turn of Indonesian Islam has invited backlash from the Widodo administration in the form of an increasing government oversight over the council. The development of the issue of Halal certification supports this theory.
The administration initiated a “preemptive strike” during the selection of the BPJPH head in August 2017. Lukmanul Hakim, the director of LPPOM MUI and one of the leading candidates of the chair, was removed from the shortlist by the Ministry of Religious Affairs three days before the official announcement. Instead the Ministry appointed Sukoso, a university professor with a modest background as the director of the BPJPH.
From there, a cold war between LPPOM MUI and the BPJPH intensified. In August 2019, headed by Ikhsan Abdullah, the director of the MUI’s Law Commission and an attorney representing Lukmanul Hakim, LPPOM MUI’s 31 regional branches filed a lawsuit with the Constitutional Court to assert their legal credentials and demanded the revocation of several articles of the UU JPH, to prevent the complete transfer of the mandate. Among the reasons for the lawsuit, LPPOM MUI emphasised Halal as the realm of Islamic jurisprudence (fiqh) and reasserted the “normativity” of the ulama handling Halal certification instead of the government. The court immediately dismissed the lawsuit and LPPOM MUI was barred from reapplying for the revision of the contested articles.
The conflict reached its peak in 2020 with the introduction of the Job Creation Law (UU Cipta Kerja) or the Omnibus Law. The dispute revolved around the previously mentioned LPH. The BPJPH urged the parliamentary committee on the bill to put Halal certification into consideration and revise the UU JPH. The BPJPH complained there are not enough auditors to sustain its operation, as LPPOM MUI monopolised Halal auditors. The MUI has been the only body in Indonesia that can train and certify Halal auditors.
Reflecting on this issue, the parliamentary committee on the bill decided to open the gate for other entities, such as the universities and Islamic ormas (e.g. Nahdlatul Ulama), to establish their own LPH, and to revoke the requirement of Halal auditors to obtain certifications from the MUI. As a result, LPH will be able to form partnerships with the BPJPH to process audits without the involvement of the MUI. The decision infuriated the MUI.
In the end, the recent Omnibus Law included a significant revision of the UU JPH, mainly concerning fees, duration of certification and the regulations surrounding LPH. Based on the Omnibus Law, in February 2021 the parliament passed the Halal Product Assurance Law (UU JPH) No.39/2021, which stipulated that LPH can be formed not only by universities and Islamic ormas but also by the state-owned enterprises and government at all levels. Under this regulation, not only did the MUI lose authority over Halal auditors but the state also increased its prerogative to influence the outcome of the Halal certification process.
Concurrently, the MUI was reorganised. After the 2020 national congress held in November to decide the MUI executive committee of the 2020-2025 period, the MUI removed Islamist leaders from the central board and replaced them with pluralist ulamas mainly hailing from Nahdlatul Ulama and Muhammadiyah. The MUI’s new executive committees will likely follow the direction of the government and smooth relations with the BPJPH.
With the reorganization of the MUI executives, the conflict between LPPOM MUI and the BPJPH effectively made a “soft landing.” In March 2021, the secretary-general of the MUI Amirsyah Tambunan and the new head of BPJPH Mastuki agreed the two organisations will foster cooperation to accelerate Halal certification for the benefit of the economy. The “soft landing” has likely urged LPPOM MUI to accept its position within the new Halal certification regime and respond to the long-standing accusation of corruption. In April, the institution announced it has been implementing an anti-bribery management system in a bid to improve governance standards.
However, the critical issue regarding the accountability of the MUI remains unaddressed. The politics of Halal certification can be interpreted as a win for Widodo, pluralist ulamas and business interests, and a defeat for Islamist agenda. But the ambiguous legal basis and unregulated system that created the MUI’s lack of transparency remains. LPPOM MUI still maintains its position on the question of financial disclosure and denies its responsibility to report to the public. This demonstrates that increasing central government oversight over religious affairs is an issue of power struggles, rather than democratic integrity.
The post Politics of Halal certification: the collapse of the MUI’s long-held monopoly appeared first on New Mandala.
