This archive collects solutions-journalism stories and milestones from Indonesia — covering health, environment, community development, and more. Each entry highlights real progress made by people, organizations, and communities across the archipelago.
In an effort to accelerate the global transition to all-electric transportation, Indonesia has announced that it will end the sale of combustion engine motorcycles by 2040 and combustion engine cars by 2050.
The local government Indonesia’s West Papua province has revoked permits for 12 oil palm concessions that cover an area twice the size of Los Angeles.
Indonesia’s Supreme Court has rejected a final appeal from a coal company after it and the ministry of energy and mines lost a lawsuit filed by the Indonesian NGO Walhi three years earlier.
Indonesia, Vietnam, Bangladesh, and the Philippines have canceled nearly 45 gigawatts of proposed coal power projects, a figure equal to more than one-quarter of the total installed capacity of Germany.
After a two-year court battle, Indonesia’s Supreme Court ruled in favor of a lawsuit that claims the permit for the mining firm should be revoked.
Indonesia’s parliament has revised the country’s marriage law to lift the minimum age at which women can marry by three years to 19, a move welcomed by campaigners as a step toward curbing child marriage.
Bali Governor Wayan Koster announced that the Indonesian province of Bali is officially banning single-use plastics. The country produces 3.2 million tons of plastic annually.
President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo inaugurated the 247-acre Sidrap Wind Farm in Sindereng Rappang Regency, South Sulawesi, in July 2018. It immediately became the largest of its kind in Southeast Asia and among the first major non-hydro renewable energy projects in the world’s fourth most populous nation. The farm produces 75 MW of electricity and can power up to 70,000 households.
Indonesia became a unitary republic on August 17, 1950, exactly five years after Sukarno and Hatta’s handwritten proclamation of independence in Jakarta. The path there ran through four years of guerrilla war, UN diplomacy, and a decisive U.S. threat to cut Marshall Plan aid to the Netherlands. It was among the twentieth century’s defining acts of decolonization.
Indonesian independence was declared on the morning of August 17, 1945, when Sukarno stepped outside his Jakarta home and read just 62 words aloud. Mohammad Hatta stood beside him; Sukarno’s wife had hand-sewn the flag. After roughly 350 years of Dutch control, a nation of thousands of islands claimed itself.
