Sniffing for Revenues in Indonesia’s Natural Resource Sectors
by Jean Ross, Consultant— Jan 28, 2019
The agriculture, forestry, plantation, and marine fisheries sectors provide livelihoods for a significant fraction of the Indonesian population, yet contribute less than one out of every ten dollars of revenue received by the provincial and the national governments. In many resource-rich regions, poverty rates are high and local residents receive little or no benefit from the exploitation of the country’s abundant natural wealth. Two Indonesian civil society organizations – Perkumpalan Inisiatif and Seknas FITRA – hypothesized that weak administration and corruption contributed to weak revenue collections. Together, the groups designed an ambitious research project to test this hypothesis and develop recommendations for improving revenue collections and resource management.
