Alleviating energy poverty as Indonesian development policy inputs post-2015: improving small and medium scale energy development

摘要

Energy security is positioned during the 21st century as one of the worldwide development policy focal points, mainly The Millennium Development Goals, which timeline ends in 2015. Despite its rich energy resources, Indonesia has failed to provide equal access to energy as a mean to eradicate poverty. This implicates on the widening national developmental gaps among provinces, namely the agriculture and industrial sectors, the two of major sectors to provide the largest employment percentage in the country. Otherwise, the government still struggles to enforce the renewable energy policies into practices, and the policies of exporting oil and coal are still dominant as the major income of the country. It results in energy poverty when many poor Indonesian people have very limited access to energy. This article seeks to measure the Indonesian government concern upon energy crisis and its impact on poverty eradication, by focusing on the gaps of energy access as the main indicator to measure energy poverty in Indonesia. By utilizing the national gap analysis, this article urges the needs of investment in small-scale energy development. The investment may collaborate the role of government energy policies with the international private sectors to perform technology proliferation and access. This article also proposes the small-scale energy development as a focus of post-2015 development agenda.