Unlocking the interaction of social restriction and social protection in Indonesia’s COVID-19 policy: future risk and adaptation

ABSTRACT

The Indonesian government has issued hundreds of regulations and policies to deal with the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These various policies and regulations assess how a government responds, mitigates, and prevents systemic crises in its country. These decisions- and policy-making processes are largely determined by the country’s unique socioeconomic and political landscape. This paper reviewed 875 regulations issued by the Indonesian government at the national level in 2020–2022 to determine which policies have the most direct social, economic, and health impact on the Indonesian population. We highlight social protection to explore the challenges and opportunities to respond future risk by taking benefit from progressive effort of the Indonesian government to protect all Indonesian populations with the priority of the most vulnerable groups. This paper aims to map out government policies and regulations in handling the pandemic and exploring the potential opportunities for adaptation to respond future risk. The study is based on expert group discussion and policy mapping. As one of the findings of the investigation, this paper discusses the interaction between large-scale and micro-scale social restriction and social protection policies, which are considered the foremost solutions for handling Indonesia’s more severe economic crisis and facing current and future risks, including climate change impact. While social protection is one of the massive strategies to relieve economic impact to the most affected group, effectiveness and success are still challenges concerning data. This paper also provides important notes regarding climate change adaptation and how the government must respond to future risks.

KEYWORDS:

• COVID-19
• policy mapping
• social restrictions
• social protections
• future risks

Introduction

On 11 March 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) had officially declared the outbreak of the coronavirus or Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) as a global pandemic (Shultz et al. 2020). Entering the third quarter of 2020, COVID-19 is still a severe threat to the world (Chaudhary et al. 2020). The shift in the epicentre of COVID-19 towards primarily populated countries such as the United States, India, Russia, Brazil, Mexico, and others, has made the rate of spread of the virus faster. The COVID-19 pandemic has also been declared as a national disaster in Indonesia (Caraka et al. 2020). Its massive impact, particularly on health and socioeconomic aspects, requires quick and effective responses from every level of government (Hidayat et al. 2021).

Amid the second wave of COVID-19, social restrictions have been tightened again. The implementation of testing, tracking, and isolation has been strengthened, and several countries have again implemented lockdowns (Warren et al. 2021). Major European

countries, such as France (Di Domenico et al. 2020), Germany (Lemenager et al. 2021), the UK (Robinson et al. 2021), and Italy (Zaccagni et al. 2021), implemented a second nationwide lockdown in November 2020 (Creutz et al. 2021). Several other countries, such as the US, Japan, and South Korea, tightened restrictions (Djalante et al. 2020). However, the level of social restrictions and lockdowns carried out this time is not as strict as the lockdowns during March-April 2020. In other words, they are more limited and targeted. This is done by considering the effect on the economy and the risk of social turmoil, such as protests the lockdown in many countries (Schwab and Malleret 2020).

The increasingly massive spread of COVID-19 accompanied by increasingly stringent efforts to suppress its spread has worsened the economy (Loayza 2020). Even in the 2nd quarter of 2020, it was even worse and became the deepest point throughout the pandemic (Song and Zhou 2020). Indonesia also cannot avoid the occurrence of an economic contraction, but compared to many other countries, it is relatively not too deep (Olivia et al. 2020). The conservative attitude that Indonesia maintains is also reflected in Indonesia’s debt and additional public debt, which remains at the lowest level, even in countercyclical policies (Ikhsan and Virananda 2021).

In various parts of the world, both fiscal and monetary instruments are used to intervene in the economy (Tahajuddin and Sulaiman 2021). Fiscal stimulus is generally aimed at increasing the budget allocation for COVID-19, helping households through a social safety net, and supporting affected companies (Loayza and Pennings 2020). Through fiscal policy, many countries also provide relaxation and guarantees for the sustainability of the business world, especially sectors that have had a significant impact. Meanwhile, the monetary stimulus focused on lowering interest rates, increasing the money supply, and easing corporate borrowing costs (Goyal 2020; Jomo and Chowdhury 2020). The IMF estimates that more than 193 countries have launched economic stimulus to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects (Khalid et al. 2021) with the total government spending reached USD 16.9 trillion.

The shifting priority to respond COVID-19 has challenged the other important priority to tackle the climate change as mandated by the Paris Agreement (Reilly et al. 2021). Indonesia, as one of the most vulnerable countries to climate change impact, strives to keep on the track to maintain the commitment to respond climate change through mitigation and adaptation. The current response to COVID-19 provides opportunities to tackle the underlying causes of vulnerability to climate change impact (Markard and Rosenbloom 2020). The crises caused by climate change and COVID-19 severely threat the public health, the lives of people and their livelihoods, poverty, and marginalization (Wyns and van Daalen 2021). Therefore, the concurrent management to tackle COVID-19 pandemic and climate change effectively solve the underlying causes of vulnerability of the population at risk (Thomas 2020).

