By John Brownlee

John Brownlee is The Asia Foundation’s Director of Islam and Development program in Indonesia. He can be reached at jbrownlee@tafindo.org.

In Indonesia, Muslim organizations have long been a force for social and political change, and have been cited by many researchers as playing a leading role in Indonesia’s democratization and in social issues such as gender equality and human rights. In recent years, Muslim organizations have also become involved in efforts to improve the responsiveness of local governments to the needs of the poor and the marginalized. Now, in a world that increasingly recognizes the importance of global warming and other environmental concerns to people’s lives and well-being, it is interesting to take a look at the ways in which Muslim organizations are becoming more involved in environmental protection and their potential for future efforts.

The influence of Islamic organizations comes largely from their size. The two largest mass-based Islamic organizations, Nahdlatul Ulama (NU) and Muhammadiyah, claim a combined following of over 70 million Indonesians, with local branches throughout the country, down to the village level.
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By Robert La Mont and Leopold Sudaryono

Robert La Mont is The Asia Foundation’s Director of the Justice Sector Reform Program in Indonesia and Leopold Sudaryono is The Asia Foundation’s Coordinator of Law Programs in Indonesia. They can be reached at rlamont@tafindo.org and lsudaryono@tafindo.org, respectively.

The Indonesian courts, prosecutor’s office, police, and prisons are all working on their own reform programs. Yet, lack of coordination among them leads to missed opportunities and hinders improvements in the justice sector. Often, a lack of synchronized responses and oversight fuels corruption.

There is an ongoing dispute between police and prosecutors over who has authority for certain types of investigation and certain stages of criminal investigations. (Allegedly, there are also disputes between the two forces over who has the right to collect bribes for getting suspects out of jail.) The police make the initial determination on whether a suspect should be arrested, but the prosecutors can then reverse that decision. As the case progresses, and the time of the initial detention expires, prosecutors are responsible for getting the proper papers to the prisons to release (or extend) suspects in pre-trial detention. Indonesia’s prisons are drastically overcrowded and prison officials complain that prosecutors neglect to bring the proper paperwork. Defense attorneys complain that the paperwork is not forthcoming without a bribe from the prisoners’ families.
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Yuyun Ismawati of Indonesia, a longtime partner of The Asia Foundation’s Environment program, has won the Goldman Environmental Prize, a highly coveted global accolade honoring grassroots environmentalists. Coverage of Yuyun’s recognition has been featured this week on The New York Times, Reuters, BBC News, USA Today, and the San Francisco Chronicle.

As the world celebrates Earth Day today, The Asia Foundation honors the countless individuals working on environment issues in their own back yard, one step at a time. Awarded annually to honor grassroots environmentalists, the Goldman Environmental Prize recognizes their sustained and significant efforts to protect and enhance the natural environment.

Yuyun Ismawati, director of Bali Fokus Foundation, an Indonesian non-governmental organization working on environmental management, pollution control and prevention, and sustainable development issues, won the 2009 Goldman Prize for Island Nations, and is a longtime partner to The Asia Foundation. Yuyun’s environmental projects first received support from the Foundation in 1996. Since that time, she has worked to overcome one of Indonesia’s biggest environmental threats: waste management in Bali, one of the world’s premier tourist destinations.

Photo: Will Parrinello

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By Robin Bush

Robin Bush is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Indonesia. She can be reached at rbush@tafindo.org. She has recently been quoted in Newsweek, Time, Christian Science Monitor, Financial Times, and Radio France International.

On April 9, Indonesian voters went to the polls for the third general elections since the country transitioned to democracy 10 years ago. The official results of the elections will not be known for possibly up to one month, but multiple quick counts indicate the big winner was the party of the current President – Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, with Partai Demokrat (PD), taking 21 percent of the vote. There was a healthy gap between the lead party and the next two runners-up – Golkar and the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) coming in at approximately 15 percent and 14 percent, respectively. Four main Islamic parties occupied the next level, with PKS, PAN, PPP, and PKB coming in between 5-8 percent. Finally, two new parties, Gerindra and Hanura, led by New Order era ex-generals, Prabowo and Wiranto, took between 3-4 percent of the vote. Only these 9 parties surpassed the threshold of 2.5 percent required to gain seats in Parliament – the remaining 29 parties will be unable to seat legislative candidates and be unable to contest the next elections in 2014.

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By Jeremy Gross

Jeremy Gross is The Asia Foundation’s Election Program Manager in Indonesia. He can be reached at jeremy@tafindo.org. For more on Indonesia’s elections, The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Indonesia, Robin Bush, discusses the loss of momentum for the Prosperous Justice party (PKS), the country’s most orthodox Islamic political party, in the Financial Times.

How to define a “good” election? Obviously everyone wants a peaceful, free, and fair election process. To strengthen accountability and make sure voters know what choices they have, they must also have sufficient information about the candidates in order to be able to make an informed choice on Election Day.

