The economic crisis in Indonesia is into its second year and likely to last. Where can we read about it?
Andrew Newmarch & Bill Walker
For listings of relief work the best site is one created by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Indonesian National Planning Institute (Bappenas): http://www.un.or.id/recovery/.
The site's copious project information is organised by donor and by sector. Examples of sectors are the social safety net, forest fires, food security, and monetary assistance. Strangely, the governance sector is confidential.
Some of the site's links to donor websites are excellent - eg. the Centre for International Forestry Research (CIFOR). Others such as the UN Office for Community and Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) are not so fresh.
Useful for factual summaries, the UNDP-Bappenas site does not give you analysis. An important site for economic analysis of the Asian crisis is provided by New York University's Nouriel Roubini: http://www.stern.nyu.edu/~nroubini/. Follow the link (or add this part to the address: asia/AsiaHomepage) and find a wealth of analysis of the crisis, including Indonesia.
Back to relief projects, try the internal search engine on the Relief Web site: http://wwwnotes.reliefweb.int/. Clicking Simple Search with the word 'Indonesia' yields a big grab bag. Try filling in the various fields in Advanced Search for more discrimination - but be prepared for frustration.
A good site for the impact of the drought, which coincided with the economic crisis, is the World Food Program: http://www.wfp.org/. Click on (weekly) Emergency Reports and you will find much on Indonesia. For more in-depth country reports, click on Field Operations and follow your nose (or add OP/Countries/indonesia to the WFP address above).
Try searching on 'Indonesia and the crisis' within the International Development Network (http://www.idn.org/). You will find a range of news articles, but more particularly links to a host of related places.
The web sites of major multilateral agencies are also useful.
The World Bank (http://www.worldbank.org/) has lots on Indonesia. Click on Regions and Countries, then East Asia and the Pacific. Clicking on Country Index from here leads you to the Country Brief on Indonesia (or add html/extdr/offrep/eap/id2 to the Bank address).
The Bank's major report on the 'Social crisis in East Asia' is also available from the East Asia page. One part is entitled 'Indonesia and poverty' - click on Sector Overviews within the 'Social crisis' report, then Poverty, then Indonesia (or just add countries/indon/pov1 to the Bank address).
The Food and Agriculture Organisation (http://www.fao.org/) gives periodic alerts that often include Indonesia. Follow the Economics link, then GIEWS Early Warning, then Special Reports and Alerts (or add WAICENT/faoinfo/economic/giews/english/alertes/sptoc.htm). The IMF site (http://www.imf.org) includes the full texts of crisis rescue agreements for Indonesia, including the one Suharto signed with Camdessus standing over him last January. Follow the link to Publications, then Member Country Publications, then Indonesia.
News updates are well served through the Yahoo! site: http://headlines.yahoo.com/Full_Coverage/World/Indonesia. Or try the special 'Indonesia on the brink' section at the BBC (http://www.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/events/indonesia). And don't forget Inside Indonesia - the article you are now reading is there. Just click on all the links discussed.
Indonesian non-government organisations dealing with the various aspects of the crisis, including human rights, are not yet well represented on the web. Have a look at Waruno Mahdi's homepage (http://w3.rz-berlin.mpg.de/~wm/wm6.html) under human rights. This, by the way, is not only a useful site, but beautiful.
Human Rights Watch (http://www.hrw.org/) has a good search engine that will lead you to a special section entitled 'Indonesia - post-Suharto period' (or go straight there by adding hrw/campaigns/indonesia/index to the address).
Andrew Newmarch and Bill Walker are researchers at World Vision Australia, Melbourne.
Inside Indonesia 57: Jan-Mar 1999
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