Jakarta air pollution: The challenges of turning evidence into policy

Jakarta’s air pollution problem constantly moves into policy spaces, challenging both the provincial and central governments to take action.

In Indonesia, air pollution has become a focusing event driving momentum for policy change. It’s triggered by the related but diverse stakeholders aiming for reforms, and is facilitated by technological advancements such as Nafas, which measures air quality through smartphones.

The Indonesian public is routinely exposed to evidence-based data through Nafas, which indicates how dangerous or bad the air quality is.

They’re justified in demanding more publicly-oriented policy responses by the local and central governments. This in turn further mobilises demands from the social media space.

President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo blames the coal-fired-based industries, while the Jakarta government’s focus is on reducing cars through having more people work from home.

The differing policy actions result from the different entities in the Indonesian bureaucracies – local government, which is given autonomy to manoeuvre actions, and the central government, which also has its own policy beliefs.

However, the enactment of policies by both entities is sometimes not based on the evidence and scientific-based knowledge, leading to the prolonging of an issue.

We argue that evidence-based policies are still expected in the policymaking system, meaning scientific knowledge can tackle the issue at hand due to tested findings and generalisable results.

In the absence of evidence-based policies, we suggest that effective messaging by the coalition of non-state actors, such as media advocacies, could help facilitate evidence-based policy messaging, leading towards the state adoption of such regulation in the policy system.

Non-scientific approach and lack of transparency

Jakarta’s first response to the air pollution problem – removing dust – was deemed non-scientific by the public and stakeholders.

The local office of Parks and Forestry used a tank to spray water across city roads and buildings. A recent paper circulating virally online in fact shows that spraying water on the road increases the particulate matter (PM) 2.5 levels, contributing to higher pollution.

With growing criticism, the government then issued a policy restricting the number of public officials working from an office in an effort to decrease the number of private vehicles on the city’s roads. However, results are not yet clear.

This lack of transparency is a reason for such a poor outcome.

For instance, restricting vehicles on the streets may be a feasible solution, but the public doesn’t get access to the data about how much it contributes to Jakarta's air pollution.

This has led to organisations, including Greenpeace and the Indonesian Forum for Environment (WALHI), to demand the government be transparent and open with data relating to what contributes the most to the worsening air quality in Jakarta.

Transparent data would be assumed to contribute to the formulation of policies based on science.

While transport sectors are indeed considered to be the major culprit, such a focus has led to the belief that air pollution is a problem that can be tackled by individuals.

When government officials talk about the impact of air pollution, they frequently mention the impact of pollution on our bodies. This is also the reason why the policy solutions mainly address what individuals can do to tackle the problem, such as working from home or using public transport.

But air pollution must be seen as a societal, structural problem, because it affects wider ecological systems, such as animals, plants, and buildings.

A study by MIT shows that air pollution gobally also impacts our psychology, burdening the economy, and increases criminal behaviour.

Further, governments must also understand the need for an ongoing effort to improve public transport and its infrastructure.

The latest campaign by ThinkPolicy has also highlighted the lived experience of communities who have faced tremendous obstacles in commuting using public transportation in Jakarta.

While Jokowi has also blamed industry as the main cause of the ongoing pollution, with more phasing out of coal-fired power plants, the public and scientific communities’ demands have also voiced the need for more serious policy actions by the industries and central government. These include the need for the government to install emission control devices in power plants.

Why is translating scientific evidence into policy so difficult?

The growing gulf between policy spaces and research communities in Indonesia has been apparent in recent years, as evidenced in the use of a “one-size-fits-all” approach to the enactment of new laws and regulation. This “omnibus approach” is used to accelerate the process of introducing new laws with minimum public participation.

This includes the “knowledge-based” and scientific communities that could otherwise provide grassroots evidence and scientific data for policymakers.

Yet on the other hand, confronting the status quo to change policy requires policy capacity, and an analytical capacity to use scientific evidence for issuing effectively-designed policies that can target and solve the entrenched problem.

The fact is that most people in Jakarta use private transport, and then there’s big-business or oligarchs’ vested interests behind the coal business in Indonesia.

This is why research communities might lose their voices in such a pursuit for policy reforms.

Government agencies generally work with scientists, mainly for program-based research that addresses societal problems. But not all scientists can communicate their knowledge well to the public. Also, not all scientists are willing to share their research data.

In order to adopt, apply, or replicate research, scientists must share with the government and other universities.

What can be done to translate evidence into policy?

Knowledge brokers move between the space of policy and research, such as in stakeholder and advocacy groups.

They could ride the wave of the ongoing and large-scale movement for policy reform on air pollution problems. They could seize and exploit such windows of opportunity to disseminate their research findings and evidence in order to bring about more effectively-designed policies.

This can be done through disseminating scientific-based policy briefs with effective messaging that’s in line with the government’s inherent interests.

For example, if the central government paid heed to phasing out coal-fired plants, issuing policy briefs backed by empirical evidence and highlighting how policy could decrease air pollution in a gradual and transparent manner, incremental change could be the result.

Such policy brokers can also orchestrate a consistent message – a single voice for a call for action. The consistent narrative would enhance the government’s ability to grasp the calls for actions, and therefore be better able to issue and operationalise a single course of policy actions.

These could be later expanded into different, wider-ranging progressive policies backed by scientific evidence in the latter stage of advocacy.

While focusing on a single course of action, these non-government bodies could also collaborate in the advocacy space so more science-orientated, solution-based recommendations can be further directed at the government.

This article was co-authored with Amanda Tan, Master of Public Policy graduate, Monash University, Indonesia.