By Alci Tamesa

Indonesia has for decades been recognized as a nation that reads very little, meaning that reading is not a habit in society. This is an anathema that must be eliminated if Indonesia is to become an advanced nation.

Against this backdrop and the belief that reading is the key to knowledge and expertise, a tragic lack of society’s interest in reading means that this nation will continue to stand at the receiving end. The reason is the inability to absorb and develop new technologies and competitive business practices that propels a nation’s economy.

With such a philosophy in mind, Sultan Hamengkubuwono X, the ruler of Yogyakarta, recently launched a new initiative to spur reading habit in society.

This was done when he inaugurated a mobile library called “Guru Bangsa Gus Dur” (Teacher of the Nation Gus Dur) to perpetuate the memory of Indonesia’s former president and champion of pluralism and democracy, Abdurrahman Wahid, who passed away on December 30, 2009.

The mobile library actually belongs to Galangpress publishing company in Yogyakarta, which fills the car with 720 titles of book for its tour of the city every day.

In spite of the fact that Gus Dur was partly blind in the latter half of his life, he was widely recognized as a broad-minded statesman with an international horizon and long-range vision. Strangely, though, he was also an intellectual who used to read a lot of books in his own way.

So the inclusion of his name in the mobile library is apparently meant as a stimulus to encourage everybody with normal eyesight to read more books than Gus Dur did, especially those on science and technology, because even a near-blind person such as Gus Dur was fond of reading.

Sultan Hamengkubuwono X is himself a staunch advocate of holistic education as proven in his continuous attention to the entire process of education, from elementary to university levels.

But as the Sultan champions the campaign to stimulate reading habit in society, other parts of Indonesia are waiting for similar champions to emerge. In the capital city of Jakarta, for instance, no significant breakthrough has come to sight in terms of arousing society’s reading habit.

According to Bose Devi, chief of the Jakarta public libraries network, only a maximum of 200 people show up at 30 public libraries in this metropolitan city every day. In Beijing, the official says, some 10,000 people visit public libraries every day.

In a way this indicates that Jakarta residents do not like to read books; they prefer to watch television, or read newspapers and magazines that contain hot or controversial issues.

Such a tendency is not very helpful in the nation’s drive to compete in the global market because mastery of science and technology that can be done through reading books is the primary engine of modernization. And yet, this is where Indonesia lags far behind other countries in Asia.
Factors Causing Poor Reading Habit

The question is, why don’t Indonesians like to read? According to Jakarta educators, there are many reasons behind this situation.

Firstly, even though the focus of education since independence in 1945 was to combat illiteracy, it has not been easy to do so due to cultural reasons. Even today Indonesia is not yet totally free from illiteracy.

North Sulawesi has the lowest illiteracy rate: only 0.94% of the population. Iti is followed by Jakarta (1.04%), Riau (2.25%), Central Kalimantan (2.73%), West Sumatra (2.86%), South Sumatra (3.16%), and North Sumatra (3.1%).

On the contrary, provinces with high rates of illiteracy are those inhabited mainly by ethnic tribes of Java, Madura, Bugis, and Papua, according to a statement from the Ministry of Education and Culture.

One of the reasons is that in those high illiterate provinces, people use their mother tongues instead of the national language in daily life. Given that most books are written in the national language as well as English, such people have difficulty reading them.

For instance in Bone regency, South Sulawesi, which is the home village of former Vice President Jusuf Kalla, the rate of illiteracy is still 12.87%.  Even East Java, which has produced three presidents—Soekarno, Abdurrahman Wahid and Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono—still has a high rate of illiteracy, says Prof. Bambang Soedibyo, the former minister of education.

Nationally, the highest rate of illiteracy remains in Papua (16.50%), followed by West Nusa Tenggara (13.05%), East Nusa Tenggara (10.47%), West Papua (10.22%) and Central Java (9.42%) even though Central Java is the biggest “producer” of Indonesia’s ministers of education.
 
The second factor that causes a lack of reading habit in society is a change in the orientation of family spending. Books are not on the priority lists of every family except compulsory books as required by school teachers.

The parents themselves are not fond of reading; they prefer to watch television, so it is difficult for them to persuade their children to read books. This is unlike in Japan, for instance, where mothers are required to read for at least 20 minutes before sending children to bed.

Even in presenting birthday gifts, very few—if any at all—would buy books as most Indonesian parents prefer to provide mobile phones and luxuries. Thereby, children get the message that reading is not important.

The third factor causing a lack of reading habit is society’s sudden shift from oral transmission and absorption of information as done through folk tales to electronic and digital methods.

With the electronic media now dominating family life across the country, only parents who understand proper child upbringing require children to read books. Most parents do not take action even when their children hate reading.

A lack of regular school assignments, which require a lot of reading, is to blame as the fourth factor causing students’ rejection of reading as a necessity. And to make things worse, public libraries are not being promoted as a good place for the younger generation to visit. These are challenges Indonesia needs to overcome to elevate itself as a reading-minded nation.