In Indonesia, synergies to tackle COVID-19 and restore the national economy are strengthened at the national level through a special Task Force (Djalante et al. 2020). The Task Force carried out its duties from March to July 2020 by focusing on health care (Megatsari et al. 2020). In the middle of 2020, when COVID-19 has shown its impact on the economy, the Government formed the Committee for Handling COVID-19 and National Economic Recovery (KPCPEN) (Muhyiddin and Nugroho 2021; Temenggung et al. 2021). The epidemic intelligence in Indonesia needs a diverse range of stakeholders from across the region. Also, timely and easily accessible outbreak notifications are essential to plan for and respond to public health risks within countries (Hii et al. 2018).

Why do policies on COVID-19 response in Indonesia matters to global readers? As we know, Indonesia is one of the founding members of the G20 and the sixth-largest emerging market by GDP (Naqsabandiyah et al. 2022). As a member of the G20, Indonesia contributes to shaping the policy and response of the G20 during the COVID-19 pandemic. Besides, Indonesia is the third-biggest democracy and the fourth-most-populous country, with a population of 276 million, located in a strategic contest between America and China. These are also why lesson learned related to policies and regulations for handling the pandemic in Indonesia is vital for the international community.

For this reason, this paper aims to explore the interaction of Indonesia’s COVID-19 policymaking and its impact on better solutions in reducing future risk. The objectives of this study are as follows: (1) Map out what policies have been taken by the Indonesian government to overcome the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic; (2) Mapping stakeholders in the government sector that are involved in handling the impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic in Indonesia; (3) Investigating the interaction between large-scale and micro-scale social restrictions with social protection policies as a social cushion for vulnerable people in the face of a pandemic; (4) Analysing the extent of the impact of the Pandemic and its policies on SDGs targets and the future of adaptation and mitigation in Indonesia.

Analytical framework

The COVID-19 pandemic prompted the Indonesian government to adopt unprecedented measures to control the spread of the disease. These measures involved the restriction of essential individual mobility and adopting precautionary behaviours such as wearing masks, maintaining interpersonal distance, self-isolation, and other precautionary (Ayuningtyas et al. 2021). In the absence of direct financial incentives, a vital role in the enforcement was played by protocols and regulations, which could be more controversial. In this paper, we investigate how the Indonesian government issued massive policies and regulations to the public (Figure 3), especially during the early stage of the pandemic (March – October 2020), the first transition (January 2021), and the second transition (August 2021) (Figure 1). These two transitions were based on the highest peak of COVID-19 cases after the most prominent national homecoming (community mobility), such as the Christmas, New Year, and the Eid al Fitr holidays for most Indonesian population (Veruswati et al. 2020).

Figure 1. Government’s responses and transitions of COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia.

This paper focused on the policy aspect of Covid-19-related measures, particularly at the national and ministerial level policies during the pandemic. At the local-provincial level, this study brought an example of DKI Jakarta, the Capital of Indonesia, as an example of social restrictions policy implementation affected by the national policy and regulation. This study also investigates the realization of the National Economy Recovery (PEN) programme, which has launched several economic and health-related programmes, including social protection for the most affected and vulnerable groups.

The COVID-19 Pandemic provides learning on the ability of the government to respond to compound risks, particularly in the country with a high risk of natural, climate-related hazards. The appropriate first response will minimize the unprecedented cascading impact on other systems (UNDRR & UNU-EHS 2022). In the discussion, this study strongly promotes a more comprehensive framework for crisis mitigation (Figure 2). It strengthens the integration of recovery programmes in the future since we face other crucial problems, such as climate change and frequent natural disasters in Indonesia. This paper significantly contributes to better disaster preparedness for multiple hazards (Phillips et al. 2020).

Figure 2. Analytical framework.

Method

Our study is based on the desk review (Sandison 2003) of existing national policies followed by expert group discussions to gather primary data (Moretti et al. 2011). The data for this study was obtained from 875 policies and regulations issued by the Indonesian government during March 2020 to April 2022 (Source of policies and regulations: https://covid19.go.id/id/p/regulasi). This paper analysed and mapped about 514 regulations issued in 2020, 339 in 2021, and 22 in 2022. These policies were only at the national level and did not include local-level policies and regulations. Other sources are the expert group discussion conducted in August and September 2021. The purpose of these group discussions was to draw from the complex personal experiences and of the participants towards the systemic and cascading impact of COVID-19 in Indonesia (Nyumba et al. 2017).

