March 2020 marked the 10th year anniversary of Forum Kajian Pembangunan (FKP), initiated by ANU Indonesia Project and LPEM FEB UI. The FKP was one of the first academic seminar series open to the public, designed to encourage discourse on development policy that is based on good research. The initial FKP seminars were held at LPEM FEB UI in 2010, and what may be the last FKP physical gathering for some time was also held at LPEM FEB UI on 5 March 2020,  just three days after President Joko Widodo announced the first official case of COVID-19 infection in Indonesia. Peter McCawley (ANU Indonesia Project) presented on 50 years of economic cooperation between Indonesia and the international community, and what we can learn going forward. Participants discussed the flow of financial aid to Indonesia and its contribution to Indonesia’s economic and social development. As Indonesia addresses the impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on its economy and society, these lessons are increasingly relevant.

FKP quickly moved to the web seminar (webinar) format when it became apparent that physical and social distancing are necessary to slow down the rate of COVID-19 infection. World Resources Institute (WRI) Indonesia held the first fully online FKP seminars on 19 and 26 March 2020. The topic of the System of Environmental Economics Accounting (SEEA) was presented in the context of non-timber forest products and of mangroves. Properly accounting society’s impacts on the state of environment and natural resources is an important, if overlooked, effort in order to develop policies that anticipate and mitigate the negative impacts of ecological changes to human welfare. Financing the ocean economy and coastal management was the last seminar topic discussed in March with Professor Zuzy Anna (Universitas Padjadjaran) and Andre Aquino (The World Bank) as speakers.

In April, the ANU Indonesia Project created the Global Web Seminar series which addressed various COVID-19 issues. The first webinar in the series featured Dr Chatib Basri (former Indonesian Minister of Finance) and Rizki Siregar (University of California at Davis) discussing the challenges faced by Indonesian policymakers hin the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak. More than 300 people participated in the webinar. Since then, the series have included three more webinars which can be accessed from this link.

The Center for Economic Research of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (P2E LIPI) was FKP host in April, the seminars were also held online on Zoom facilitate by ANU Indonesia Project. In total, 537 people participated in the seminars i April, and more than 170 people participated through YouTube.

The first webinar discussed the efforts of one village in Bali to transform into a film-based adventure park, and a film-making campus and platform. The second webinar discussed the twin challenge of ‘energy poverty’ in Indonesia – lack of access to electricity in some rural areas, and lack of access to clean energy.

The impacts of COVID-19 pandemic will devastate millions of households in Indonesia, and Asep Suryahadi (The SMERU Research Institute) presented his estimates on the severity of poverty based on several scenarios.  More than 200 people tuned in to this webinar on Zoom, and more than 170 people on YouTube.

Indonesia is currently drafting several policies on agricultural insurance, the topic of FKP on 23 April 2020. Dr Deny Hidayati presented LIPI’s research on the regulatory framework of the program that is currently focused on rice agriculture. Finally, the concept of basic income and how it can be a force for environmental and natural resource conservation was the subject of the last FKP in April. As Indonesia prepares the social safety nets to address the economic crisis caused by COVID-19, these two topics may need further discussion.