FKP Roadshow at Universitas Lambung Mangkurat (Banjarmasin, South Kalimantan)

Forum Kajian Pembangunan (FKP) was initiated by the ANU Indonesia Project and LPEM FEB UI in 2009. At the time, all seminars were held at LPEM offices on the Universitas Indonesia campus on Jalan Salemba, Jakarta. In 2010, other organisations started hosting the seminar and eventually each month was hosted by a different organization(s). Now in its 10^th year in the rolling hosting form, eleven organisations hosted 27 seminars in the first half of 2020.

Between January and March 2020, seminars were held in person, including the FKP Roadshow in four cities in Kalimantan in February. The topic of the Roadshow was education in Indonesia and feature Budy Resosudarmo (ANU Indonesia Project), Daniel Suryadarma (The SMERU Research Institute) and Tri Mulyaningsih (Universitas Sebelas Maret) as well as one researcher from each Universitas Lambung Mangkurat (South Kalimantan), Universitas Palangkaraya (Central Kalimantan), Universitas Mulawarman (East Kalimantan) and Universitas Tanjungpura (West Kalimantan). The last FKP seminar held in person was on 5 March with speaker Peter McCawley (ANU Indonesia Project) who spoke on 50 years of international cooperation between Indonesia and international donors, focusing on the Asian Development Bank.

In mid-March the Government of Indonesia called for residents to stay home as part of social and physical distancing measure to reduce COVID-19 infections. The FKP moved to a fully online format with the seminar on 19 March 2020 hosted by World Resources Institute (WRI) Indonesia on the topic of natural resource accounting. Since then all seminars were held online.

More than 2,000 people participated in the seminars between January-June 2020, the highest record for the FKP. A record 420 participated in the webinar hosted by LPEM FEB UI in May on the taxation policy during COVID-19 pandemic, and more than 250 people listened to the presentation by Asep Suryahadi (The SMERU Research Institute) on the poverty impact of COVID-19. About 46% of attendees and 38% of the speakers were female (in 2019, 49% and 35%, respectively).

In terms of participants’ background, those affiliated with research organisations (universities, government research agencies, think tanks) make up a much smaller proportion compared to 2019 (and previous years) as shown in the figure below. Additionally, the ‘others’ category is much larger because 1) in the case where there was a poll/self-reporting mechanism during a webinar, more attendees choose the ‘other’ category; and 2) in the case where the information had to be tabulated from the registration form, they organisation listed by the attendees are unknown to us. However, it is clear that a wider range of people are participating in the webinars compared to in the past. For example, unlike in the past, many school teachers participated in the webinars since several webinar were on learning from home.

It is expected that the FKP seminars will continue to be held online. In August, Lembaga Demografi Universitas Indonesia (LD FEB UI) will hold 8 seminars and the hosts for the remaining of the year are below.

• September: Article 33 Indonesia dan FEB Universitas Sriwijaya
• October: The SMERU Research Institute
• November: CEDS Universitas Padjadjaran
• Desember: Pusat Studi Hukum dan Kebijakan (PSHK)