Photo by Ron Lach on Pexels.com Floods across Indonesia in 2025, stretching from Sumatra to Java, have been among the most severe hydrometeorological disasters the country has seen in decades. Hundreds of people have died, and infrastructure has suffered heavy damage. More than a million residents in Aceh, North Sumatra, and West Sumatra were directly … Lanjutkan membaca Climate is part of the problem, but spatial planning also plays a major role.
When Heavy Rain Paralyses Cities: Climate-Resilient Infrastructure Determines a City’s Global Competitiveness
Photo by Jeffry Surianto on Pexels.com Recent heavy rainfall has once again brought major Indonesian cities like Jakarta and Bandung to a halt. Flooded streets, long traffic jams, and disrupted commutes are now common during rush hour. These events are often treated as seasonal phenomena, but they reveal how vulnerable urban systems are to increasing … Lanjutkan membaca When Heavy Rain Paralyses Cities: Climate-Resilient Infrastructure Determines a City’s Global Competitiveness
Why building infrastructure only isn’t enough
A country’s strength is not measured by how much it builds, but by whether its public services still function when crisis strikes
Infrastructure can drive growth, but social outcomes are conditional
Photo by Kelly on Pexels.com Building infrastructure is difficult. Building a city is harder.Roads and buildings can be delivered on schedule, but a city only comes alive when its social systems, such as jobs, housing, and public spaces, work for the people who live there. Research in development economics shows that infrastructure investment supports economic … Lanjutkan membaca Infrastructure can drive growth, but social outcomes are conditional
How Indonesia’s new capital can turn sustainability from rhetoric into reality through infrastructure.
Infrastructure is not just what we build for today, but what we leave behind for those who must live with its consequences.
AI can make bureaucracy faster but without institutional reform, it won’t make government smarter
Governments around the world, including Indonesia, are embracing artificial intelligence to improve public services. But international evidence shows that AI boosts productivity only when civil servants retain decision-making authority and institutions invest in data governance and human capability. Without those reforms, technology risks accelerating old bureaucratic problems rather than solving them.
Why economic growth targets can turn progress into a policy dogma
The real danger is not failing to grow, but growing so confidently that we stop asking where we are heading
Why Indonesia’s Productivity Problem is not about Workers, but about Policy
Productivity reflects the state’s capacity to make coherent decisions, allocate resources effectively, and create incentives for value creation
Economic Growth and the Limits of Development: Lessons from Sumatra
At the national level, the imbalance is even more apparent. With Indonesia’s GDP at about IDR 20,000 trillion, an extra 3 percentage points of growth would add roughly IDR 600 trillion. Yet a single major disaster in Sumatra has already erased more than one-tenth of that additional value in just weeks. This calculation covers only one region, one disaster, and one period.
Books I Read This Year that Impressed Me Most
Reflecting on my reading this year, I recognise that my selections reveal a deliberate effort to examine and question the assumptions underlying today's society. Rather than seeking comfort or motivation, I chose books that enabled me to critically engage with concepts like progress, merit, rationality, and the moral narratives that contemporary societies use to justify … Lanjutkan membaca Books I Read This Year that Impressed Me Most
Deep Planning 