AMDAL Reform and Decentralization

Opportunities for Innovation in Indonesia

The Ministry of the Environment (Kementerian Lingkungan Hidup – KLH) is trying to make environmental impact assessment (AMDAL) work effectively in the newly empowered regions. Yet, improving Indonesia’s approach to environmental management is not going to be easy. Two reasons account for much of the poor performance. First, despite the substantial investment in environmental policy and staff development, actual implementation of rules and procedures has been poor. Second, many provinces and districts are making new interpretations of existing rules, or else inventing entirely new regulatory procedures. While some of these innovations strengthen environmental controls, many relax them or bypass national standards entirely.

It is in light of this volatile national background that KLH has asked the World Bank to collaborate on revising the existing policy and institutional framework for AMDAL. The World Bank AMDAL Study addresses the core issue of adapting regulatory regimes for environmental management to the changed circumstances of decentralization. The study entails a combination of Analytical Studies, regional pilots, and policy dialogue at both national and sub-national levels.

Two province-level pilots (in West Java and East Kalimantan) investigate how the current centralized AMDAL system could be ‘varied’, so that priorities in different regions could be addressed based on the existing capacity and needs. Four supporting analytical studies are designed to strengthen and inform the results of the provincial pilots.

The outputs of the Study will inform the development of a draft policy paper providing a basis for revisions to AMDAL Regulation No. 27/1999.

The AMDAL Analytical Studies
The 2004 Scoping Exercise helped define a number of key issues to be investigated; these were further refined in consultation with KLH and other regional stockholders to maximize the alignment with AMDAL Revitalization program.

The Public Participation and Access to Information in AMDAL. This study reviews the level, quality and effectiveness of public involvement in the AMDAL process since the issuance of the Decree of the Head of BAPEDAL no. 08/2000. It is intended as an input for the revision of Decree 8/2000 that KLH intends to carry out in 2006.  Download (pdf 2.5MB) What is Right with AMDAL - A Study on Emerging EIA Good Practice in Selected Provinces in Indonesia. The study takes a close look at a series of recently completed EIAs, identifies discrete examples of good practice and assesses critical factors contributing to improved performance. An indication of the alignment of these good practices with the international experience is provided via comparison with selected middle-income countries  Download English  (pdf 300KB)  |  Bahasa (pdf 227 KB) Alternative Policy Instruments for Environmental Management in Indonesia This study reviews four priority environmental policy instruments considered by KLH the most closely complement the AMDAL system; specifically, Strategic Environmental Assessment, Risk Assessment, Environmental Audit and Rapid Environmental Assessment. The report also assesses past Indonesian experience in applying these tools, and identifies preconditions for revisions to be made of the Environmental management Act of 1997 to strengthen the overall Indonesia environmental management system.

• Pilot Activity for Decentralizing AMDAL
  Prepared specifically for the pilot activity under consideration, offering a design and approach regarded most strategic at this point. The proposal, herein, proposes an exercise that would lead to more concrete ideas towards decentralizing AMDAL by developing ‘Region-Specific AMDAL Models’
  
• AMDAL Reform Program - Linking Poverty, Environment, and Decentralisation
  In support of the Ministry of Environment’s AMDAL Revitalization efforts, a Regional Pilot Project was conducted as part of the World Bank’s “AMDAL Reform Program – Linking Poverty, Environment and Decentralization”
  

The AMDAL Consultation

• KLH – AMDAL Regional Workshops
  Between April and October 2004, KLH with partial support of the World Bank, organized a series of national and regional level workshops to present, discuss, and familiarize environmental and other government officials with the main ideas behind the ministerial sponsored program AMDAL Revitalisasi to be implemented between 2004 and 2006.
  
• AMDAL and Enforcement
  Enforcement remains one of the central themes of KLH's proposed reforms to AMDAL. On 9 June 2004, KLH held a national workshop on Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) and enforcement, inviting the World Bank to comment from an international experience perspective.
  (supporting document - ppt 80KB)
  
• What’s Right With AMDAL?
  On May 30th, 2005, the WB AMDAL team held a one-day workshop in Jakarta to share and discuss the main findings and their implications for the Government AMDAL Revitalisasi Program of the Final draft report on AMDAL good practices in Indonesia and lesson learned from the international experience.
  
• Public Involvement in AMDAL
  On July 20th, 2005, Qipra Galang Kualita facilitated a one-day, national level consultation event to share and discuss the main findings of the study on public participation and access to information in AMDAL, before finalizing and delivering he report to KLH. Key attendants include representatives from the private sector, local and national level government agencies, NGOs and the international donor community.
  
• Discussions on Improving the Effectiveness and Efficiency of AMDAL
  On February 14 and 22, 2006, in Surabaya and Jakarta, KLH AMDAL Team met with AMDAL stakeholders from other regions (i.e. West Java and East Java Provincial Governments) to discuss ideas emerged from the regional pilots on how to improve the current AMDAL process. At each discussion some 25 to 30 participants were invited.
  
• Alternative Policy Instruments for Environmental Management in Indonesia
  On February 16th, 2006, in Jakarta, KLH and the World Bank sponsored a workshop to present and discuss with representatives of academia and environmental practitioners the findings of the study conducted by Hatfield Indonesia. The key objective of the study was to assess the potential for introducing a broader range of environmental policy instruments, as a basic for strengthening AMDAL. One of the acknowledged weaknesses of AMDAL is that it is the only environmental management tool with broad currency and tends to be overused as a result