In Indonesia, the big question everyone is asking is: What will happen on April 9, when 171 million registered voters head to polling stations to elect representatives to the two houses of the national parliament, as well as their provincial and district legislatures?
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By Laurel MacLaren

Laurel MacLaren is The Asia Foundation’s Deputy Country Representative in Indonesia. She can be reached at lmaclaren@tafindo.org.

A decade ago, when Indonesia launched an ambitious program to place a midwife in every one of Indonesia’s 70,000 villages, the country got international recognition for its bold programming move. But how quickly is Indonesia making progress on health, particularly as related to its commitment to the United Nations Millennium Development Goal (MDG) to reduce maternal mortality?

It’s election season in Indonesia, and during two recent meet-the-candidate sessions in Surabaya, East Java, women legislative candidates faced a range of tough questions on health from their constituents. They asked how would they improve access to health services? How would they address domestic violence through the health system? How would they increase budget allocations for health? They asked about family planning, about reproductive health, about child and adolescent health, as well as HIV/AIDS.
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By Jeremy Gross

Jeremy Gross is the The Asia Foundation’s Elections Program Manager in Indonesia. He can be reached at jeremy@tafindo.org.

Deep in Dolly, the red-light district of Surabaya, East Java, four women were sitting patiently. Onstage next to them were two dancers in tight, low-cut spandex costumes, swinging to the beat of dangdut music, while an old crooner with bouffant hair provided the vocals.

As the women waited, light from flashing Bintang beer signs shone upon their clean, pressed clothes. Ignoring the heat of the day, more and more punters poured into this dubious café, its black walls broken only by intermittent advertisements for Guinness beer. Within a short while, over 100 people were in the café, sitting on wobbly school-style chairs or standing wherever they could find a space, waiting with anticipation and excitement.

Suddenly, it was time for the four women sitting up front to take the stage. One woman loudly addressed the standing-room-only crowd that had gathered: “Friends and candidates who I love, my name is Reni Astuti and I am the candidate for PKS, the Prosperous Justice Party.” She was joined by candidates from the Democrat Party, the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P), and the Golkar Party.
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By Hana A. Satriyo

Hana Satriyo is The Asia Foundation’s Director of Gender and Women’s Participation in Indonesia. She can be reached at hsatriyo@tafindo.org.

March 8 is celebrated around the world as International Women’s Day. This historic day reminds us that the long struggle of the women’s movement for equal rights has not been easy and, in fact, is not yet over. In Indonesia, the theme for the 2009 International Women’s Day was “Supporting Women Candidates for Parliament.”  Indeed, as the country will conduct legislative elections on April 9th, electing representatives for national, provincial, and district level legislatures, this theme is very timely and appropriate.

In the Indonesian context, the theme is highly relevant. Women are still extremely under-represented in public and political institutions in Indonesia. At present, Indonesia only has four female ministers out of 34 cabinet members. Out of 33 governors across the country, there is only one elected female governor. Indonesia only has one female Supreme Court judge, and there are only 63 women members in the National Parliament (DPR) out of the total 550 representatives.

One may argue, and many have done so, that the sex of a member of parliament (MP) or a minister is not important. However, the reality on the ground shows that there are very few men who are sensitive to women’s issues and are able to bring the interests of women and marginalized citizens into the center of political discussions at the Parliament or in the cabinet.

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By Roderick Brazier

Roderick Brazier is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Cambodia. He can be reached at rbrazier@asiafound.org.

Roderick Brazier gives a touching farewell to a dedicated Asia historian and fellow countryman, Andrew Symon.  The below is an excerpt and link to the full article in The Jakarta Post.

Late in 1996, a disheveled beanpole of a man approached me in the Jakarta offices of The Castle Group (now Castle Asia). Sweaty, and panting after a walk through Jakarta’s mad streets, Andrew Symon was eager to tell me about his just-completed report on Indonesia’s chronic infrastructure failures. Before he’d even introduced himself, Andrew was worriedly bemoaning Indonesia’s creaking bridges, potholed roads and corrupt ports. He shook his head in sorrow at the emergent bottleneck that would surely crimp economic growth.

Read the full op-ed in the The Jakarta Post. 

By Robin Bush

Robin Bush is The Asia Foundation’s Country Representative in Indonesia. She can be reached at rbush@tafindo.org.

The significance of U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s Asia tour has been a topic of great discussion in the media over the past week. Including Indonesia as a stop on her first trip as America’s top diplomat, signals the growing importance of Southeast Asia to the United States, and, for Indonesians, it seemed to pay tribute to the country’s hard-won political freedoms over the past decade. In Indonesia, the implications of Secretary Clinton’s visit, the timing of it, the sequence (after Japan and before China), the visitors she met (Muslim leaders carefully interspersed with ’secular’ civil society actors and women activists), and certainly every word she uttered, has been analyzed from every angle imaginable in the country’s vibrant, free press.

The prevailing analysis here is overwhelmingly positive; the bilateral relationship seems to have not only thawed but warmed to a positively toasty degree. Initial outcomes of the visit include quick gains for both Indonesia and the U.S.: university scholarships in science and technology for the Indonesians, and the possible resumption of the Peace Corps program - consistently rejected by the government of Indonesia since the 1960s - for the Americans.
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