Jeannifer Filly Sumayku | The President Post, Jakarta | Property

The Indonesian property industry has experienced rapid changes in its orientation, shifting its focus from development of residential compounds to office blocks, integrated complexes, and is now set to realize the concept of “green property” development.

The concept of “green property”, also known as “eco-property”, is basically about developing property projects that are friendly to the environment in order to create and preserve a good ecological balance.

This property development philosophy will be amplified on a global scale when property magnates, practitioners and government policymakers gather in Bali to attend the 61^st International Real Estate Conference which is organized by FIABCI, the federation of international real estate developers.

According to Pingki Elka Pangestu, chief organizer of the conference and Asia-Pacific president of FIABCI, Indonesian property industry leaders who will address the conference include James Riady from the Lippo Group and Ciputra from the Ciputra Group. They will share their views on the future of property industry development in the Asia-Pacific region.

The theme of the conference is “Green Shoot for Sustainable Real Estate”, in reference to efforts to explore the resurgence and the empowerment of the property sector that has in recent years declined on a global scale.

Participants will take this opportunity to conduct some kind of introspection, in the sense that while there is a need to continue developing the industry, greater attention must now be given to environmental and ecological considerations.

They will even talk about the need to strike a good balance between property development and preservation of local cultures. This apparently is the reason why the government will be represented by Minister of Tourism and Culture Jero Wacik and Governor of Bali I Gde Mangku Pastika, both of whom will address the conference.

Pangestu says that green property is now the direction of the Indonesian property industry. In some areas, including Bali, he added, developers have begun to readjust their business strategies to this new trend as they consider ecological balance a high priority.

Industry specialist Teguh Satria, who is also involved in the FIABCI conference, says that Indonesia should have hosted the conference in 1998 but a political crisis that led to a change in national leadership derveloped and prevented it from doing so.

Indonesia was then competing against Norway and Italy to be the host of the 61^st conference but not until the crisis was over did it regain international recognition to host the prestigious international meeting which will be held at the Grand Hyatt, Nusa Dua, Bali, on May 24-28, 2010.

Property Trends 2010 and Key Players

In a related development, industry leaders say that the Indonesian property development has taken a new route, namely development of integrated complexes comprising residential space such as apartments and office blocks. This is expected to be the trend as of 2010 because of rising demand for such kind of property.

Jabebeka City is an example of such property development concept, combining residences, shopping and office areas with educational facilities, including President University.

Under this grand strategy, Jababeka Group—led by Setyono Djuandi Darmono—has developed 5,600 hectares of integrated compounds for almost a million people occupying 30,000 houses.

The tiny city in the eastern outskirts of Jakarta also houses 1,400 companies, including Unilever, Samsung Electronics, ICI, Mattel, United Tractor, KAO, Nissin, and Akzo Nobel, representing international investors from 27 countries. This integrated concept employs around 3,000 expatriates and a huge number of local workers.

Jababeka’s integrated property development concept also includes eight hotels and condominiums, 24 shopping malls, 55 hospitals and clinics, two driving ranges, 16 sport clubs and 18 public transportation lanes.

The annual production value of this integrated area is US$31.5 billion, with export worth estimated at $10.3 billion. At least US$21 billion worth of investments have poured in to turn Jabebeka into one of Indonesia’s most popular new cities.

This is apparently the reason why industry analysts are saying that developers cannot survive the tough competition unless they implement a strategy similar to Jababeka’s.

“We realize that such is the preferred trend today,” says Rosihaan Saad from PT Perdana Gapuraprima Tb, another key player in the industry.

He was quoted by vivanews.com as saying the sales of such property are on the rise because buyers prefer to live near their offices and in areas where they can easily obtain everything they need.

As an example, he said, every single space in the GP Plaza, which is owned by Gapuraprima, is already sold out even before work on the building is completed. People buy them up because they like the integrated concept of the compound, he added.

Tirta Setiawan, another property industry analyst, says that nowadays buyers prefer residences that are close to their offices or business fields.

In other developing countries, Setyawan adds, buyers prefer to live not at the city center but outside of it because they don’t like noise.

In Indonesia, it is the other way around—people actually prefer to live at the city center because that is where they can easily get whatever they want.

Given this situation, developers must build residences that are integrated with shopping malls, business centers or offices, education and sport facilities. So, Indonesia’s concept must be an all-in-one concept, he theorizes.

“In the past, price was the primary consideration; today that is no longer the case. The primary consideration is completeness of a location and its comfort,” he was quoted by Kompas.com as saying.

In recent years, many Indonesian developers have shifted attention to developing integrated complexes. Lippo Karawaci is another example of integrated property development.

Established in 1990 under the name of PT Tunggal Reksakencana, Lippo Karawaci Township, which came to being in 1996, was its maiden success.

