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ndonesia is a land of ironies and contrasts; despite having astonishing natural wealth and being one of the world'€™s fastest-rising economies, environmental degradation and poverty is widespread. The government has been aggressively expanding power generation capacity but almost 90 percent of the installed capacity still depends on dirty fossil fuels and even then about 12 percent of the nation'€™s population is without electricity.

However, poverty is merely a symptom of a larger  problem where local communities are disconnected from the local resources surrounding them. Contrary to general belief, we live in a generous world of great abundance; renewable energy sources are both plentiful and widespread. Eradicating poverty can only be achieved if this natural abundance is shared, nurtured and guarded. Furthermore, natural wealth is to be shared and nurtured at the grassroots level; it cannot be created or sustained by top-down approaches.

It is both a daunting problem and an exciting possibility to turn Indonesia'€™s vast reserves of local renewable sources into power, and at the same time release the dormant economic strength of its rural population.

Through the construction of micro-hydro generation plants in isolated non-electrified communities, the People-Centered Business and Economic Institute (IBEKA), an Indonesian NGO, has shown it is possible to empower communities by reconnecting them with available natural resources. IBEKA was formed by my husband Iskandar Kuntoadji and I in the 1990s. Since the early days of our struggles, neither of us would have thought that the movement could have become as big as it is now.

Since the 1990s IBEKA has built 82 micro hydropower plants, with capacities ranging from 5 kilowatts to 250 kilowatts, providing electricity to up to half a million people in rural Indonesia. Equally important is that we have done this through a community-based development approach that goes beyond the technology to empower communities. Putting a premium on community participation and ownership, we have organized electric cooperatives, trained villagers in technical management and resource conservation and provided support in fund-facilitation and income-generating activities.

IBEKA and our community partners are propagators of sound ecomanagement, but most of all we consider ourselves as guardians. IBEKA seeks to ensure that every investment made will create tangible welfare at the community level and that every rupiah we spend is put to good use. That is why we create community institutions that assume responsibility for the operation and maintenance of facilities, as well as ultimate ownership.

Economic productivity is the outcome of such community-driven designs. IBEKA offers different micro hydropower models: one is an isolated power-grid operated and maintained by the community for their own electrification; the other model is where redundant energy can be sold back to the grid. Income generated from such sales is put to collective use for village development purposes, such as giving scholarships to poor families. The great beauty of both approaches is that the entire structure is consensus-based, not imposed from the outside.

With over 20 years of experience in the community-based renewable energy world, we have now tried to expand this developmental model of inclusion with the government. Within the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry there is now an initiative we proudly call Patriot Energi, where we gather brilliant young and motivated engineers to go and live with local communities to help connect local people with local resources.

The government has decided to work with us because experience has taught them that their typical model of simply building renewable energy plants in rural communities has not been successful. Furthermore, assessment has shown that the problem lies within the communities'€™ acceptance of the technology, a problem that cannot be addressed with the current model of development.

The year �2015 marked the first batch of our Patriot Energi initiative. We have sent 79 young engineers to some of the most remote rural communities, and the stories they have shared have been a source of learning for all of us involved. We now know the real situation of the communities and this information can now give direct feedback to the ministry'€™s decision-making levels.

However, to work simply on a grassroots level cannot bring about all the necessary change to empower poor communities. Restrictive state regulations, complex financing requirements and the draining demands of social mobilization work also need to be tackled. Again it is a matter of building connections between the local communities and the decision-makers of Indonesia.

I have been blessed to be included at the national level in promoting the role of hydropower in development, and in being actively involved in designing and implementing new models of government-business-community joint ventures in micro hydropower facilities. However, despite having power purchase agreements for micro hydropower plants, many more policy changes need to be addressed.

There are still some 12,000 villages without any electricity. This is not just about technology and numbers; electricity is not our main goal, but it has the potential to build villages that are economically empowered. More renewable energy practitioners must share their knowledge at a national level.  

We need the government, the private sector and civil society to work together to realize the dream now formally set by the government of having 23 percent of our energy mix coming from renewable energy by 2025. The Bali Clean Energy Forum in Nusa Dua, Bali, on Feb. 11-12 brought together many players in the renewable energy sector to share their knowledge and expertise with each other.

Just as our founding fathers realized that being together made them stronger in facing the post-colonial world, we must work together to face the challenges of climate change and inequality. Hopefully all our 259 million people will share our natural resources equitably and fairly, and all people everywhere will have access to basic energy in the form of electricity at a fair and affordable price.
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The writer is founder of People-Centered Business and Economic Institute (IBEKA)