These group discussions were held through a zoom-moderated interaction facilitated by researchers. It can be considered a way to explore unknown territory, explain interaction among policies, clarify and provide a better understanding of the cascading impact of COVID-19 in Indonesia (Mishra 2016). The expert was selected purposively based on some criteria such as they must come from an institution that issues policies and regulations to deal with the COVID-19 crisis (ministry), has the appropriate track record of expertise (university/research institution), and has data or information that is useful for this study. About 27 experts from different key institutions attended our group discussion and shared their data or views on the COVID-19 policies in Indonesia (Table 1). All discussion has been recorded, transcribed, and analysed using thematic qualitative analysis, which involves reading through all recorded data and looking for patterns to find themes and make sense of the data and information.

Table 1. Key agenda and list of the participant in expert group discussion.

Expert group discussion	Key agenda	Participants’ affiliation
Expert group discussion I 30 August 2021	Mapping complexity the impact of COVID-19 pandemic to the health systems including the challenges to achieve SDGs	National Government Organization A consortium of several ministries and experts at the national level Faculties of several Universities Knowledge sector initiatives Journalist and science communication practitioner on disaster
Expert group discussion II 8 September 2021	Mapping and understanding the impact of COVID-19 pandemic to the risk management system in Indonesia and exploring risk cascading and systemic risks to natural and climate related hazards that worsen by the COVID-19 pandemic	National Government Organization UN Body Local NGO working on disaster management Local NGO working on disaster and community resilience Universities Independent think tank for climate change and sustainability in Indonesia
Expert group discussion III 16 September 2021	The Social Protection in Indonesia and its role during the COVID-19 pandemic: what we can learn and challenges for the better Social Protection	National Government Organization Universities Non-State Government Organization Social security operators Organizations focusing on social protection and poverty reduction

We then visualize all the policy and regulation into a stakeholder map integrated into the Kumu platform (Arena and Li 2018). Our maps are measured by the Indegree metric, which measures the number of incoming connections for the main element (ministry). The main component with high in-degree is the leaders, which means they issued more regulations than others. Some small elements (regulation) were connected to each other because multiple ministries signed them.

Findings

Overview of policies

Five ministry-level institutions can be categorized as dominant stakeholders because of their significant positions and roles to policy and regulatory outputs in the handling of COVID-19 in Indonesia. These five institutions are the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Transportation, the Ministry of Health, Home Affairs, and the COVID-19 Task Force (Figure 3 and Annex). The Ministry of Finance has the most dominant portion because of its broadest authority in implementing dual policies for handling COVID-19 in Indonesia. It has the authority to allocate a state budget to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and design macroeconomic policies at the national, provincial, and regional levels, including economic stimulus programmes explicitly aimed at directly affected groups such as households, business actors, and workers.

Figure 3. Map of various regulations and policies that have been clustered based on the ministries and government agencies that have issued them as policies for handling the impact of the pandemic in Indonesia ((N=875, March 2020 – April 2022). Visit our interactive map: https://kumu.io/yanuprasetyo/covid-19-regulations#untitled-map.

For instance, the Ministry of Finance issued a policy of refocusing the COVID-19 state budget of IDR 54 trillion at the regional level in mid-2020. Refocusing policy was issued to support the efficient use of the state budget due to the decline in state revenues in 2019. Operational budgets considered not a priority (such as service and capital expenditures) were withdrawn and reallocated to handle COVID-19.

The second level as the dominant stakeholder refers to the Ministries of Domestic Affairs, Health, Transportation, and the COVID-19 Task Force. The positions and roles of these four ministries are directly related to efforts to prevent, control, and handle the COVID-19 pandemic at the national, provincial, regional, and community levels. For instance, the Ministry of Health plays a significant role in determining the guarantee of treatment rooms, health workers, and Covid patients at the state and private hospital facilities. The Ministry of Transportation plays its strategic role in optimizing the implementation of health protocols (such as PCR test for flights and letters of travel) and policies for restricting public travel activities, including the use of public transportation and the flow of vehicles in and out of provinces in Java and Bali islands.

The handling of COVID-19 in Indonesia also involves government institutions at the local level (Pradana et al. 2020). By paying attention to the diversity of cultures, ethnicities, religions, and languages in Indonesia, the central government urgently needs local governments to extend the central government to reach people throughout the country. In handling the spread of COVID-19, local governments have the authority in determining local rules such as operational time of business activities, online or offline student learning at elementary schools, licencing public activities (such as wedding and religious events), and the status of the spread of the covid. Nevertheless, their positions and roles remain under control and the coordination of the central government, considering that COVID-19 has been declared a national disaster.