It is now listed among Indonesia’s well-developed townships, housing Universitas Pelita Harapan (UPH), Sekolah Pelita Harapan (SPH), thousands of offices and residences, sports facilities, and such popular shopping malls as Matahari, Hypermart and Debenhams.

It also features Times Bookstore,  a joint project of Matahari Department Store and Times Bookstore Singapore, thereby providing local and expatriate communities with access to quality and globally-oriented reading materials.

Lippo Karawaci is also where Siloam Hospital is situated. It is one of Asia’s best centers for neurosurgical treatments, attracting patients from Singapore and other neighboring countries.

Meanwhile, the property philosophy of Dr. (HC) Ciputra is another towering example one must learn from.

He has developed many integrated townships in Indonesia, Vietnam and India, and has in recent years developed educational facilities as an integral part of its property development philosophy.

The Ciputra University and Ciputra schools in Surabaya are good examples of how one-stop property compounds should be developed. And they don’t stop there, as Ciputra is in fact the pioneer of Indonesia’s entrepreneurial education.

At all of his schools, entrepreneurship is the main stream of education, while the Ciputra Entrepreneurship Center provides training to lecturers from private and state-owned universities, enabling them to work not just as teachers but business trainers as well.

This way Ciputra is building a new generation of entrepreneurs who will are expected to give added ballast to the development of Indonesia’s economy, including the property sector, which is his main line of business.

With all these developments going on, Indonesia is well-positioned to share its experience with property developers and realtors who will gather in Bali next May. At the same time, it can also  learn from the experiences of overseas property industry players.

(The President Post printed edition. February 24, 2010)

Alci Tamesa | The President Post, Jakarta | Education

The Government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has in recent years increased the amount of assistance for the development of public libraries—a move that has been greeted with guarded optimism by holistic educators.

The assistance has soared significantly from a mere Rp14.9 billion allocated annually since 2007. For this year there is a further increase in the total allocation for libraries because of the 20 percent allocation in the total portion of educational spending in the national budget.

Library spending for this year is focused on development and restoration of facilities in remote areas, especially in provinces with high rates of illiteracy, according to Sularsih, an official from the Ministry of National Education.

She explains that Indonesia currently has 440 public libraries but only half of them are reasonably furnished.

Nevertheless, according to independent observers, many of the furnished libraries, including those in the capital city of Jakarta, do not have reasonable and up-to-date titles or reading materials. In fact, many libraries are still poorly equipped with old books that fail to attract the younger generation or arouse society’s reading habit.

The government of President SBY has, as of 2007, begun to upgrade public libraries, giving priority to development of 100 big libraries across the Indonesian archipelago. Each library will receive at least Rp75, 000,000 in assistance annually.

In order to encourage reading habit in society, the Government has also provided around 100 mobile libraries, 50 of them were released in 2007 in remote regencies. Each car is worth around Rp200 million.

This strategy has been adopted by the private sector, especially publishing companies, which provides mobile libraries to provincial capital cities.

The latest instance occurred recently in Yogyakarta, where Galangpress publishing company launched a mobile library called “Teacher of the Nation: Gus Dur”, inaugurated by Sultan Hamengkubuwono X.

The dire need for good libraries is felt most obviously by Islamic boarding schools, educators say, adding that most books provided at such schools are out of date and that students are not interested in reading them.

These calls for concrete action come from the Ministry of Religious Affairs, which is responsible for developing religious schools.

On another front, however, the Government is working to promote society’s reading habit by building small libraries at public health centers.

This year, the Special Region of Yogyakarta has taken the lead, having equipped at least 10 public health facilities with a library. The aim is to provide good reading materials for patients and their relatives visiting health centers.

But here is the good news from Kompas-Gramedia Group (KGG). As of this year, they will increase assistance for up to 200 libraries across Indonesia, with special focus on facilitating libraries in Jakarta, Bogor, Depok, Tangerang, and Bekasi.

Under a project called “Books for All”, KGG will help renovate library buildings apart from providing books. Funds for this come from the stakeholders of Kompas and independent donors.

But what is more important, according to Ria Purwiati, chairperson of KGG’s Information Center, is the need to build a small library in every house; thereby children will be encouraged to read books instead of wasting time on unproductive activities.

She says that a family library will have educational, informational, recreational, and research functions so every family must start building it now.

Given the fact that the private sector is now working hand in hand with the Government in arousing society’s awareness for reading, it is perhaps fair to say that there is still hope for Indonesia to see a reading generation emerge in the not-too-distant future, despite the onslaught of a digital lifestyle in society.

(The President Post printed edition. February 24, 2010)

Vice President Boediono and Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa may have different opinions, but they are united on solving problems with independent power producers (IPP)s, says an official. 
 
Boediono’s spokesman Yopie Hidayat denied a story carried by The Jakarta Post last week, which reported a rift between the Vice President and Hatta.
 
