Mainstreaming climate change finance
 | Indonesia has signaled its willingness to commit to policies to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Currently, Indonesia is thought to be the largest global emitter of carbon dioxide from deforestation. Indonesia could attract significant financial flows for climate change mitigation and adaptation. A crucial factor underpinning such future financial flows will be actual change in policies at the central and regional level. This project will examine how the central government can improve its economic governance framework to tap into international financial investments flowing into climate change projects. It will also consider how to assure that financial flows reach the regions (provinces and districts), and that they are used at the local level for climate related purposes. |
Farming at the forest frontier
 | This research will develop institutional models for smallholder decision-making processes at the forest frontier in Sumatra and Sulawesi, where coffee expansion continues to drive forest loss. In doing so, this collaboration will identify the potential for incorporating varied modes of informal (non-state) institutional regulation within formal environmental policy in Indonesia. The informal modes of regulation referred to include product certification, payments for environmental services schemes, corporate codes of conduct and local trust-based conventions. |
Linking pro-poor policy and oil palm cultivation
 | The high global demand for oil palm products, coupled with the policies that aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions by promoting biofuels, has triggered an enormous surge in palm oil demand. At the same time there is a pressing need for better governance processes for land tenure, to provide more equitable institutional arrangements for landowner engagement with oil palm production, to address rural poverty, and to diminish the increasing number of land-related conflicts occurring during this rapid agrarian transition. Via a comparative analysis of two areas experiencing unprecedented agrarian change, this research will analyse how recently reformed governance processes can be improved to generate better pro-poor outcomes for landowners. |