Social restrictions and social protection policy

At the beginning of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Indonesian government was considered slow in responding (Mietzner 2020). The Indonesian government decided to implement Large- Scale Social Restrictions (PSBB) and followed by the Implementation of Social Activities Restrictions (PPKM) (Table 2) (Miharja et al. 2021). The legal basis for regulating PSBB is Government Reegulation No. 21 of 2020 concerning PSBB to contain the COVID-19, which refers to the Law (UU) Number 6 of 2018 concerning Health Quarantine. The Indonesian government applies social restriction policies with several modifications and mechanisms (half-hearted) (Khoirunurrofik et al. 2022). PPKM, for instance, is more flexible than PSBB in terms of procedures and mechanisms. To implement PSBB, the Governor or City mayor must submit their proposal to the Ministry of Health to get approval. Meanwhile, PPKM is a local regulation where Governor or City Mayor could implement their local regulation based on some criteria such as death rate is already above the national average, the cure rate is low, and active cases are still high coupled with the occupancy rate of hospitals and isolation rooms has reached 70% (Masnun et al. 2021).

Table 2. Chronological list of social restriction policies in Indonesia and the state capitol (Jakarta).

No	Dates	Social restriction regulation
1	31 March 2020 – 11 January 2021	Government regulation No. 21 of 2020 regarding the Large-Scale Social Restrictions in Order to Accelerate Handling of Corona Virus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
2	8 April 2020 – 11 January 2021	Mechanism of Submission of Large-Scale Social Restrictions Between Regions
3	11 May 2020 – 11 January 2021	Documents required for cross-regional travel
4	12 May 2020 – 7 January 2021	Regulation of the Governor of the Special Capital Region of Jakarta Number 41 of 2020 concerning the Imposition of Sanctions for Violations of the Implementation of PSBB
5	17 May 2020 – 7 January 2021	Sanctions for PSBB Violations in Jakarta in accordance with Governor’s Decree No 41 of 2020
6	6 June 2020 – 7 January 2021	Governor’s Decree Number 563 of 2020 Regarding the Implementation of the Stages and Implementation of PSBB Activities During the Transition Period.
7	6 June 2020 – 7 January 2021	Governor’s Decree No. 51 of 2020 concerning the Implementation of the Transitional PSBB
8	12 January 2021 – 31 December 2022	Implementation of Java-Bali Community Activity Restrictions (PPKM)
9	9 February 2021 – 31 December 2022	Implementation of micro PPKM
10	30 August 2021 – 31 December 2022	Implementation of level based PPKM
11	24 December 2021 – 31 December 2022	Implementation of PPKM Level 3 in all regions of Indonesia

Moreover, PPKM offers more flexibility for economic activities by providing options to the presence of employers in offices as well as the social activities with a limited number of participants. PPKM has four levels to identify people’s mobility and their social and physical interaction. The third and four levels of PPKM have limited business activities such as restaurants, shopping malls, and other related service sectors. Unfortunately, implementing these regulations is faced with the people’s disobedience (Prawoto et al. 2020).

Many people violate the rules to stay at home during the large-scale social restriction due to the pressure of household economic needs (Ivanka 2020). Weak coordination between stakeholders is also a problem in controlling the spread of the coronavirus in Indonesia (Agustino and Wicaksana 2020). With unclear sanctions and low discipline, the large-scale social restriction policy was not successfully implemented (Azmi and Kusumasari 2021). There is also a vast national cultural activity involving mass mobility where many Indonesians return to their hometown at the end of Ramadhan (Eid homecoming), Christmas, dan New Year (Gandasari and Dwidienawati 2020). These kinds of religious and cultural activities are also something that makes the policy ineffective (Cordero 2021). The government’s lack of accurate data and information to the public, low public trust, and miscommunication between authorities are other reasons it was challenging to control the spread of COVID-19 at the first wave (Suraya et al. 2020).

On the other hand, economic sectors are disrupted due to social and economic restrictions towards communities and business activities that further have caused difficulties for many companies to run their business (Donthu and Gustafsson 2020; Tambunan 2021). Manufacturing sectors, characterized by labour-intensive industries such as garment, leather, and shoe factories, trade and service sectors dominated by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) (Thukral 2021) and micro business, transportation, and tourism sectors with the hotel and restaurant felt the most significant impact from COVID-19 (Nicola et al. 2020). One year after the pandemic of COVID-19, the decline in SME income fell by more than 50%, compared to large companies, which fell by around 30% (Nordhagen et al. 2021). Tourism is one of the most important industries in Indonesia, and the tourism related industries must respond to the tourism disaster caused by COVID-19 (Atmojo and Fridayani 2021). The uncertainty of economic recovery and the continuous spread of COVID-19 have caused millions of people to suddenly lose their jobs; the hospitality industry was one of the first industries to do so (Chang and Wu 2021).

Further, the number of workers that have been terminated and forced to take unpaid leave reached about 30%, and around 65% of workers had been seen home without pay (Mardiansyah 2020). The unemployment rate reaches 60%, where the unemployment rate in cities is higher than in rural areas (Musyarof and Qomari 2021). Women with secondary and higher education levels tend to be more likely to be unemployed than men, especially those who work in the service sectors (Park and Inocencio 2020). The high number of layoffs for workers with low-income levels and female workers is feared to have a further impact on increasing household economic vulnerability and poverty (Supriatna and Sari 2020).