Yopie said that both  state officials were concerned about finding a solution to the IPP problems.
 
He explained that Boediono and Hatta met on Jan. 18 to discuss IPP  problems with other public officials.
 
During the meeting, he said, differing opinions emerged before a consensus was reached. 
 
“In the meeting, Pak Boediono and Pak Hatta were of one voice. Both wanted to help PLN [state power firm] to deal with the 50 IPPs. They all wanted to secure PLN from possible lawsuits,” Yopie said.
 
“All participants are committed to helping PLN and not to giving certain privileges to people who are close to the President,” he added.
 
The 50 IPPs, having gained operating licenses between 2004 and 2009, are largely owned by prominent businessmen.
 
Despite the small capacity of combined IPPs, totaling 500 megawatts, the Cabinet included the resolution of IPP disputes in its 100-day program.
 
According to State-Owned Enterprises Minister Mustafa Abubakar, all problems related to IPPs would be resolved based on business-to-business principles, demanding the companies renegotiate their contracts directly with PLN management under the government’s supervision.
 
J. Purwono, the director general for electricity and energy utility at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, explained that PLN had categorized IPPs into three categories.
 
The first category comprises IPPs that had secured financing and started construction. According to Yopie, there are five IPPs in the first category.
 
The second category covers IPPs that had secured financing, but had not started construction—there were 12 in that category.
 
The third lists IPPs that had signed power purchase agreements with PLN, but had not yet secured any financial commitments.
 
“PLN said it can only renegotiate with first and second categories of IPPs,” Purwono said, adding the government would wait for the results from the (B2B) negotiations.
 
“IPPs basically want higher prices. We ask PLN to discuss this matter,” Purwono said.
 
He added the final results of the negotiation must be audited by the Development Finance Comptroller Agency (BPKP).
 
“Whatever PLN’s decision is, as long as it has been approved by the state auditor [BPKP] the government can approve it as well,” Purwono said.
 
He added the government was waiting for PLN’s decision and the BPKP audit.
 
PLN’s business and risk management director Murtaqi Syamsuddin, said the company expected to finish negotiations within a year.
 
 “We are working on it,” he said.
 
Murtaqi denied a report saying that PLN had dropped the negotiation with some IPPs.
 
“That information is inaccurate,” he said.

Ulma Haryanto | Jakarta Globe

Dismissing allegations of corruption, the Transportation Ministry on Monday said it was confident that the first phase of the Jakarta Mass Rapid Transit project would be completed as scheduled.

“The MRT will be operational by 2016. Everything is going according to procedure. If we wait too long, the construction will be further delayed. It should begin [at the] earliest by end of 2011,” ministry spokesman Bambang Ervan told the Jakarta Globe.

“Jakarta’s traffic congestion will worsen. We need to begin construction as soon as possible,” he said.

Bambang dismissed allegations made by Indonesian Procurement Watch of collusion in selecting the designer of the MRT system. IPW last year pointed out that the Business Competition Supervisory Commission (KPPU) had found preliminary evidence of collusion on the part of the ministry and bidders for the project to award the design contract to Japanese engineering firm Nippon Koei.

Bambang acknowledged that the procurement committee had nullified the results of a tender offer for the project, won by Japanese bidder Katahira & Engineers International. Nippon then won the second tender, he said.

“Katahira won the tender the first time around in December 2008. The Japan International Cooperation Agency asked us to redo the tender because of matters of pricing and because some queries on the tender process didn’t meet their requirements,” he said.

Bambang said IPW and Katahira had a right to object, “but from our side the tender re-evaluation was fully in accordance with the official procedure.”

Last week, Eddi Santosa, corporate and planning director of PT MRT Jakarta, the private company responsible for carrying out the construction project, said the financing from the JICA for the second phase would be received in 2011.

The first phase of the MRT project will serve 12 stations along a 14.5 kilometer route from Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to Dukuh Atas in Central Jakarta, just south of the Hotel Indonesia traffic circle. The first eight stations will be on 10.5-kilometers of elevated track, while the remaining four will be below ground.

Each train will have six cars and carry about 350,000 passengers daily. Fares will range from Rp 4,000 (43 cents) to Rp 10,000 for a one-way trip.

A second phase, to be operational by 2018, would extend the track north to Kota Tua, and another east-west line is planned.

“PT MRT Jakarta is currently preparing an environmental-impact analysis to be included in our feasibility report, which is required by the lending institution,” Eddi said on Monday.

Manpalagupta Sitorus, chief of corporate communication at MRT Jakarta, said the basic design for the first phase, begun in December, would be finished by February next year.

“After that we are going to initiate the tender process and physical construction can start as soon as the end of 2011 or early 2012,” Manpalagupta said.

As reported earlier by the Jakarta Globe, the JICA has agreed to provide $1.3 billion in loans, to be disbursed in four phases between 2008 and 2014.

