Dear readers,
A Happy New Year to you! I hope you were able to recharge over the holidays and ready to take on 2021!
Indonesia starts the year with a new cabinet line-up. A move by President Joko Widodo to show that he’s gaining a better grip on handling the pandemic. In addition to a new Health Minister, other newly appointed ministers come from Indonesia’s business and investment establishments. It signals that Joko Widodo is focused on pulling Indonesia out of recession.
For CIPS we are focused on two things this year; livelihoods and vaccination efforts.
On the vaccine front, Indonesia approved the Sinovac vaccine for emergency use this week. We are the first country outside of China to do so.
However, we see that the government is overlooking available science for the Sinovac vaccine. Critics fear full trial results and datasets have not been transparent. Indonesia found a 65% efficacy rate but sources in Brazil claim it is actually less than 60%.
Getting every Indonesian inoculated is a monumental task. Logistics pose a huge challenge as current vaccine options require ultra-cold storage. For a tropical archipelagic nation with weak infrastructure, one can expect this to take a few years.
Here, CIPS intends to provide policy ideas for policymakers to support efficient and safe vaccination rollouts.
Sadly, 1.63 million Indonesians fell into poverty in 2020. The second and equally important front of the COVID crisis is finding ways for Indonesians to access a liveable income.
CIPS sees Indonesia’s exciting digital economy as an important avenue to open new opportunities for those who have lost jobs and incomes. Indonesia needs to establish regulations that promote trust and inclusiveness to maximise these benefits.
To this end, we’ll soon be launching our latest policy paper, Co-Regulating Indonesia’s Digital Economy. The paper will offer regulatory approaches that take into account the digital sectors’ constant shifts and innovations.
The English version of the paper will be launched in collaboration with the Center for International Private Enterprise on 3rd February. Sign up here to receive direct updates on the launch. The Indonesian version will be launched on 21st January.
We won’t stop there. In the pipeline are a set of policy briefs on key digital economy issues; data privacy, cybersecurity, user-generated content, and digital taxation. In addition, two more studies on women entrepreneurship in e-commerce, ensuring consumer protection in P2P lending, and regulations for online sales of alcoholic beverages are in our pipeline.
Indonesia faces huge challenges in 2021 and CIPS intends to play its part. To rebuild people’s livelihoods, but also to find policy solutions that enable Indonesians to withstand future crises.
With you, our collaborators, partners, and donors, we are confident we can find solutions for these immense challenges.
Salam hangat,
Rainer Heufers
Executive Director
Don't forget to check out and download our policy papers here. Through these papers, we present evidence-based arguments to recommend policy changes that focus on building prosperity and better livelihoods for low-income Indonesians.
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