In response to that, the government of Indonesia has introduced a massive fiscal stimulus package through the National Economy Recovery (PEN) programme. According to the Ministry of Finance Indonesia release, at the end of 2020, the government had spent IDR 1,035 trillion for COVID-19 pandemic countermeasures (Sparrow et al. 2020). The funds came from mobilizing financial resources through budgets cut at Ministries and Government Institutions (Haniyah and Putra 2021). In detail, the funds for COVID-19 pandemic countermeasure in 2020 came from the state budget (APBN), amounting to IDR 937.4 trillion, funds from regional revenue and expenditure budget (APBD) amounting to IDR 86.4 trillion, and also from monetary sector IDR 6.5 trillion (Suparman 2021).

At the end of 2020, the PEN programme has recorded a provisional realization of IDR. 579.8 trillion or about 83.4% of the total budget by the Government (Yuliana 2021). The most significant realization, nominally, is in the social protection cluster whose realization has reached IDR 220.39 trillion, followed by the support cluster for MSMEs amounting to IDR 112.4 trillion (Table 2). Meanwhile, spending on health aspects remains a priority for the Government, of which IDR 63.5 trillion has been disbursed, both for health workers incentives and health facilities and infrastructure. Apart from this realization, the Government has also budgeted IDR 47.1 trillion, which will be used for the vaccination programme in 2021. In addition to the three clusters previously mentioned, the distribution of funds to other clusters, such as sectoral, business incentives, and corporate financing, has also taken place, in which each recorded a realization with a nominal value of IDR. 66.6 trillion, IDR. 56.1 trillion, and IDR. 60.7 trillion.

Under the National Economy Recovery (PEN) programme, the government of Indonesia has launched several social protection programmes (Table 3), particularly for affected groups such as workers with monthly income below minimum wages, owners of micro-businesses, and poor households (Gerard et al. 2020). The Social Protection budget in 2020 is IDR 498 trillion, then decreases in 2021 to IDR 487.8 trillion and IDR 431.5 trillion in 2022 (Indrawati et al. 2022). These various programmes are carried out to minimize the impact of COVID-19 on those who are classified as very affected and vulnerable groups of being poor. These various social protection programmes during COVID-19 complement various social protection programmes running since 2015 (Sumarto and Ferdiansyah 2021).

Table 3. National economy Recovery (PEN) programme realization (31 December 2022).

No	Cluster	Budget	Realization	Output
1	Health	IDR 87.6 trillion	IDR 63.5 trillion (73%)	Incentives for central and regional health workers for 1.1 million health workers (IDR 9.55 trillion) Compensation to 194 health workers (IDR 60 billion) Spending for handling COVID-19; 1.6 million PPE, 5.8 million rapid tests, 1 million KN95 masks, and 2,612 ventilators (IDR 42.5 trillion)
2	Social protections	IDR 203.9 trillion	IDR 220.4 trillion (108%)	PKH for 10 million KPM (IDR 36.71 trillion) Pre-employment cards for 5.6 million recipients (IDR 19.9 trillion) PJJ internet quota subsidy for 51 million recipients (IDR 4.1 trillion)
3	Sectoral & local government	IDR 106.1 trillion	IDR 66.6 trillion (63%)	Recovery DID for 423 regions (IDR 5 trillion) Physical DAK for 898.1 thousand workers (IDR 7.3 trillion) Tourism stimulus in the form of grants to 97 regions (IDR 2.8 trillion)
4	SMEs	IDR 123.5 trillion	IDR 112.4 trillion (91%)	Interest subsidy to 25.4 million debtors (IDR 12.8 trillion) Credit guarantees to 89.2 thousand debtors (IDR 2.1 trillion) LPDB investment financing for 63 cooperative partners and 101,011 MSMEs (IDR 1.3 trillion)
5	Corporate financing	IDR 53.6 trillion	IDR 60.7 trillion (113%)	PMN to 7 SOEs and Institutions (IDR 39.1 trillion) Loans to 5 SOEs (IDR 19.7 trillion) Corporate guarantee for 5 debtors (IDR 2 trillion)
6	Business incentives	IDR 120.6 trillion	IDR 56.1 trillion (46.5%)	PPh 21 DTP = 131.8 thousand taxpayers (IDR 2.5 trillion) Reduction of PPh 25 = 66.6 thousand taxpayer installments (IDR 2.6 trillion) Exemption of PPh 22 imports = 14.9 thousand taxpayers (IDR 13.6 trillion) Preliminary VAT refund = 2.4 thousand taxpayers (IDR 5.1 trillion) DTP Import Duty = total import value of IDR 1.1 trillion (IDR 70 billion)