The JICA loans carry only 0.2 percent interest, with a 10-year grace period for payments and a 30-year payback timetable.

“The central and Jakarta governments will share the burden of paying back the loans,” Eddi said earlier.

The agreement requires that 35 percent of construction materials be imported from Japan. The majority of consultants and 51 percent of the contractors also must be Japanese.

Aside from the loans, financing for the MRT system will also come from the central government and the Jakarta administration. The state will put up $260 million and the city will pitch in $162 million.

Catherine Simon | Jakarta Globe

It sounds harmless and quite idyllic. In the online game Farmville, players plant strawberries and trees, milk cows and build farm buildings. Farmville is open to members of the social network Facebook and has developed in record time into a mass phenomenon.

Just under 75 million virtual farmers from all over the world make up Farmville’s membership and that figure is rising.

However, not everything is rosy in the world of Farmville and German data protectionists are warning against attempts by the game’s owners to gather information on players. Some of Farmville’s players have also reported unauthorized withdrawals from their bank accounts.

The American Internet firm Zynga is behind Farmville and says it was amazed at how quickly the quirky game took off. It first went online in June 2009 and was expected to have five million users by year’s end, according to company founder Marc Pincus.

Social network-based games such as Farmville are experiencing a boom at the moment. Zynga also offers a game called Fishville that allows you to build your own aquarium, Petville for pet lovers, Cafe World where you can practice your hosting skills and Mafia Wars, where you can indulge in the crime underworld.

Zynga’s competitor Playfish offers a similar palette of games, such as Gangster City, Pet Society and Country Story. Last November computer game developer Electronic Arts took over Playfish, forking out $275 million for the takeover plus an additional $25 million for other assets. EA has also committed to paying another $100 million if certain conditions are met by Playfish.

The virtual world of online gaming is a source of money in the real world. In Farmville, for example, players can earn experience points and online money for free through diligence that allows them to buy seeds and farm animals.

To do that the farmer must regularly check his fields or else crops will die. Popular and sought-after game elements such as barns and houses can be obtained faster if you lodge real money into a Farmville account by credit card or PayPal.

Although most players only pay small sums, it all adds up to a tidy sum for Zynga. According to its own figures, Zynga has managed to attract over 230 million players. The New York Times estimates that translates into annual earnings of about $250 million.

Digital Sky Technologies, a Russian Internet investment group, has interests in Facebook and recently bought $180 million worth of Zynga. Malicious tongues said DST made the move as it was attracted to Zynga’s Mafia Wars game. The total market for virtual games is estimated to be a billion dollars in the United States alone. Some experts say it could be as much as $5 billion by 2013, while right now in Asia, the market is already at about that figure.

Critics have raised concerns that not everything is conducted in an orderly fashion in the world of online gaming. There have been suggestions that Zynga’s partners have engaged in dubious business practices. They offered Farmville users money in exchange for purchases of software and mobile phone ringtones.

One of Zynga’s critics is the technology blog TechCrunch. The blog’s founder Michael Arrington thought Farmville’s money-for-software deal was a subscription trap and created the term “ScamVille” to describe it. Zynga called a halt to the practice but in the meantime, a class action suit is working its way through US courts.

Another aspect of concern is data protection. If you join Farmville, you automatically allow Zynga access to your profile, photos and information about friends. “The privacy policy is very unclear and Zynga reserves the right to gain access to just about everything,” says Henry Krasemann, who works for Landeszentrum fuer Datenschutz Schleswig-Holstein, an independent data protection body in Germany.

The company’s Web site explains that Zynga creates profiles on its users that are made up of information from several sources such as “newspapers and Internet sources such as blogs, instant message services, Zynga games and other users of Zynga.”

Together with information provided by the user’s browser as to what sites he or she has visited, Zynga uses that data to create targeted advertisements.

Based on German law, that is a gray area, possibly even improper, according to Krasemann. Zynga’s policy of storing data on users permanently has also raised issues of concern for German data protectionists.

Anna Tschochner, a 25-year-old from Munich, was a busy and hardworking farmer in the beginning. Many of her Facebook friends joined Farmville, thanks in part to her Facebook page, which was littered with status and activity updates from Zynga. Tschochner thought it was a pleasant way of passing the time.

Then Zynga withdrew money from her PayPal account on three occasions, although she never gave the company permission to do so. Tschochner has now warned her Facebook friends.

DPA She received her money back but her enthusiasm for Farmville has withered on the vine.

Johannes Lokollo ,  Contributor ,  The Jakarta Post   |  Mon, 02/22/2010 12:18 PM  |  Supplement

LG Love School: PT LG Electronics’ then president director Lee Kee–ju (second from left) and SMK Negeri 4 Bandung principal Endang Rukman watch a student use a computer contributed by the company. LG Electronics conducted its 15th LG Loves School Project at SMKN 4 Bandung as part of its commitment to improve education in Indonesia. LG Loves School is LG’s ongoing CSR program that promotes better education and results in a better future for the next generation. Courtesy of PT LG Electronics

The Asian region has no doubt become one of the most influential powerhouses of the world economy.

