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About Open Government Partnership and Independent Reporting Mechanism

Thursday, February 18, 2016

Background
Corruption is one of the most serious problem that Indonesia currently have. To fight corruption, do citizen empowerment, and strengthening the governance is important to create a better country, to make a better life for all of the citizen. In order to achieve that, since 2011 Indonesia government partnered with Open Government Partnership (OGP), a voluntary international initiative that aims to secure commitments from governments to their citizenry to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and harness new technologies to strengthen governance.

OGP Process
Indonesia as countries participating in OGP has to follow a process for consultation during the development of their action plan, and during implementation.
In this 2014-2015 period, Indonesia has reached its third national plan, where the scope has been expanded. There was even called SOLUSIMU, a contest where citizens could submit their ideas for improving public services for inclusion in the Action Plan, to make the betterment on the exclusivity-hole from the previous process on the previous period. However, the lack of advance notice, lack of evidence of consultation events, and lack of clarity on the incorporation of citizen-generated ideas in the action plan undermined the government’s increased public participation efforts.
Core Team meetings served as the multi-stakeholder consultation forum. It is found that there still was very little meaningful consultation and collaboration between government and wider civil society on the commitment implementation. The Core Team meetings then focused on raising awareness of the OGP process, and increasing public participation especially through SOLUSIMU contest, but the team did not publicize or track progress on commitments.

Methodological note
In Indonesia, The Independent Reporting Mechanism of OGP has partnered with Mohammad Mova Al’Afghani of Centre for Regulation, Policy, and Governance (CRPG), that carried out the evaluation of the development and implementation of this Indonesia’s third action plan. CRPG reviewed the government’s self-assesment report, gathered the views of civil society, and interviewed related government officials and stakeholders. After that, OGP staff and a panel of experts reviewed the report.
CPRG reviewed three key documents prepared by the government: a report on Indonesia’s third action plan submitted to the OGP portal in 2014, the internal document detailing action plan commitments and milestones published in Bahasa Indonesian in April 2015, and the government self-assessment report (GSAR) published in April 2015.
A stakeholder forum in FGD model was organized in Jakarta by The IRM researcher and Medialink, a civil society organization (CSO), in order to gather the opinion of multiple stakeholders.
Report Coverage
This report covers the first year of implementation of Indonesia’s third action plan, 7 November 2014 through 31 July 2015. Beginning in 2015, the IRM also publishes end of term reports to account for the final status of progress at the end of the action plan’s two-year period. This report follows on two earlier reviews of OGP performance, “Indonesia Progress Report 2011-2013” and “Indonesia Special Accountability Report 2013.” These reports covered the development and implementation of the first action plan as well as the development and implementation of the second action plan from 1 January 2013 through 31 December 2013.




 

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Mengenal Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)






Tahukah anda bahwa persistent organic pollutants dapat mengakibatkan berbagai masalah kesehatan diantaranya gangguan pada sistem hormon, gangguan pada sistem reproduksi, obesitas, penyakit kardiovaskuler serta penyakit jantung?

Apa itu Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs)? POPs adalah bahan kimia yang berbahaya bagi manusia, hewan dan lingkungan. POPs memiliki beberapa sifat:  tahan urai (persistent), terakumulasi dalam tubuh dan beracun. 

Karena bahayanya, POPs diatur dalam Konvensi Stockholm. Berikut adalah contoh dari POPs, yang diberi nama "dirty dozen", yang merupakan 12 daftar bahan kimia pertama yang di klasifikasikan dalam Konvensi Stockholm. 


Berbagai negara telah meratifikasi Konvensi Stockholm, termasuk Indonesia.


CRPG pada saat ini sedang melakukan pengkajian regulasi bahan kimia di Indonesia, khususnya mengenai POPs dan PCB, bekerjasama dengan UNIDO dan Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup dan Kehutanan.

 

Anti-Privatisation Debates, Opaque Rules and ‘Privatised’ Water Services Provision: Some Lessons from Indonesia

Monday, February 15, 2016

This was from a conference in IDS, Sussex, back in 2011, published in the IDS Bulletin in 2012. I found out that Wiley (the publisher) and IDS has opened access to this paper.


Enjoy the paper by clicking here.

 

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Indonesia OGP IRM Report Public Comment Period

Saturday, February 13, 2016


The Indonesian 2014 IRM Progress Report have been opened for Public Comment since January.

At a glance, Indonesia's achievement with the Open Government is as follows:




Download the English version here and the Bahasa Indonesia version here. 