]]>From the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, vaccines were seen as critical to countering it. The World Health Organization (WHO) and other stakeholders created the COVID-19 Vaccine Global Access facility, or COVAX, to ensure equitable access worldwide. But countries with the means to make or buy vaccines locked up global manufacturing capacity and supplies. This vaccine nationalism generated urgent questions about when low-income countries will get vaccines. In Asia, geopolitics, not equity, are driving vaccine access.
With the United States and other Western democracies pursuing vaccine nationalism, China exploited the global access crisis by selling and donating Chinese vaccines in Asia in ways that advanced its foreign policy interests associated with its Belt and Road Initiative. With a wary eye on China, India has donated vaccines regionally, and Russia has also sold and donated vaccines to Asian countries.
Even so, bilateral vaccine diplomacy has had limited impact on vaccine needs, and whether sold or donated doses materialise as promised remains unclear. China, India and Russia face domestic vaccination needs that could delay deals and donations. Questions have persisted about the safety and efficacy of Chinese vaccines, and comments by the head of China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention about the low efficacy of Chinese vaccines threaten to damage China’s vaccine diplomacy.
Vaccine diplomacy has produced political attention disproportionate to its health consequences. Rather than disavow vaccine nationalism at their February 2021 summit, G7 leaders engaged in geopolitical handwringing about China and Russia gaining influence through vaccine diplomacy. Thomas Bollyky observed that democratic and authoritarian countries have grounded vaccine diplomacy in geopolitics rather than epidemiology, resulting in the Asia Pacific region receiving over half of global vaccine donations despite reporting under 10 per cent of the world’s COVID-19 cases since November 2020.
The leading response to China’s vaccine diplomacy in Asia emerged from the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue (Quad) made up of Australia, India, Japan and the United States. At its March 2021 summit, the Quad pledged to produce at least one billion doses for the Indo-Pacific region by the end of 2022 — a promise that, if kept, will increase access in Asia even more. The initiative implements the US strategy to compete with China by strengthening collaboration among democracies, which aligns with Australian, Indian and Japanese worries about Chinese behaviour. China has criticised the Quad for attempting to contain its rise, so using the Quad for vaccine diplomacy sends an unmistakable balance-of-power message to Beijing.
Hopes for global, equitable access rest on the COVAX commitment to use financial support from high-income nations to provide vaccines to over 90 developing countries. Despite vaccine nationalism, COVAX is allocating and delivering vaccines to Asian countries. COVAX forecasts that it will supply nearly one billion doses to the region during 2021, an amount exceeding what bilateral vaccine diplomacy and the Quad initiative promise to provide this year.
But COVAX has not escaped geopolitics. The Trump administration’s ‘America First’ refusal to participate in COVAX provided China another opportunity to strengthen its vaccine diplomacy and global influence. To compete more effectively with China, the Biden administration reasserted US leadership by pledging US$4 billion to COVAX and hosting a COVAX funding event in April 2021. Geopolitical concerns also informed commitments other G7 countries have made to COVAX in 2021.
Through vaccine diplomacy, the Quad initiative and COVAX, geopolitical competition has boosted vaccine access in Asia. But vaccine nationalism remains strong and equitable access is not within reach. On 9 April, the WHO Director-General highlighted that, of the 700 million doses administered globally, ‘over 87 per cent have gone to high income or upper middle-income countries, while low income countries have received just 0.2 per cent’.
Whether vaccine access in Asia would have been more equitable absent the geopolitics is, however, doubtful. During the H1N1 influenza pandemic in 2009, high-income nations secured the lion’s share of vaccines, preventing global, equitable access without balance-of-power politics playing any role.
Geopolitical competition over vaccine access might dissipate. Progress with US and European vaccination campaigns should temper vaccine nationalism, increase global supply and reduce the diplomatic leverage that control over scarce doses creates. These conditions could encourage the United States to shift from the geopolitics of vaccine diplomacy to immunising people across the world as quickly as possible.
However, the emergence and spread of variant coronavirus strains that undermine existing vaccines could produce more vaccine nationalism and geopolitical competition over access to vaccines for variants. If this happens, the story of COVID-19 vaccine access will again demonstrate that countries think and act in terms of vaccines defined as power.
David P Fidler is Adjunct Senior Fellow for Global Health and Cybersecurity at the Council on Foreign Relations.
This article is part of an EAF special feature series on the COVID-19 crisis and its impact.
The post Geopolitics drives vaccine access in Asia first appeared on East Asia Forum.