While the world is acknowledging the success of Asian firms in generating impressive economic growth, Asian firms should also be fully alert that Asian businesses should also pay due attention to their broader social responsibilities toward the governments and societies in which they operate.

Among one of the important lessons that Asian businesses should seriously heed from the recent economic and financial meltdown in 1998 and 2008 is that wealth creation is pointless without the protection and respect of human rights, improvement in social conditions and the environment, and therefore the concept and practices of “green growth” will be a very important factor to avoid or at least to deal positively with possible economic and financial problems that may occur in the future.

The collapse of international investment in 2008 with its global impact convinced political leaders all over the world that there was a serious failure in public and private sector governance, and therefore, unquestionably responsible business conduct (RBC) or corporate social responsibility (CSR) will be very crucial to restore confidence and trust in international, regional and national economic and financial systems.

In this context, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in collaboration with the International Labor Organization (ILO), the UN Global Compact and Global Reporting Initiatives organized a regional conference on corporate social responsibility with a focus on responsible business conduct in Bangkok on Nov. 2 and 3, 2009 on the occasion of the First Asia-Pacific Trade Investment Week.

The conference was attended by delegations from Asia-Pacific countries, which mainly discussed the synergies between major international instruments and guidelines vis-à-vis the roles of governments, business and other stakeholders in promoting and implementing responsible business conduct/corporate social responsibility in the Asia-Pacific region.

The main leading instruments widely accepted at present in the implementation of corporate social responsibility/responsible business conduct are the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises, ILO’s Core Conventions and Tripartite Declaration of Principles Concerning Multinational Enterprises, UN Global Compact and the Global Reporting Initiatives.

A number of country RBC/CSR experiences and practices were presented and discussed during the conference. While the forum agreed in principle that RBC/CSR should become part and parcel of a company’s policy and strategy in doing business that would contribute to the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), the delegates also demanded that the existing international instruments and guidelines should only be used to actively promote a fair and just international business environment that would lead toward an equitable global sustainable economic growth based on the “green growth” concept.

While CSR is a relatively new concept in Indonesia, CSR has already made good progress among multinational enterprises (MNEs) and large national companies.

MNEs operating in Indonesia and large national companies have shown their commitment to CSR by increasingly implementing CSR programs throughout Indonesia, and in order to make a more concerted and coordinated efforts, these companies formed a foundation, Indonesian Business Links (IBL), to promote CSR practices among its corporate members.

IBL also actively involves relevant government and non-governmental organizations in its programs and activities, including organizing regional and national CSR conferences in the country. In addition, many other CSR-related activities are being undertaken by other important stakeholders in Indonesia.

At present, more than 150 large and medium companies have become members of the UN Global Compact under the coordination of Global Compact Network Indonesia. In addition, forms of appreciation such as CSR awards, social entrepreneurship awards and MDGs awards are being used to measure companies’ performance and achievements in their contribution to sustainable development in the country.

While CSR practices are making progress in Indonesia, particularly among the MNEs and large national companies, there is still a lot of work to be done in this area in order to ensure that, in general, Indonesian business can give a clear picture to the international community that doing business in Indonesia is becoming more responsible, accountable and transparent based on national and international requirements.

The latest developments that the public and international communities could follow during the last month certainly do not give the kind of signal that Indonesia would need to position itself in a comfortable place within the global market.

Therefore, there is an urgent need for all stakeholders (government, private sector, civil societies, academicians and the media) to take responsible business conduct/corporate social responsibility more seriously so that Indonesian business can improve its image and become a well calculated contender in the global economic market.

Don’t forget that Indonesia has become a member of G20, and that implies that we have to show to the international community that Indonesia is worthy of that position.

Urgent work to be undertaken to put Indonesia on the right track:
1. Further strengthening of CSR awareness and training among MNEs and large national companies and other stakeholders.
2. Improve coordination and cooperation among CSR practitioners and organizations.
3. Strengthening reporting mechanisms and related training programs.
4. Raise awareness on responsible business code of conduct among SMEs and gradually on CSR issues.
5. Work closely with the government on Law No. 40/2008 concerning social and environmental responsibility of limited liability companies in order to ensure that implementation of CSR programs is based on the basic principles of the CSR concept in coordination with the government.
6. Be proactive in the CSR ASEAN Foundation and other international CSR initiatives.

What is happening now in the country should become a wake up call, especially to the public and private sectors, to be more serious in taking the necessary steps to reform our governance and performance as early as possible so that they comply with national and international standards. This would make Indonesia compatible in the global economy, especially since Indonesia now has an honorable place in G20. It is certainly not an easy task but neither is it impossible, if all stakeholders are willing to take the right steps in the right direction.

