Overview
Indonesia's agricultural economy is in urgent need of assistance to undertake quality policy analysis focused on maintaining sustainable economic growth in the face of growing global economic and environmental pressures. This project will conducted an overview of Indonesian agricultural technologies, policies and associated data that impacted on economic growth and production efficiency in the face of these changes. Activities included data collection and analysis on agricultural-related technology, policies and institutions, and delivery of both partial-equilibrium sector and economy-wide econometric modelling of policy options. The program involved policy dialogues, study tours to relevant institutions and staff interchanges. Such activities were designed to improve the capacity of Indonesian policymakers to review the contribution of agriculture to rural and wider economic development and to design policies that could impact positively upon incomes, poverty and hunger in the medium to longer term. The Indonesian policymakers gained an enhanced set of knowledge and decision support tools that could help them to look to future challenges posed by global environmental and economic change and to identify and examine areas in need of alternative policy options. Fulfilling these aims also potentially brought out broader implications for the rest of the Asia-Pacific region, to show how regional economies such as Australia might best adjust to policy changes in Indonesia under alternative growth scenarios.