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A report from The Daily Herald.
Informational material on regulations on the international trade in endangered species of wild flora and fauna – also known as the CITES Convention – has been developed for residents and tourists in Bonaire, Saba and St. Eustatius. Posters, signs and brochures have been made in four languages – Dutch, English, Papiamentu and Spanish – by the Dutch Caribbean Nature Alliance (DCNA) by order of the Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality (ANFQ).
These materials can be found at the airports and seaports and at government and customs offices, nature park management organisations, diving schools and hotels throughout the Caribbean Netherlands. In this way, the DCNA and ANFQ want to raise awareness about the protected status of flora and fauna in the Caribbean Netherlands, such as orchids and corals, and the prohibition on picking or taking such species.
Bonaire, Statia and Saba have a rich biodiversity. Many species are endemic to one of the islands, that is, they cannot be found anywhere else in the world. Almost 200 species living in the wild in the Caribbean Netherlands are protected by CITES. The list includes turtles, iguanas, birds of prey, various orchids, cactuses, whale species, rays and bird species.
The corals for which these islands are known – alive and dead – are also protected under CITES and can, therefore, not be taken away. In line with the CITES regulations, stricter local rules and measures may apply to conserve the biodiversity.
Exporting living and dead species included on the CITES list to another country without a permit – also from the Caribbean Netherlands to the Netherlands, and vice versa – is prohibited. These regulations also apply to taking species or objects as a gift or for one’s personal use, such as orchids, cactuses, corals, sea horses, turtles, sharks, iguanas and birds.
The regulations also apply to products made of or from these species, such as food products and exotic leatherwear, wooden sculptures, ornaments, musical instruments and local medicines.
In certain cases, exporting species or objects or taking them away is prohibited altogether. Violation of these regulations can lead to penalties and/or legal action.
The mere fact that something is for sale or found on the ground or in the sea does not mean that one is allowed to take it or that one can travel with it. When in doubt as to whether one can take a species or a product, one can contact the local CITES authority at the National Department Caribbean Netherlands RCN, the customs authorities, the public entities, or the local management organisation of the protected nature area.
]]>Kang Kyung-wha said goodbye to her role as South Korea’s foreign minister in February as Chung Eui-yong assumed the post. Kang leaves behind a legacy of achievements in a particularly thorny period in South Korean diplomatic history. Not least of all, Kang’s role as the first woman to serve as foreign minister in the country marks a period of progress for South Korean women in public service.
Her appointment in 2017 was not the first time Kang had broken a glass ceiling. In 2005, she became the second woman to serve at the director-level in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Kang also reached new heights at the United Nations, where she held key posts for over ten years. Her appointment as deputy high commissioner for the UN Human Rights Office in 2006 marked the first time a South Korean woman held such a high-level role at the United Nations.
Kang’s background set her apart from the ‘old boys club’ of South Korean diplomacy in another way — she was also the first foreign minister to never take the foreign service exam, a notable anomaly in a field where highly competitive exams are typically the gatekeeper to public service positions. Her background in multilateral diplomacy is also unconventional, as most of her predecessors — and her successor — have had more North Korea or US-centric expertise.
Conventional or not, Kang’s expertise made her the ideal person to be at the helm of South Korean diplomacy during the COVID-19 pandemic. At a time when some of the world’s greatest powers are looking inward and shunning cooperation, South Korea stands out as an engaged global partner and leader. Kang’s leadership in positioning South Korea as a responsible international stakeholder during this crisis will prove to be one of her most defining achievements as foreign minister.
Despite her obvious skill and successes, Kang’s non-traditional background sometimes drew negative attention, especially amid suspicions that the foreign ministry was bypassed in important negotiations and decisions. But Kang’s atypical path may also be one reason she was able achieve so much success — in the United Nations, where there is greater gender parity, Kang likely faced an environment where women’s contributions were rewarded more frequently.
Traditional paths to leadership have certainly not served South Korean women well in the past, and that’s not for a lack of women in public service. By 2003, South Korea was easily meeting its mandate that 30 per cent of new hires in all government departments be women, so much so that it revised the mandate to apply the quota to men as well. And in 2018, women made up 50 per cent of civil servants for the first time.