For affected workers, the government, through the Ministry of Manpower and the Social Security Agency, has implemented two social protection programmes, namely wage subsidies for workers and relaxation of social security contributions (Ansori and Nuraini 2021). The purpose of these two programmes is to help ease the burden of workers who must deal and cope with the COVID-19 crisis and protect, maintain, and improve the economic capacity of workers so that they are not worse affected by COVID-19 (Chaturvedi 2021). The wage subsidies programme was implemented in 2020, 2021, and 2022. The Phase 1 from September to December 2020 with a total subsidy of IDR 2,400,000 per worker. Phase 2 from August to September 2021 with a total subsidy of IDR 1,000,000 per worker. Phase 3 from November to December 2022 with a total subsidy of IDR 600,000 per worker. In Phase 1, around 12 million workers were involved in this programme, particularly workers with income below IDR 5 million per month (Hidayat et al. 2021)

In Phase 2 and 3, the requirements for beneficiaries were changed, especially regarding the level of wages, location, and economic sectors. The wage level of workers who received a wage subsidy in Phase 2 and 3 was lowered to below IDR 3.5 million, given to workers working at PPKM levels 3 and 4 and working in the consumer goods, transportation, various industries, property, trade, and services. In Phase 1 and 2, workers who receive the wage subsidy programme must be registered as active social security contributors (Marzuki and Rosalina 2021). Those who are laid off and work in the informal sector are automatically not the target of the workers’ wage subsidy programme (Figure 4). This policy eventually drew much criticism, as the workers who were affected and most workers working in the informal sector were excluded from this programme.

Figure 4. The wage subsidies program during the pandemic in Indonesia (2020–2022).

The following social protection programme provides productive capital assistance to micro-business actors (BPUM) and accelerates the distribution of People’s Business Credit (KUR) and interest subsidies (Johnson Kennedy 2021). In the BPUM programme, capital assistance has been distributed to around 12.8 million micro-business actors, with a total budget reaching IDR 15.4 trillion. Meanwhile, the programme for accelerating KUR provision has been given to around 4.7 million micro-enterprises with a total budget of IDR 177 trillion. In its implementation, these programmes have also received much criticism due to the unclear criteria for capital assistance, where every business actor must register with the local government’s agency to receive capital assistance by showing proof of a business licence. Most micro-business actors in Indonesia are still not registered or have no business licences (Fourqoniah and Aransyah 2021).

Other social protection programme is Family Hope Programme (PKH) and Non-cash Transfer Programme (BPNT) (Aziz et al. 2021). These two programmes are implemented by providing cash assistance and essential foods (such as rice, cooking oil, eggs, meat, and instant noodles) to around 10 million households classified as poor and vulnerable to COVID-19 (Munandar 2020). According to research conducted by the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), without these two programmes, the poverty rate in Indonesia is estimated to be higher than 9.8% (as of March 2020). Further, without PKH, the poverty rate in Indonesia would rise to 11.3% (an increase of 1.5%). Meanwhile, without BPNT, the poverty rate in Indonesia would increase by 0.4% or reach 10.2%. This condition means that the implementation of these two programmes has succeeded in reducing the impact of Covid on poor and vulnerable families. However, the implementation of these two programmes cannot be separated from criticism because of the many errors in recipient data, wrong targets, and corruption involving local to national elites (Syamsulhakim and Khadijah 2021).

The social protection provided by the Indonesian government during the pandemic still leaves many records. There are many problems in terms of implementation related to the inaccuracy of targets, uncertainty, corruption, inconsistency between national and local programmes, formal procedures, and the appropriateness of the assistance provided. Many of the assistance provided to affected communities did not follow existing needs. This is due to the issue of data inaccuracy and the uncertainty of the timing of the disbursement of funds. In addition, there are two sources of assistance for the community, namely from the central government and local governments. The two types of assistance have also caused several problems, for example, overlapping recipient data or otherwise causing confusion in assisting (Wasantari and Qadri 2021). Likewise, the increase in the number of participants for the PKH is not updated continuously and is not transparent. As a result, many fictitious data and information were discovered and became a problem when distributing aid (Yuniza and Rebecca 2021).

Several issues have made various programmes related to social protections for handling COVID-19 in Indonesia considered less effective (Roziqin et al. 2021). First, the formal sector bias of social protection programme (Banks et al. 2021). For instance, the wage subsidy programme is only reserved for workers registered with social security insurance. Workers who have been layoffs due to COVID-19 and informal workers who dominate around 65% of Indonesian workers are excluded from this programme. Likewise, small-scale business actors (such as street vendors and home-based businesses) are excluded from the business capital assistance programme due to the absence of a business licence.

