Indonesia’s journey, and PT SMI’s contribution to it, is but one part of a broader regional narrative. What I carried home from Colombo was a profound sense of optimism that our development finance institutions are becoming more than financiers of growth; we are becoming a community of practice, united by a shared purpose and enriched by the exchange of ideas and experience.

Arrmanatha’s appointment puts diplomats back in the driver’s seat of Indonesian foreign policy, but navigating today’s volatile geopolitical landscape requires soldiers, economists and the Palace to chart the course together.

The global economy is entrenched in a cycle of sluggish economic growth, with rates in many countries, particularly the major developed economies, stalling well below 3 percent.

The controversy over Gibran’s credentials is no longer just about a diploma: It is a defining test of whether the national legislature still checks executive power or merely bows to it.

The main challenge to food security for all is not innovation but adoption, which involves localizing proven solutions and ensuring that they are affordable to use, maintain and grow.

Indonesia’s push to lure capital through Danantara’s special bonds risks turning investor protection into a legal shield for financial crime and tax evasion.

Indonesia’s path to lasting prosperity depends not on the myth of a strongman savior, but on dismantling elite capture to build institutions that are truly fair, accountable and built to outlast power.  

Governments’ fiscal policies should be judged by whether they strengthen the economy’s capacity to meet public obligations over time.

Affirmative action can open the corridors of power to women, but it was never meant to be an immunity card against the corrupting machinery of Indonesian politics.

Until a durable resolution of the United States-Israeli war with Iran is reached, Gulf shipments will be heavily curtailed, leaving the global LNG market seriously strained.

Development must focus on the best ways to help the poor, who are more vulnerable to everything, not just climate change.

By breaking ranks to cut a private fuel deal with Moscow, Washington just handed Asia an urgent lesson: Build your own energy reserves, or get priced out of the scramble.

Indonesia’s increasingly centralized economic model promises greater protection against external shocks. Yet concentrating both authority and financial risk in the state may be eroding the many shock absorbers on which the country’s resilience has long depended.

Autonomy will increasingly depend on whether societies can keep essential systems functioning, respond to disruption and create new capabilities when existing ones become obsolete.

Southeast Asia has mastered moving capital across borders. Now it must stop letting corporate responsibility stall at customs while millions breathe transboundary haze.

Java’s northern coast faces severe water-catchment degradation, yet an AI center requiring massive amounts of water is planned there.

Millions remain locked away in psychiatric institutions under the guise of care—it is time to replace outdated confinement with dignity, community support, and fundamental human rights.

Record harvests mean little if plates stay empty: Indonesia must stop measuring food security by the tonne and start measuring it by nutrition, access and ecological sense.

Indonesia covers nearly its entire population under national health insurance, yet relying on imports for 90 percent of its active medicine ingredients leaves the country dangerously exposed to the next global shock.

In the decades of their work, various challenges have arisen in relation to negative impact on human rights, and social and environmental issues.

The government should put an end to the various rules that stifle investment and instead focus on building a healthy, competitive business climate that ensures legal certainty. 

Sweden and Indonesia’s partnership is increasingly focused on the future: supporting Indonesia’s industrial transformation while accelerating digitalization and the green transition in a rapidly changing global economy.

Behind the promise of Southeast Asia’s AI revolution lies a destructive reality: an old-school scramble for power, land and minerals that is reviving fossil fuels and pushing fragile ecosystems to the brink.

Maritime cooperation with Beijing cannot come at the expense of sovereign rights: for Indonesia, the smart play is engagement backed by unyielding legal firewalls and a fortified presence in the North Natuna Sea.

Can impeachment strengthen a democracy, or does it only wound it?

Southeast Asia’s latest haze crisis was entirely foreseeable. As millions choke beneath toxic skies, halting the blazes today must come before the inevitable, unsparing reckoning tomorrow.

The court saga surrounding Gibran's credentials has essentially spelled the end of the Widodo political dynasty, not by killing it outright but by ensuring that it fades away.