No abstract

In the global south, the use of firewood and LPG as dominant energy sources for cooking contributes to socio-ecological issues. Alternatively, biogas is considered a clean energy source generated from organic waste. However, in Indonesia, until 2018, only less than 2% of households utilized biogas for cooking fuel. This research aims to explore the landscape of biogas governance in Indonesia, its fragmentation, and its relation with biodigester dissemination. This study found that there is fragmentation within small-medium scale national biogas programs in Indonesia. Seven national government biogas programs have similar governance arrangements and characteristics; scattered in different departments within the ministry, using the grant approach with two main vendors, often overlapping with local government programs, and not providing proper monitoring and evaluation mechanism, as well as proper training for users. Meanwhile, the biogas program by a non-government organization utilizes a semi-commercial approach; collaborating with multiple stakeholders (governments, local construction partner organizations, cooperatives, and private sectors-companies and banks); and has standardized training and after-sale services. Within those biogas programs, there are multiple barriers along the supply chain process of biodigester dissemination. These barriers relate to the governance aspect of biogas programs. Fragmented governance affected the capability of each program to tackle barriers in biogas digester dissemination. Besides, heavy subsidy on LPG by the government reduced attraction to biogas. This study shows technology adoption barriers beyond the user/individual aspects. It shows interaction among different factors such as policy, the governance of technology transfer, technical production issues, and socio-cultural problems.

Biogas technology to support rural livelihoods and low-carbon development has been developed in different projects and programs in the Global South over the last few decades. However, the existence of multiple projects, actors and designs involved may lead to so-called fragmentation in governance. This research addresses the fragmented governance amongst the biogas programmes in Indonesia to study their impact on the implementation; the numbers of biodigesters disseminated and knowledge transferred. Drawing on concepts of fragmentation, regime effectiveness, and policy output, the research uses data from interviews with relevant actors, supplemented with documents review. Findings show that the governance architecture of biogas regime in Indonesia consists of different types of biogas programmes championed by different types of actors pursuing different objectives. There had been patterns and periodical shifts of configuration within the Indonesian biogas regime, i.e., from administrative fragmentation (2007–2009), to conflictive fragmentation (2010–2012), to cooperative fragmentation (2013–2016), and reduced fragmentation (2017). Shifting from administrative to cooperative fragmentation resonates with the increase of the number of biodigesters dissemination more than fourfold in ten years, from 800 in 2007, to 37,999 in 2016. The distribution of power within the governance architecture among government bodies, NGOs, and the private sector influenced the speed of implementation and innovation of the biogas programs. This suggests that a higher degree of distribution of power and cooperation within a governance architecture contribute to increasing policy output of the regime complex of renewable energy.

This study assessed critical aspects in the governance of peatland restoration in South Sumatra and its possible impacts. This province has experienced dynamic land-use change and fires on its 1.2 million hectares (ha) of peatlands since 1997. Our study draws on qualitative, spatial, and quantitative data; interviews with key stakeholders; direct observation; academic literature; experimental modeling; open data platforms; and reviews of policy and project reports. These data were analyzed with the help of theoretical frameworks describing the vulnerabilities and risk governance strategies (Giesen and Sari 2018;Renn 2017;Simon and Dooling 2013).Vulnerabilities exist in political and material forms; thus, risk governance is needed. Political vulnerability is the inability of policymakers and stakeholders to deal with the complexity of governance that often results in poorly judged interventions and leads to unintended impacts, such as wildfires, on peatland. These impacts are known as material vulnerabilities. Governance reform, such as better data for planning, suitable institutional arrangements, and more coordination and enforcement in implementation, is needed to stop these vulnerabilities. These topics are included in the risk governance framework as a strategy to cope with the uncertainties inherent in complex socio-environmental actions such as peatland restoration. The risk governance framework covers aspects within the governance cycle-from planning to implementation and monitoring. It includes evaluating policy and governance practices that cause vulnerabilities, understanding stakeholders' perceptions of risk, creating robust institutional arrangements, assessing and evaluating risks, implementing risk management, monitoring, and communicating and coordinating all aspects.By using those frameworks, we evaluated the governance of peatland restoration and developed recommendations for improving risk governance strategies to prevent fires. We offer a new direction for peatland stakeholders-such as the government, plantation companies, and civil society groups-to improve the performance of policies and peatland governance in Indonesia, and perhaps in other tropical countries, to support sustainable peatland management to mitigate climate change.