Second, vulnerable groups are increasingly marginalized. The elderly, children, people with disabilities, small farmers, and traditional fishers often missed social protection policies from the government (Kusumaningrum et al. 2021). Those who fall into the vulnerable category have limited access to information and are not listed as priority recipients of government programme assistance. Data collection on social assistance recipients is usually based on the completeness of household data and ignores those who do not have a household. As a result, the elderly and disabled who live with a family are not included in the priority category of social assistance recipients. Likewise, small farmers and traditional fishers will continue to work even with low income but are often categorized as working people with fixed income.

Third, lack of valid and integrated data. One of the criticisms that often arises when implementing various social protection programmes from the impact of COVID-19 in Indonesia is the lack of valid and coordinated data between ministries, especially data at the household level as programme beneficiaries. This condition impacts the number of cases of mistargeting and opens opportunities for corruption at all levels of policy makers (Iskandar 2020). The Indonesian government has initiated the One Data Indonesia (SDI) programme since 2015 to strengthen data governance between agencies, institutions, and central and local governments. However, the implementation of the programme is still hampered by various obstacles. One of the obstacles is the readiness of digital infrastructure in Indonesia. Another obstacle in implementing SDI is the different formats and metadata in each institution and local government – every government agency has a sectoral ego problem (Susanto et al. 2020). Based on the Ministry of Communication and Information (2020) data, Indonesia has 2,700 data centres spread across 630 agencies and local governments. Each agency in Indonesia also has different applications in processing data. SDI is an effort to integrate various existing data in each institution and local government. In addition, SDI will improve data interoperability from each ministry/institution and local government in the future.

Strengthening adaptation and mitigation policies

The COVID-19 Pandemic that hit Indonesia has led to various budget restructurings in Indonesia. This impact is also affecting climate change management programmes. However, the Government remains committed to participating in managing climate change (Hadi et al. 2021). This can be seen from the completion of the latest National Determined Commitment (NDCs). In the latest NDC, the Indonesian Government added that there is strengthening for a more ambitious adaptation programme in line with national development for the 2020–2024 period and long-term development in 2045. The objective of CCA is to increase climate resilience by increasing economic resilience, social security, sources of livelihood, growing ecosystem, and landscape resilience.

Indonesia commits to seriously combating climate change following the agreement in Paris agreement. Indonesia’s commitment to participate in Law no. 16 of 2016 to ratify the 2015 Paris agreement. Furthermore, Indonesia submitted The NDCs that said the national target for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 2030 (Fulton et al. 2017). Indonesia has a target of reducing emissions of 29% with its efforts and 41% with international support. Several main sectors play an essential role in NDCs: energy, waste, industrial processing and production, agriculture, and forestry. Climate Change Adaptation (CCA) is part of a strategic mandate for the long term also becomes one of the priorities in the NDCs as a mandatory from Paris Agreement. The updated NDCs were delivered in 2021 at the 26th COP. Efforts to control climate change require substantial funds, which are estimated at around US$ 81 billion for the 2015–2020 period. The Indonesian Government allocates around 34% or approximately 3,461 trillion Rupiah of the National Budget for Development. The overall budget for climate change adaptation and mitigation generates from the collaboration of various national and international stakeholders. In addition, the private and business sector are encouraged to be actively involved in infrastructure projects.

Based on a report from the Ministry of Finance related to Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation, the budget allocated for climate change mitigation and adaptation is distributed to the respective ministries concerned. Activities are evaluated and monitored by assessing the output of actions resulting from the budget allocation. Overall, the climate change control programme consists of infrastructure and non-infrastructure development, which is still dominated by infrastructure development, around 93.6% of the total climate change adaptation budget.

Meanwhile, KLHK’s activity contribution is 12.6% of the total accumulated climate change adaptation budget for climate change adaptation. A solid commitment to CCA can be seen from the continued increase in budget allocations for adaptation, especially in the 2018– 2020 timeframe. In 2019, there was a 3.7% increase in the budget increase, but in 2020 it experienced a contraction due to the Pandemic. The impact of budget refocusing is a reduction of 21 outputs of climate change adaptation activities or around IDR. 314.9 billion is part of a 36% decrease in funding due to the Pandemic in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (Ministry of finance, 2020).

Refocusing of CCA budget: integration of pandemic recovery programs

The refocusing of the budget for adaptation to climate change due to the Pandemic can impact several aspects, such as food security and improving the population’s welfare through the availability of sustainable livelihoods. The agricultural and forestry sectors and the fisheries sector are the main sectors that will directly impact climate change. These sectors are the primary source of livelihood for the population in Indonesia and will impact food security. Threats from food security will increase the number of poor people and decrease the quality of health. One example is the climate change budget at the Ministry of Agriculture in 2020 decreased by 33% compared to the previous year due to the policy of refocusing and reallocating the budget for handling COVID-19. The decrease was from IDR. 936.2 billion in 2019 to IDR 624.8 billion in 2022.