 

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PCBs Regulations in United States of America


In the USA, PCBs are regulated in the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), acts that controls the usage of dangerous materials, like 15 U.S.C. §2601 et seq., as amended.

TSCA directs the Administrator of USEPA to promulgate regulations, using the least burdensome requirements possible, to govern the manufacture, processing, distribution in commerce, use, or disposal of a chemical substance or mixture, or any combination of such activities, if there is a reasonable basis to conclude that such activity presents or will present an “unreasonable risk of injury to health or the environment.”  15 U.S.C. §2605(a).

One of the unique concepts in TSCA is the directive for USEPA to consider whether a risk is unreasonable in promulgating the regulations and in granting applications for alternative use, storage, and disposal options.  TSCA §6(e), 15 U.S.C. §2605(c).

 In evaluating whether or not a risk is reasonable, USEPA considers the probability that a regulatory action will harm health or the environment, and the costs and benefits to society that are likely to result from the action.  In other words, USEPA must protect against unreasonable risks from PCBs by providing cost-effective and environmentally protective options that reduce exposure to PCBs. 

 

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Getting to Know PCBs Regulations in Indonesia

Monday, February 8, 2016




What are PCBs?

Polychlorinated Byphenils, PCBs in short, are a group of man-made chemicals. PCBs have been widely used in the past, mainly in electronical equipments. The commercial production of PCBs started in 1929, but their use has been banned or restricted in many countries since the 1970s because of the possible risks to human health and environment.

PCBs are generally very stable, and are resistant to acids and bases as well as to heat. They have been used as an insulating material in electric equipment, such as transformers and capacitors. PCBs have also been used in wide range of products such as plasticizers, surface coatings, inks, and carbonless duplicating paper.
Since 1929 around 2 million tons of PCBs have been produced, and about 10% of which still remain today because of their stability.

PCBs can persist in the environment and accumulate in animals and along the food-chain. Humans may be exposed to PCBs by ingesting contaminated food and water or inhaling contaminated air. In the human body PCBs can remain in fatty tissues and in the liver and may be transferred from mother to child through the placenta or breast milk. The speed at which PCBs are transformed in the body and the extent to which they are either stored or excreted depend on the type of PCB.
Studies on humans and animals have shown harmful effects on fertility. Furthermore,of the child during pregnancy or through breast-feeding can affect its development. Effects on the immune system have been observed in animals, in children exposed to PCBs during development in the womb, and in adults exposed through PCB-contaminated food. Groups of workers that have been exposed to high levels of PCBs



PCBs Regulations in Indonesia

In Indonesia, there is no regulations that specifically regulates PCBs. PCBs are categorized as hazardous and toxic substances (limbah B3). In general, the regulations can be found in Law No. 32/2009 about Environmental Protection Management, GR No. 74/2001 on Hazardous Toxic and Substance Management, GR No. 101/2014 on Hazardous Waste and Toxic Management.

Gap Analysis and Recommendations
However, there still are many holes in the term of PCBs, such as :
1. The existing regulations do not have clear definitions regarding articles and/or equipment containing/contaminated with PCBs as a hazardous materials.
2. They do not have clear status regarding articles and/prg equipment containing/contaminated with PCBs, whether should it be treated as hazardous waste, prohibited to be imported, or hazardous materials, etc.
3. There is no regulation that specifically prohibits, control, and regulate the distribution, and import of PCBs mixture, and equipment that containing/contaminated with PCBs to Indonesia, as GR No. 74/2001 only regulates about PCBs as chemicals.
4. There has not been guideline standard (e.g SNI) on regarding PCBs treshold limit in the equipment/articles.
5. The policy regarding to PCB management is not yet related with different sector and ministries
6. Lastly, there has not been any policy regarding unintentional release of PCB to the environments.

Regarding to those matters, we recommend :
1. For government to issue regulations that specifically prohibits the import of PCB (as chemical substance);
2.To clarify the status of articles and/or equipment containing/contaminated with PCBs. Whether should it be treated as hazardous waste, prohibited to be imported, etc.;
3. To formulate standard regarding the PCBs threshold limit in equipment/articles (especially in the consumer products);
4. To formulate a guideline regarding the environmentally sound management of PCBs (the technical one);
5. To formulate policy and measures to reduce or eliminate PCBs releases from unintentional production;
6. To discuss the role and function of B3 commission in this matter;
7. To discuss whether there is a discretion for specific ministry to prohibit the import/use/distribution of new PoP's subtance.




References :
Internal source
What are PCBs, accessed from http://www.greenfacts.org/en/pcbs/l-2/1-polychlorinated-biphenyls.htm#0 on Feb 6th, 2016