LocationsIndonesia has strengthened its commitment to sustainable palm oil with the signing by President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) of the Presidential Instruction (Inpres) No. 6 of 2019 on November 22nd that officially enacts the National Action Plan for Sustainable Palm Oil. The Plan comes into force immediately and runs until 2024.
The comprehensive plan was developed by the Government through a very consultative process under the Forum for Sustainable Palm Oil of Indonesia (FoKSBI in its national language acronym). FoKSBI is the National Commodity Platform for palm oil stakeholders, chaired by the Vice Minister of the Coordinating Ministry for Economic Affairs and supported by UNDP. The establishment of such a platform started in 2011 when UNDP’s Green Commodities Programme first developed the Multi-Stakeholder Collaboration for Systemic Change methodology, which guides the Programme’s signature process: acting as a neutral broker to bring together all stakeholders into a commodity and country-specific National Commodity Platform, which then collaboratively creates a National Action Plan. The Sustainable Palm Oil Initiative of UNDP Indonesia completed this process with support from SECO (a division of the Swiss State Secretariat of Economic Affairs), the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH, and the Good Growth Partnership, a project supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), led by the UNDP’s Green Commodities Programme, and implemented in collaboration with Conservation International, the International Finance Corporation, UN Environment, the World Wildlife Fund and the governments of Indonesia, Paraguay, Brazil and Liberia.
As a next step, the Indonesian Coordinating Ministry of Economic Affairs will establish a National Team to monitor the implementation of the National Action Plan.
To encourage progress towards true sustainability, the National Action Plan covers a wide range of issues including data collection, developing the capacity of small holders and environmental management and monitoring as well as governance and conflict resolution. The plan will also support acceleration of the implementation of Indonesian Sustainable Palm Oil (ISPO) Certification.
The importance of palm oil to Indonesia is demonstrated by the fact that the Presidential Instruction puts the National Action Plan into effect through no less than 14 different Ministries, plus the Governors, Regents and Mayors of the oil palm growing areas.
UNDP Resident Representative in Indonesia, Christophe Bahuet, commented:
"This signed Presidential Instruction and the adoption of the National Action Plan for Sustainable Palm Oil is the culmination of years of multi-stakeholder engagement and dialogue achieved under FoKSBI and its Provincial and District equivalents.. The President’s endorsement is a strong signal to the private sector and other stakeholders to contribute to the sustainability of palm oil in Indonesia.UNDP is proud to work with the Government and all national and international partners in support of this objective."