The writer is an associate of Indonesian Business Links (IBL). He can be reached at J_lokollo@yahoo.com.

The Associated Press ,  Sydney, Australia   |  Tue, 02/23/2010 8:12 AM  |  World

Australia intends to impose tougher visa checks on people from countries considered at high risk for terrorism as part of a 69 million Australian dollar ($62 million) counterterrorism plan released Tuesday.

The new visa requirements, which include mandatory collection of fingerprints and facial imaging data for visa applicants from 10 countries, would help keep terrorists from evading detection, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said in releasing the government’s counterterrorism “white paper” in Canberra.

‘Terrorism has become a persistent and permanent feature of Australia’s security environment,” Rudd said. “Prior to the rise of jihadist terorrism, Australia was not a specific target. Now Australia is such a target.”

Under the plans, the Department of Immigration and Citizenship would begin collecting the fingerprints and facial images this year, and cross-check them with immigration and law enforcement databases in Australia and overseas, the report said. It does not name which countries would be subject to the new requirements.

“We’re not identifying those countries until the rollout occurs,” Foreign Minister Stephen Smith said. “There may be a diplomatic effort required in regards to some of those countries, as you would expect.”

While the report says the primary terrorist threat to Australia comes from a global jihadist movement, including al-Qaida, it also cites a rise in the number of terrorists born or raised in Australia. The government notes the 2005 London suicide bombings carried out by British nationals as an example of the growing threat of locally generated terrorism in Western democracies.

Of the 38 people Australia has prosecuted or are being prosecuted as a result of counterterrorism operations, 37 are Australian citizens, Attorney General Robert McClelland said.

“That is an indication that we are not simply looking at the possibility of a terrorist event occurring from overseas,” he said.

The government plans to establish a counterterrorism control center to coordinate Australia’s domestic and international intelligence efforts.

More than 100 Australians have been killed in terrorist attacks worldwide since 2001.

Putri Prameshwari | The Jakarta Globe

Yogyakarta to be Model for Integrated Mass Transit

Yogyakarta. Transportation Ministry officials declared on Sunday that Yogyakarta would be chosen as a model for seven cities across Indonesia prioritized to have an integrated mass transportation system.

Deputy Transportation Minister Bambang Susantono said Yogyakarta already had the elements needed for integrated mass transportation.

“All it needs is the right system,” he said.

Adisucipto International Airport, Bambang said, is connected with Maguwo train station, with a bus terminal nearby. After getting off a plane passengers can easily step on a train heading to the city or to Solo, he said.

Yogyakarta is the first city in the country to have its airport linked to a train station by a pedestrian tunnel.

Noor Hamidi, chief of state-owned railway operator PT Kereta Api overseeing the Yogyakarta region, said the problem was a lack of enough trains to accommodate passenger volume.

“We have about 12,000 passengers using the Prambanan Express each day,” he said, referring to the commuter train serving the Yogyakarta-Solo route.

Noor said just three trains were used to serve the passengers.

“We have no backup set if one train breaks down,” he said, adding that passenger delays often occurred whenever a train was scheduled for maintenance.

Bambang said that instead of seeing it negatively, Kereta Api should use the opportunity to invite the private sector to enter the industry. “According to a 2007 law, the private sector can join the train industry so this is a chance to improve our railway quality,” he said.

In a meeting with the Yogyakarta regional administration, Kereta Api and state airport operator PT Angkasa Pura I, Bambang said that a smart card — integrated bus and train ticket — must be in use within the year.

“All we have to do is build the smart card system and an integrated transport system in Yogyakarta is good to go,” he said.

Other priority cities include Jakarta, Medan, Surabaya, Makassar, Bandung, and Lampung. All have satellite areas where most people commute to and from every day.

“Except for Makassar, mass transportation in those cities will be railway based,” Bambang said.

Ade Mardiyati | The Jakarta Globe

The poster of the film ‘Mudmax.’

Muddying the Truth: A New Documentary Looks at Sidoarjo

In the time it takes you to read this sentence, the unending mudflow in Sidoarjo, East Java, will have spewed out approximately another 12,000 liters of scalding hot sludge and enough mud will have accumulated to swallow the home of yet another Indonesian family.

For nearly four years now the Sidoarjo mudflow has smothered more than a dozen villages. The homes, factories and farms of local residents have disappeared.

As a result of the mud volcano, nearly 60,000 residents have been left homeless and 100,000 people have been left displaced since the mud started flowing on May 29, 2006.

Also known as Lusi (an contraction of lumpur Sidoarjo , or Sidoarjo mud), the disaster has inflicted almost $5 billion worth of damage, according to one estimate by an Australian expert. And with 70 million liters of mud still pouring out daily the mud flow shows no signs of abating. Fourteen people were killed when a natural gas pipeline under one of the holding dams ruptured.