However, what is interesting is that in 2020, despite the refocusing of the budget for handling climate change, specifically for climate change adaptation, there will be an increase, as seen in the Ministry of Agriculture. For the Ministry of Agriculture, the adaptation budget allocation has increased again, with a growth of 74% compared to the previous year. This shows efforts to maintain national food security and are also a priority in post-pandemic economic recovery (Rozaki 2020). Unlike the adaptation programme at the Ministry of Agriculture, adaptation programmes in other Ministries such as ESDM, PUPR, Ministry of Social Affairs, and BNPB have decreased due to budget refocusing. The Ministry of Social Affairs, which has a dominant role in dealing with the Pandemic, must ultimately reduce one output target for climate change adaptation and focus on providing social assistance to communities affected by the Pandemic. Meanwhile, in general, the infrastructure development budget for climate change control decreased by 9% but still could support green development in the transportation, housing, settlements, waste, and agriculture sectors. Infrastructure development that is quite important, which is the responsibility of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing, is the construction of facilities and infrastructure to provide clean water, construction of dams, irrigation, and provision of raw water, including to achieve food security.

Although the Government must divert the budget, their commitment to remain active in controlling climate change is still being carried out (Sumarno and Sanchez 2021). This can be seen from the various efforts to handle the Pandemic by linking it with green development. The Government seeks to create jobs that lead to green development projects and is expected to continue increasing post-pandemic economic recovery. The funds issued by the Government of Indonesia to deal with the Pandemic in the form of fiscal stimulus reached around IDR. 695.2 trillion. The sizable budget, among others, is directed to the health and social security sectors. Another budget allocation is to restore the wheels of the economy by implementing labour-intensive development programmes, including green economy-oriented projects such as the mangrove forest restoration project covering an area of 15 thousand hectares. The programme has at least around 25 thousand people living in coastal regions in some affected parts of Indonesia.

The pandemic has delayed several climate change adaptations policies. The update of NDC highlights the ambition of the Indonesian Government to enhance adaptation to climate change through programmes, strategies, and actions. The impact of climate change is real for Indonesia, marked by the many occurrences of hydrometeorological disasters. Vulnerable residents have experienced direct losses from climate-related disasters and a decline in agricultural production that has harmed farmers due to various crop failures caused by extreme weather changes. In the case of urban, urban poor are still struggling with the risk areas without proper access to a decent life, which places them more vulnerable to a pandemic. Slums and informal settlements are the riskiest areas during pandemics since they have no space for social and physical distancing and less access to clean water for washing hands and clean sanitation for a healthy life (Friesen and Pelz 2020).

Conclusion

This paper is a desk review of an ongoing study to understand better how government regulation can be embedded into future adaptation and risk reduction strategies in Indonesia. The large-scale and micro-scale restrictions policy has had a significant impact in suppressing the transmission of COVID-19 in Indonesia. This policy succeeded in suppressing community mobility so that daily COVID-19 cases began to show a downward trend a year after the first case of COVID-19 was found in Indonesia. However, this policy has hit the economic conditions of the middle and lower levels of society, especially those who depend on their daily income or lost their jobs. To minimize this impact, the government, through the coordination of the ministry of finance and the implementation of the PEN program, pays attention to the implementation of social protection programmes that target households and business actors directly affected by COVID-19. Improving the database of poor households, vulnerable to the poor, and those directly affected by the pandemic is crucial because a good database will determine the accuracy of the targeting of social protection programmes. In addition, it is necessary to ensure that the implemented social protection programmes can be distributed on time. Accuracy of targets and timeliness of aid distribution are the keys to the effectiveness of any social protection programme in tackling poverty reduction due to pandemics or future disasters in Indonesia.

The impact of the pandemic on future adaptation is consisting of two aspects. First, the unintended consequences include an increased number of people living in poverty and people without access to clean water, health sanitation, and access to sustainable jobs and affordable housing. Those are caused by the delaying of infrastructures programmes within development planning. People who live in poverty are increasing following the number of people losing their job and termination of economic activities. Second, the opportunities from current regulations and policies to manage pandemics concerning risk reduction are the Indonesian Government’s commitments to carry out green development. The programme is to realize the sustainability of ecosystems and human life, including increasing agricultural productivity for food security and improving the welfare of farmers. In addition, the impact of the pandemic on livelihoods, especially in the tourism sector, has driven the transformation of livelihoods. Many migrant workers in the tourism sector return to the villages and work in agriculture. The opportunities to strengthen farming activities for increased agricultural production to achieve food security. The positive and negative impacts of pandemics should be considered in the recovery post-pandemic to achieve climate change adaptation targets.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplemental data

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed online at https://doi.org/10.1080/1943815X.2023.2269223.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the United Nations University Institute for Environment and Human Security. Authors would like to thank the Munich Re Foundation for financially supporting the publication of this paper as well as for the organization of ‘World Risk and Adaptation Futures – Social Protection summer academy 2020’ which inspired this work.