Bailouts and premium hikes buy time. Only evidence-based decisions, standardized care and smarter purchasing can keep national health insurance solvent.

Indonesia’s reforms have improved transparency and regulation, but their impact remains constrained by structural problems that stricter rules alone cannot resolve.

As rising global debt and geopolitical shocks squeeze developing nations, Indonesia’s push for ambitious expansion hinges on disciplined spending, targeted tax reform and private-sector competitiveness.

With three months left in the year, Indonesia has collected barely two-thirds of its annual tax target. The government now faces an uncomfortable choice over how aggressively to pursue the remainder and where to restrain spending. Every effort to balance the books carries consequences for businesses and people who depend on public services. Who will bear the cost if the government's revenue ambitions exceed its capacity to collect?

While the recent change at the helm of the state electricity company seems to signal continuity at first glance, given the President's urging a “comprehensive transformation”, Suroso might actually have a chance to spread his wings as PLN's former renewables director.

To end recurring food poisoning outbreaks linked to the flagship free meals program, we must rethink the kitchen: Blending freshly cooked meals with safely processed local foods is the key to scaling without sickening our children.

Indonesia cannot stop climate disasters from arriving, but its schools must stop waiting for the smoke to clear before they start preparing.

Vocational schools may train obedient workers, but without critical thinking, they risk producing a generation of citizens who can only follow orders.

As Indonesian faces functional extinction in Australian classrooms by 2031, both nations stand on the brink of a costly strategic blind spot.

India maintains that a global multipolar order must start with a multipolar Asia, rejecting both a US-dominated unipolar structure and a China-centric "Asia for Asians" model.

President Prabowo Subianto wants to revive Indonesia's struggling textile industry by establishing a new state-owned enterprise (SOE), potentially drawing on assets left behind by bankrupt textile giant Sritex. The plan comes amid factory closures, mass layoffs and mounting competition from cheaper imports. But with much of the industry's production capacity already underutilized, the government faces a difficult question: Will another state-owned company restore the industry's competitiveness or merely add to its problems?

Extreme El Niños are coming. Reaching net zero sooner means facing fewer of them.

While Andrea Bocelli faces boycotts and Kanye West gets a pass in Jakarta, Indonesia reveals an uncomfortable truth: Separating the art from the artist isn't dead, it's just selectively enforced by local politics.

Ending global hunger isn’t held back by a lack of innovation, but by our failure to get proven solutions into the hands of the farmers who need them most.

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 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.

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.

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 new Labor Protection Law, approved by the House of Representatives on Oct. 6, promises stronger severance entitlements, tighter dismissal rules and greater employment security. But stronger legal protections mean little if employers circumvent restrictions on temporary employment or fail to pay compensation. The real test of the new law lies not in its promises but in whether its provisions translate into effective protection for workers when their livelihoods are most vulnerable.

With toxic smoke paralyzing many regions, the government's inertia is exacting a fatal toll that only decisive presidential leadership can stop.

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.

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.