Rancana Aksi National – Perubahan Iklim (RAN-API) is Indonesia’s national action plan on climate change adaptation. It identifies two key areas of climate change and their impacts on livelihoods. These two areas are increases in sea level and changes in weather, climate, and rainfall. Increasing sea level rise impacts fisheries, marine economies, and agriculture. Changes in weather, climate, and rainfall impacts health (vector borne disease and respiratory illness from fire), water availability, and contributes to natural disaster. Bappenas – the ministry of national development planning – implements RAN-API.

Indonesia has 17,504 officially listed islands. Sea level rise is especially threatening in this archipelago country; it is the 14th largest country in the world but has the 3rd most coastline. This increases exposure to sea level rise. Combatting flooding and erosion is essential to increase resiliency to climate change. Floods and drought will be intensified by changing weather, climate and rainfall patterns. Some key adaptation and resiliency strategies include: promoting farming practices which are flexible to changing weather and water conditions, building infrastructure to secure water sources and prevent flooding, develop warning systems for natural disasters, flood-proofing homes, preventing deforestation, and increasing community access to finance, training, and the planning of resiliency programs.

An effective adaptation policy will increase resiliency in sectors, as they often overlap and coincide. For example, resiliency in food security must entail promoting farmer access to agricultural technologies, providing training on how to reduce soil erosion, building embankment infrastructure, and ensuring community involvement in all projects. RAN-API covers the broader and overlapping categories of economic, social and livelihood, ecosystem, and special area resilience. It then breaks these categories into the types of resiliency programs and strategies. RAN-API also lays out coordination among different ministries and with local/regional governments. Working at the regional and village level is key in Indonesia’s decentralizing democracy. RAN-API also develops a vulnerability indication and evaluation system to determine what adaptation activity is necessary in each area. RAN-API is a strong adaptation policy.

Although RAN-API meets the criteria of a good adaptation policy, coordination between agencies and with sub-national jurisdictions is poor. Urban planners from seven Indonesian cities were interviewed in a report by ACCCRN (Asian Cities Climate Change Resilience Network). These planners want to see greater climate change awareness at the local level, better coordination between the public and private sector, greater capacity development at the local level (including institutional capacity, workshops and adequate training), financing to vulnerable and developing communities, technology and information provision to fishermen and to other livelihoods affected by climate change, and community participation in adaptation development through Musrenbang – a participatory public forum. Indonesia is standing still on climate change adaptation. Until the national government, particularly Bappenas, works more with local governments and increases financing to adaptation projects, its ambitious national adaptation policy will continue to be all bark and no bite.

ACCCRN reports that in 2018, city governments and the national government are starting to prioritize “climate change resilience into their agendas”. This nudge in the right direction is far too late and nowhere near where it should be. Indonesia is standing still on RAN-API. When Indonesia improves coordination between agencies, coordination with different levels of government, and secures greater financing of climate change adaptation projects, Climate Scorecard can give a moving forward rating to Indonesia on its adaptation policy.

Contact Bappenas and push them to implement RAN-API. Indonesia cannot stand still on adaptation to climate change.

Reach out to your member of parliament and stress the importance of financing climate change adaptation programs and understanding how climate change will impact your MP’s constituents.

Send Action Alert Message

Submit the following message to RAN-API:

Climate change adaptation requires all ministries to work together. Resilience to climate change is not possible when one sector falls behind the others. When the ministry of forestry and environment does not monitor for illegal logging which create hotspots, the disaster management agency cannot predict which areas might catch fire during an El Nino year. When the disaster management agency does not catch fires in time, the ministry of health has to handle more cases of respiratory illness. Increased vulnerability from health issues will decrease resiliency overall. To adapt to climate change, all sectors must work together. Strong agency coordination will enable holistic and flexible responses to climate change. These solutions will be improved by consulting communities on local climate change impacts and areas of vulnerability. Bappenas must coordinate the government agencies and have each one develop an adaptation plan. Bappeans must also center cities, regencies, and villages in the development of adaptation plans.
Contact form: https://www.bappenas.go.id/en/kontak/

Send the following sample message to your member of parliament:

Climate change adaptation must be a priority in the budget of parliament. Put forward programs to adapt to climate change, especially increasing resilience to floods, droughts, and sea level rise. Push climate change adaptation to the top of the agenda. Outside of parliament, reach out to the regencies and villages you represent and learn where vulnerabilities may occur from climate change. Get involved in Musrenbang to inform your constituents of climate change adaptation and get feedback on what needs improvement. Climate change is impacting communities in Indonesia already. You must understand what its impacts have been, how those impacts will change in the future, and what can be done to secure a good standard of living for your constituents.

Find your parliament member here: http://www.dpr.go.id/anggota

Further Reading:

RAN-API: http://dp2m.umm.ac.id/files/file/National%20Action%20Plan%20Addressing%20Climate%20Change.pdf
Climate change adaptation strategies for Indonesia: http://www.onlynaturalenergy.com/2018/02/climate-change-adaptation-strategies-for-indonesia/
ACCCRN report: http://pubs.iied.org/pdfs/10712IIED.pdf