Asia Pacific Hub Training is Underway in Indonesia

event Published at: 2015-10-19

Asia Pacific Knowledge Hub annual training course on “Improving the Governance of Extractive Industries” activities kick off on 19-31 October 2015 at Universitas Gadjah Mada, Yogyakarta. In two weeks, 27 participants from eight countries – including Indonesia, Myanmar, Philippines, Timor Leste, Dominica Republic, Tunisia, Germany, and United Kingdom – are taking part in batch 3 training course.

The participants compound from policy makers, actors of civil society organizations, journalist and other innovative agents of change. They are coming for learning from the experts as well as sharing knowledge and experiences of extractive industries governance in respective countries. Indonesia and Myanmar take the biggest number of the group of participants. Therefore, an ongoing task for the course design is acknowledging the variation among the countries characterized by participants. It is a challenge to assist participants is able to apply knowledge from the course in their home setting.

As a first step, trainers conveyed participants mapping out problems and cases regarding extractive sectors and mining cases from their respective countries. Resource persons who are involved as trainers are representing different perspectives and areas of expertise regarding the extractive sectors and resource governance. The structure of course aims to provide participants with an overview of key policy reform for better governance on extractive industries.

The batch 3 course addresses five major topics of interest, including Socio-environmental Impact, Getting a Good Deal & Fiscal Regime, Managing Revenue, Standard and Practices in Public Participation (Case of EITI), and Coalition for Reform. In a part of local content understanding, course brought participants to Bojonegoro District, East Java Province to acquire local government’s innovation in overcoming the impact of oil and gas industries, as well as meet local people to learn community’s resilience in struggling preserving their livelihood in the affected social-environmental situation. In the second week, participants are going to present a panel discussion on theme “Local Resource Curse” to acknowledge various models and strategies to overwhelm the curse.

This course is organized and developed by Department Politics and Governance, Universitas Gadjah Mada, Indonesia and the Natural Resource Governance Institute (NRGI). The National Seminar on “Oil and Gas Governance Policy Reform in Indonesia” was opening the series of the course event on Monday, (19/10). In the opening speech, the Rector of Universitas Gadjah Mada, Prof Dwikorita Karnawati stated, “Oil and gas governance is essential for energy security as well social welfare. Due to the high risk investment, it is important to anticipate and overcome the impact to the environment and the communities.” Relating to the social and political situation in resource rich country, Purwo Santoso, Director of Asia Africa Knowledge Hub Program at Department Politic and Governance said that policy reform is essential for the strategic role of the state.

“As it is launched as energy barn, Indonesia does not have enough power supply for the people in the whole country. There is frequently power failure in the remote villages. That’s the reason governance study is wider than corruption eradication, but need to concern in oil and gas governance for protection of people’s right for adequate energy.” Purwo told to forum.  

The national seminar brought prominent policy makers in oil and gas industry, as well as actors of civil society organizations, including Special Staff of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Widyawan Prawiraatmaja, Vice President of upstream Oil and Gas Regulatory Task Force (SKK Migas) Zikrullah, Senior Vice President Exploration, Upstream Directorate PT Pertamina Doddy Priambodo, Vice Governor of Bangka Belitung Province Hidayat Arsani, Head of Energy and Mineral Resources of Bojonegoro Agus Supriyanto, Head of Research and Development of The Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK) Denny Rifky Purwana, Director of Legal and Economic Programs Patrick Heller. (isw)