Still, South Korean women occupy few public leadership positions, particularly in diplomacy — female ambassadors consistently number in the single digits, and as recently as 2014 there were no female ambassadors.
The Moon Jae-in administration set out with aspirations to address gender equality and parity. Kang was one of four women appointed to Moon’s cabinet, the highest number of women to ever serve in cabinet-level positions simultaneously. Moon also appointed Pi Woo-jin to be the first female Minister of Patriots and Veteran Affairs, one of six non-cabinet minister positions.
Though this was a historic milestone, it fell short of Moon’s stated goal to appoint a cabinet of at least 30 per cent women. Four years into his five-year term, Moon has yet to reach that threshold, and the number of women in his administration has decreased. With Kang’s departure, just three cabinet positions are currently held by women, making it just 16 per cent female.
Despite Moon’s recent lack of concern for gender parity in his cabinet, other gains for women in South Korea cannot be discounted. In addition to the first female foreign minister, Moon also appointed the first women to lead three other ministries — Trade, Labor and Employment; Land, Infrastructure and Transport; and Patriots and Veterans Affairs. South Korean women also made major strides in electoral politics. The 2018 National Assembly election saw a record 57 women elected to parliament, accounting for 19 per cent of the 300 total seats. The ballot also included a feminist party, the Women’s Party, for the first time.
Still, these sorts of gains do not always stick, and a higher number of women in leadership positions does not necessarily equate to more power for women. Though women make up a greater share of public servants than 20 years ago, South Korea — like most countries — has a long way to go before women in government leadership becomes the norm rather than the exception. Kang’s service as foreign minister brings South Korea a step closer to achieving that reality.
Kathryn Botto is a Senior Research Analyst in the Asia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
The post Kang Kyung-wha’s legacy for South Korean women first appeared on East Asia Forum.
]]>Under the Indonesian Constitution Article 20A Paragraph 1, the legislative branch of the government (Parliament) has 3 functions: legislation, budgetary and monitoring. How do these functions come into play when governing amidst a pandemic? How have their representative roles been at play with regards to their political constituents?
What we read in the news is that MPs perform their routine activities in a ‘business as usual’ mode. For example, legalising the state budget during the plenary meeting held on Indonesian Independence Day (17 August 2020); legalising the controversial Omnibus Law; and supporting legislative processes like upgrading government regulations into Law and/or compiling national legislation programs (Prolegnas) for the next year. Parliament also carries out the budgetary process, another routine role. Aside from their routine activities and several distasteful news items about how the family members of Parliament are given priority for vaccine inoculations, the Legislative branch has little to show for pandemic-related activities.
The only non-routine activity Parliament has conducted is establishing an ad-hoc COVID-19 group in Parliament. It distributed imported herbal medicine to hospitals despite the medicines having no permits from the Food and Medicine authority, causing a protest from herbal medicine entrepreneurs. It has not capitalised on its legislative powers effectively, if at all.
The monitoring function of Parliament is also sorely lacking during this pandemic. Parliament’s official web site lists several meetings and field visits for COVID-19, but public information on how Parliament is monitoring pandemic management in Indonesia is scarce. Where information is provided, it describes global diplomacy—how Indonesia has been assisting other countries during the pandemic, practically detaching itself from the struggle of its own citizens.
During this pandemic, “losing” these key Parliamentary functions has exacerbated the lack of “checks and balances”. Indonesia has three branches of government that are supposed to be independent from one another, in order to “check and balance” each other.
The Judicial branch is currently struggling with the pandemic but has managed to stay afloat by organizing electronic and/or hybrid judicial system services. The Executive branch has enacted at least 681 national regulations and more than 1,000 regional/local regulations on Covid-19, so far. The State fund budget re-allocation in 2020 increased to IDR 62.3 trillion (US$ 3.9 billion), from the initially-planned value of IDR 23 trillion (US$ 1.2 billion).
In addition, Indonesia faces problems of political representation. Indonesian electoral politics is widely known to operate on a personality level, rather than an institutional one. “Representative democracy” is a concept foreign to many Indonesians. During the legislative election, people often vote for a candidate either because of a personal relationship or because of vote buying practices. As a result, politicians deem voters useful once every five years at election time. Upon election, it is rare for politicians to maintain strong relationship with their constituencies, apart from formal constituency meetings allocated and funded by house’s budget. Therefore, during the post-election policy-making processes, the aspirations and needs of constituents are rarely, if ever, important aspects for legislating MPs to consider in conducting their three main roles. From the constituents’ perspective, there is a general lack of awareness that having and exercising political representation in Parliament can push policy agendas, not just those concerning COVID-19.