Dams have been built, along with levees and drainage ditches, while efforts have been made to plug the hole with concrete, but to no avail. So many investigations have been conducted to establish the cause of the mud volcano’s eruption — earthquake or industrial drilling — and the issue of blame has been so hotly contested that the mudflow is clouded in confusion, claim and counterclaim.

PT Lapindo Brantas, an oil and gas company, was drilling a gas exploration well 200 meters from the eruption site when it began. The company is owned by leading businessman and former cabinet minister Aburizal Bakrie, the current chairman of the Golkar Party.

Lapindo has been vociferous in denying that its drilling was the cause, although a weight of scientific investigation has failed to put forth few credible alternative explanations. Some scientists, however, have pointed to a 6.2-magnitude earthquake 280 kilometers away, near Yogyakarta, two days before the flow began.

Into this literal and legal quagmire bravely wades a new documentary on Lusi, “Mud Max: Investigative Documentary — Sidoarjo Mud Volcano Disaster.”

The film received a brief flurry of publicity toward the end of last year when it had a premiere in the United States, but it is now set to reach a wider and much more concerned audience following its Asia-Pacific premiere on Feb. 13 at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney.

Filmed over two and a half years by Immodicus SA in conjunction with the Arizona State University School of Earth and Space Exploration, the nearly 50-minute documentary examines the eruption of the mud volcano and the economic, social and political fallout left in its wake. “We started research in August 2007 and contacted people who were involved, [representatives of] Lapindo and also expert witnesses, and from them we got references of who to contact,” said Ismutia Rahmi, the associate producer and researcher.

Director Gary Hayes said the documentary aimed to cover the facts and views from all sides and ultimately allow viewers to decide for themselves what caused the mudflow.

On one side of the debate stands a team led by Richard Davies at Britain’s Durham University. In early 2007, Davies and others suggested that Lapindo may have been at fault. Research continued, and earlier this month they released a new report containing evidence pointing the finger at human error in drilling procedures as the trigger for the mudflow, with Davies saying he was now 99 percent certain the devastation was man-made.

One the other side of the argument is a team led by Adriano Mazzini, from the University of Oslo in Norway, which believes the disaster was probably due to the Yogyakarta earthquake. “I have a very open mind that the drilling may have done something, but there’s no geological evidence for that,” he said. “The solid evidence indicates an earthquake.”

The executive producer of “Mud Max,” Chris Fong, agreed that the cause remained a mystery, but said he believed the “small group” of people who blame Lapindo Brantas received a lot of publicity.

“They really don’t know what the cause is, they just made assumptions,” he said. “We talked to a lot of scientists about this, we looked at the drilling procedures and we don’t think [Lapindo] did anything wrong.”

While the courts currently agree with him — last year the Supreme Court decided that the mudflow was caused naturally — East Java Police recently said that reopening the case was a possibility in light of the new evidence from the Durham University research, which was published long after “Mud Max” had been released.

Fong said the idea for “Mud Max” was inspired by a report he worked on for a financial institution in early 2007, trying to ascertain the cause. “We did that report and it was interesting because it didn’t establish what the cause was,” Fong said during a news conference before the screening. “But we were led to believe by the media around the world and in Indonesia that it was because of human error in the drilling.”

In producing “Mud Max,” researchers sought out geologists, drilling experts and scientists who had investigated the disaster. Representatives from government and nongovernmental institutions as well as victims also have their say.

It begins with Indonesia’s history of volcanic activity, including the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora on Sumbawa Island in West Nusa Tenggara that claimed 70,000 lives and caused “the year without summer,” and the eruption of Krakatoa 70 years later that killed almost 40,000 people and cooled temperatures around the globe for years.

But while the makers of “Mud Max” said the film was made to offer viewers the facts with which to make their own assessments, not everyone believes the documentary is balanced and some have accused the creators of using funding from Lapindo.

The makers strenuously deny this.

“It’s my own money,” Fong said in a panel discussion after the Sydney screening. “Let’s deal with this as a disaster and manage it properly. The issue of who caused this — whether it was caused by the company or is natural — is not going anywhere.”

Director Gary Hayes echoed these sentiments to the Jakarta Globe. “We weren’t hired by anybody,” he said. “It’s such a tragic event that happened and I thought somebody had to cover it.”

Scheduled for release in Indonesia sometime this year, “Mud Max” will challenge viewers to struggle with questions that have continued to go unanswered since May 2006.

For Davies, though, questions have been superseded by his latest research, which he feels is the strongest evidence to date of a link between the drilling and the mudflow.

“There can be no doubt at all that it was physically impossible for the earthquake to cause this mud volcano,” he said in an interview with British newspaper The Observer. “The disaster was caused by pulling the drill bit out of the hole while the hole was unstable. It’s like pulling up a bicycle pump, it acts like a plunger, sucking the water and gas from the surrounding rock in a way that could not be controlled.”

See the trailer for ‘Mud Max’ at www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sd8ZdQ2MPAQ