East Kalimantan Towards Green Economic Transformation
Balikpapan, 17/7/14. The East Kalimantan Provincial Government together with three selected districts (Berau, East Kutai, and Paser) and GIZ carried out 
joint planning workshop on 17-18 July 2014 in Balikpapan City. Apart from the core parties in the collaboration, this workshop was also attended by other East Kalimantan development partners, namely the Regional Council for Climate Change, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as well as non-governmental organizations actively working in one of the three selected districts, namely the Indonesian Rice Foundation. Overall, this workshop was attended by 50 participants.
The workshop discussed the economic development of East Kalimantan so far which has tended to deplete natural resources, trigger forest destruction, and create inequality in people's income. The economic structure of East Kalimantan currently still relies on non-renewable resources where economic output originating from oil, gas and coal in 2013 reached more than 60% (2014-2019 East Kalimantan RPJMD). The high dependence on non-renewable sources whose reserves continue to decline means that the average economic growth in East Kalimantan in the last five years is only around 3.6% per year with a range between 1.59% to 5.1%. The income inequality of the people of East Kalimantan is also a concern where the Gini coefficient in 2012 reached 0.36, an increase from 0.33 in 2011 (BPS Kaltim). On the other hand, forest damage in East Kalimantan due to economic activities is also worrying, where the level of deforestation in the 2006-2011 period reached 209,085 ha or almost 42,000 ha per year.
East Kalimantan needs an economic transformation towards a green economy. A green economy is an economy that has low emissions, uses resources efficiently, and encourages the widest possible participation of society as the main actors in economic activities (UNEP). Through good economic planning, East Kalimantan can transform its economic structure into a more sustainable direction with quality economic growth that improves community welfare and reduces income inequality. This is in line with the development vision of East Kalimantan Province as stated in the 2014-2019 RPJMD:
"Creating an Equitable and Just Prosperous East Kalimantan Based on Agroindustry and Environmentally Friendly Energy".
To realize the development vision of East Kalimantan, East Kalimantan Province has established development cooperation with the German Government through the Green Economy Program called GE-LAMA-I (green economy and locally appropriate mitigation action in Indonesia) for almost four years until the end of 2017. In its implementation, this cooperation program will focus on capacity development in three selected districts, with the support of the Provincial Government, to develop climate mitigation activities in the land sector as a realization of mainstreaming the green economy to districts/cities in East Kalimantan. In full, this program aims:
"At the end of the program in 2017, three selected districts, supported by the Province, had developed land-based sector mitigation activities (NAMA/LAMA) as a realization of mainstreaming the green economy into development planning which was monitored and evaluated in an integrated manner."
This collaboration program will result in at least two mitigation activities being developed. What is meant by "developed" are innovative efforts to eliminate obstacles, and create support and incentives for economic actors to have strong motivation to carry out mitigation activities as a business activity. Thus, financing for mitigation activities is carried out wherever possible by economic actors or financial institutions through economic transaction processes. So that the impact of mitigation activities can be measured in terms of social, economic and climate benefits, this program will also build a green economy plan (which includes an emissions baseline and reduction targets) and a monitoring system.
The implementing development partners in the GE-LAMA-I Program are GIZ and ICRAF. GIZ, previously known as GTZ, has collaborated with East Kalimantan since the 1970s through various development themes including agriculture, rural development, the environment, forestry and good governance. ICRAF, an international agroforestry research institute, has developed land use and agroforestry economic analysis tools that have been recognized by the Indonesian Government and will be very helpful in providing suggestions to realize the vision of East Kalimantan's economic transformation.
In order to align the objectives and framework for the results of this development cooperation, the East Kalimantan Provincial Government together with three selected districts (Berau, East Kutai, and Paser) and GIZ conducted a joint planning workshop on 17-18 July 2014 in Balikpapan. Apart from the core parties in the collaboration, this workshop was also attended by other East Kalimantan development partners, namely the Regional Council for Climate Change, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) as well as non-governmental organizations actively working in one of the three selected districts, namely the Indonesian Rice Foundation. Overall, this workshop was attended by 50 participants.
In addition to the program objectives, this meeting also agreed on the draft work plan and framework for joint results during the 2014-2017 collaboration period. In addition, this meeting also agreed on a draft Joint Agreement (memorandum of understanding) and a plan for the signing process between the East Kalimantan Provincial Government, Berau Regency, East Kutai Regency, Paser Regency, and GIZ. The Joint Agreement will be signed by each regional head and the head of the GE-LAMA-I Program.
The Joint Agreement will be followed up with a Cooperation Agreement (Memorandum of Agreement) which will be signed by the vocal points of each party. The Cooperation Agreement will contain detailed objectives, results framework and division of responsibilities—the draft of which was discussed at this workshop—as well as an agreement on the distribution of resource burdens on each party. Unlike the Collective Agreement which is only a maximum of one year old, the Cooperation Agreement will be valid until the GE-LAMA-I collaboration program ends at the end of 2017. (source: Economic Sector of the East Kalimantan Province Bappeda and published by East Kalimantan Province Bappeda Public Relations/Sukandar, S.Sos).