Media outlets and the general population ignore the fact that Parliament has a role in pandemic governance. We tracked Google trends of online public conversations, using conversation keywords such as ‘corona virus’, ‘government’ and ‘Parliament’. Our findings indicate that “Parliament” was neither a keyword nor a heavily-searched issue of interest. Few people talked about this important democratic institution online. Indonesians are typically think that the “government” only comprises Jokowi (the President) and his ministers—governors, mayors, civil servant officials, etc. We often forget that Parliament is also responsible for pandemic governance in Indonesia, even though they have spent a significant amount of our state’s budget on this. This is surprising, given that it costs IDR25 .6 trillion (US$ 1.8 billion), or almost 3 times West Papua’s local revenue in 2020, to elect Parliament.
Related 
Taking parliament to the people in Indonesia
Aid-supported ‘participatory recess’ programs are promoting healthier communication between MPs and constituents. But it won’t transform politics unless parties sign on wholesale.
Three courses of action
There is an urgent need to hold Parliament responsible for organizing their basic duties during this pandemic. As the legislative branch of the government, and as representatives of the Indonesian people, Parliament must perform “checks and balances” on other branches of the government and report those results to the public. They must represent the needs of Indonesian people, especially now, to the Executive and Judicial branches of the government. They should conduct dialogue, hold meetings, and support and review new regulations concerning policies related to the pandemic. The more dialogue and discussions are organised, the more engaged the stakeholders and the people to the information and issue of the government during the pandemic. This ensures the security, sustainability, and transparency of government, improving the public’s access to numerous essential services, such as health care, education welfare, and justice.
To achieve this, at least three actors must be simultaneously involved—the State, political parties and citizens. Firstly, the state should have clear indicators for the allocation of subsidies to parties, based on parties’ representative performance. The more actively MPs engage their constituents, the better. Of course, this will not be popular among politicians. Secondly, parties, including their cadres, should recognise the incentive that attending to voters’ needs offers to those who want to win elections, although pragmatics voters are also hurdles in Indonesian elections. Parties, as institutions, should consistently champion standpoints favourable to their respective constituencies, not just during elections but even post-elections. This will make parties more responsive to their constituents, and forge a unifying function among their constituents. Thirdly, citizens must actively hold their representatives to account, particularly during this pandemic, by demanding their elected leaders to take more active roles during the pandemic instead of serving their own interests.
The post The Malady of Ignorance? Indonesian Parliament During the COVID-19 Pandemic appeared first on New Mandala.
]]>1. The graphic below shows that the cost declines have been sharpest with solar. This also means that the potential for declines in the other areas like offshore wind is high.
2. The graphic below captures the fossil fuel dependence of producer countries.
3. An interesting feature of renewable energy is that unlike oil and gas which are concentrated, they are spread widely across the world. Given the widely dispersed availability of renewable energy sources, the differentiators could be the ability to export electricity or green fuels, control of raw materials used in clean energy (like lithium and cobalt), and gaining edge in clean energy technologies.
4. Trade in electricity emerges as an area of great potential and with unintended shifts in power balances. Sample this for a sense of the shifts,
When it comes to exporting clean electricity, countries such as Norway, Bhutan and France are already far ahead. In a few months’ time, Norway and the UK will finish constructing the world’s longest subsea electricity cable, the North Sea Link. The Norwegian side of the cable runs through snow-capped mountains and a deep lake, then travels underwater for more than 720km, across the North Sea, until it reaches the UK. The highly specialised cable is also manufactured in Norway, in a factory located next to a fjord, so that it can be easily loaded on to ships and taken out to sea for installation. The North Sea Link will be Norway’s seventh subsea interconnector, allowing the country to export its abundant hydropower to its neighbours… Portugal recently agreed to ship green hydrogen to the Netherlands, while Germany is weighing a deal to buy hydrogen from Morocco… Countries with lots of sunshine, such as Spain and Portugal, are eager to find ways to convert that into a commercial fuel. Trading power is also on the rise: there are already more than 80 cross-border interconnectors in Europe, with 20 planned or under construction.
5. Then there is China. There are four types of consequences.
(a) The first is that Chinese companies have been at the forefront of the trend to control raw material sources globally. This should be a matter of great concern,
China produces more than 70 per cent of all solar photovoltaic panels, half of the world’s electric vehicles and a third of its wind power. It is also the biggest battery producer and controls many of the raw materials crucial for clean-tech supply chains, such as cobalt, rare earth minerals and polysilicon, a key ingredient in solar panels… As major economies work to reach their net-zero goals, they will have to buy more solar panels, batteries and critical minerals. The main supplier? China.
The example of CATL and battery manufacturing is emblematic,
China’s sway over battery manufacturing reflects its long-term strategy. Its poster child is CATL, Contemporary Amperex Technology. Founded in 2011 in the mountainous eastern fishing town of Ningde, the company owes a large part of its success to government protectionism. In 2015, as China was pouring billions into its electric vehicle market, the government suddenly announced a list of approved battery-makers who were eligible for subsidies, none of which were foreign. This was a boon to domestic businesses: CATL grew from producing 6.2GWh worth of batteries in 2016 to 34GWh last year — a third of the global market. Now the biggest producer in the world, it has contracts with Daimler, BMW and Tesla among others. Beijing dominates the supply chain from the mines in the DRC to the final production of lithium-ion batteries. Its companies control more than 85 per cent of the world’s refined cobalt chemical capacity, essential for most lithium-ion batteries. It also mines almost all of the world’s rare earth minerals, which are used in electric motors and wind turbines. Making an electric vehicle without involving China is almost impossible.
(b) Then there is the beneficial effect of China’s mega-scale manufacturing appetite and capacities.
China’s manufacturing prowess has helped to drive down the global cost of batteries, making electric cars more competitive. This echoes what has happened with other clean energy technologies, from solar panels to polysilicon production: subsidies led to overcapacity and a rush to produce, and ended up with China dominating global markets. The cost of lithium-ion batteries today is just one-seventh what it was a decade ago, according to Bloomberg New Energy Finance.
(c) There are those where the impacts will be uncertain and mixed,
One of Xi’s pet projects is the Global Energy Interconnection — a network of high-voltage transmission lines that would span the globe. The project envisages cheap electricity being shipped around the world — from dams in Congo to Europe. It is headed by Liu Zhenya, the former chief of State Grid, who describes it as the “internet of energy”. While the Global Energy Interconnection will take decades to build, it signals how Chinese policymakers are thinking about the new global order. “The idea is to connect countries with [clean energy] resources, with those that have the demand,” explains Xu Yi-chong, author of Sinews of Power: The Politics of the State Grid Corporation.
(d) Finally, the energy transition could end up disproportionately benefiting the Chinese companies.
Jonas Nahm, assistant professor of energy at Johns Hopkins University, says new US climate targets could benefit Chinese companies: “This administration is caught in a pickle, which is that all of the climate goals that are being promised will rely on China, at least in the short term.” Other global leaders face a similar quandary: as they invest more in the energy transition, some of that money will filter back to China. “This is prompting a lot of anxiety, especially amid this proliferation of net-zero commitments,” says Van de Graaf, “because other countries, such as Japan, the US and the EU, will make a transition that is very costly, and the economic benefit of that will be reaped disproportionately by China.”
6. There is also the point about the ingredients for commercialisation of innovations,
Steven Chu, former US energy secretary… believes that the US — which could see as much as $2tn invested in climate initiatives proposed by President Joe Biden — still has an edge in innovation. “I personally think [the most innovation] is still in the United States, in terms of laboratory innovation in new batteries,” he says. “But then it really is a matter of how you get that invention and discovery . . . to become large-scale manufacturing. And that’s where China excels.”
A new national study indicates that the percentage of whites tends to increase among neighborhoods on the rise, indicating that minority neighborhoods experience racial change during gentrification.
Source: Gentrification draws more whites to minority neighborhoods
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As the ongoing pandemic brings into sharp focus the ways kids are learning (or not), Next City looks at self-directed education, which respects each student’s passions, encourages self-sufficiency and turns the city into a classroom.
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