Heinrich-Böll-Stiftung South East Asia |

Welcome to HBS Southeast Asia

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On 17 April 2019, Indonesia held the world’s largest, and arguably most complicated, one-day election. With 193 million voters, almost 6 million recruited election workers, and more than 810,000 polling stations spread across the archipelago, from cities, villages to hundreds of tiny islets, this enormous undertaking involved presidential, legislative (national and local), and senate elections – done simultaneously. Voters’ attention, however, was largely on the presidential election, which led to a turnout of 81%, the highest in Indonesia’s electoral history in the post-reform era.

By Deasy Simandjuntak

Recent Articles

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The island of Penang, on the northwestern coast of Peninsular Malaysia has a very hilly topography. Almost 50% of land is hilly, and 39% is classified as Class III and above, having slopes more than 25⁰ in gradient. Underlain mainly by weathered granitic bedrock, this rugged topography has been a bane for development, as it presents a myriad of engineering and environmental challenges. What is fueling this rampant hill slope development and how is it impacting people's lives in Penang Island? This article seeks to explore these questions and look at what's the best way forward.

By Rexy Prakash Chacko

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The future has, in many ways, been fast-forwarded to become the present. Climate change is no longer a far-off topic for scientists or government officials in air-conditioned halls, or just a protest campaign for noisy activists. The changes it has brought to human existence and the challenges to our ways of living, and to the natural world we wreck at our own risk, have arrived at our doorstep.

By Johanna Son

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The Mekong Delta where the turbid water flow of the Mekong River passing through before joining the sea, is the largest area of rice, fruits and fishery production in Vietnam. It is also the place which seriously affected by climate change, drought, saline intrusion, sea level rise and landslide. In the last few years, unpredictable weather pattern has made crops in the Mekong Delta unstable, leading to a harder life for the people and as a consequence, the influx of people from rural areas to big cities has spread through the whole region.

By Le Dinh Tuyen

Cement and The Kendeng Mountains

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With the increasing threats of climate change, corporate investment and industrial expansion in the area, women are faced with new challenges in the form of migration and trafficking. The impacts of climate change are charted as follows: decreasing crop yields; threats to food security; increased water stress and drought; increasing fluvial flooding and rainfall; frequent fluvial flooding; an increasing number of tropical cyclones (in certain areas); and rise of sea level affecting livelihood in coastal regions.

By Dewi Candraningrum

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For years, a citizens' initiative in the Indonesian Kendeng Karst-Mountain has been fighting against the destruction of their livelihoods by cement factories, among others, a subsidiary of the German HeidelbergCement. The transnational solidarity network Save Kendeng supports the farmers from the Kendeng Mountains.

Podcast | Our Voices, Our Choices

This series hands the microphone to people whose voices don’t often get heard - people now making choices which don’t conform to laws or customs - or whose views have long been disregarded, even censored. Its about communities fighting for basic human rights and its about the diverse tools of their struggles. We discover how women are securing their rights through political protest, we look in detail at women’s reproductive rights and we go into LGBT communities worldwide.

Click Here for Articles and Videos on 70 Years of UDHR

The UDHR and Migrant Workers Rights in ASEAN - Jolovan Wham

The UDHR and Human Rights in ASEAN - Dr. Dinna Wisnu

The UDHR and Democracy in ASEAN - Dr. Naruemon Thambhumpon

The UDHR and LGBTI Rights in ASEAN - Dr. Dédé Oetomo

Articles on 70 Years of UDHR

Ecology & Social Justice

Democracy & Participation

ASEAN explained in 5 Minutes

50 Years of ASEAN - Still Waiting for Social and Ecological Justice

Within 50 years of existence, ASEAN has made progress on environmental policies – at least on paper. On the ground, paradigms around economic development and growth still shape realities of the people who find it literally harder and harder to breathe.

Forest fires and the haze, daily traffic routines and large-scale industry make the extent of environmental damage in Southeast Asia visible. In this podcast series, we look behind ASEAN´s promises to be sustainable and people-oriented and find that the institution still falls short of social and ecological justice.

State of Democracy in Southeast Asia

Podcast

Welcome to this podcast by the Heinrich Böll Foundation. It is part of the ’State of Democracy in Southeast Asia’ series, and this is your host, Johanna Son. In this episode, we take a look at the elections lined up in the region. Can democratic mechanisms like elections lead to more authoritarian rule? We step back to look at what this trend says about the quality of the democracies in our midst.

By Johanna Son

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While observers of the state of democracy agree that democracy has been in decline in the recent years, its trajectory in the Southeast Asian region has at least shown mixed results. Elections are still treated as the ultimate yardstick for “democracy” in Southeast Asia.

By Deasy Simandjuntak

Recent Publications

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This publication provides a practical guide to the policies, standards and guidelines for Chinese outbound investment. The updated guide builds on our 2017 edition, adding new details on the Belt and Road Initiative, China’s new vision for enhancing global connectivity, along with updates to administrative guidance from China’s central state agencies on outbound investment. It also covers new guidelines on rubber, agriculture, infrastructure projects and more. The guide explains the key actors involved in Chinese overseas investment and describes the environmental and social standards and guidelines that apply. It provides practical tips on how these standards can be used in advocacy with relevant Chinese actors and institutions.

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In recent years, a number of countries have chosen to join the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB), which has become a major player in the global financial architecture in record time. The AIIB promises to be "lean, clean and green". In truth, it seems to be an instrument to promote Chinese interests. The analysis of Korinna Horta after three years of AIIB is very sobering. What can you do now? Is it time to acknowledge a total failure and leave the bank? What influence do shareholders still have and what should they push for?

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Nationalistic sentiments spurred by populist rhetoric have been on the rise globally. Asia is no exception to this trend. Some Asian leaders communicate visions that can instill a feeling of pride, creating a rarely felt sense of belonging among people. Yet the current streak of Asian nationalism can also become a setbackfor democracy and human rights.

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ATLASES

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The list of the world’s largest 500 companies by turnover contains a huge number of firms engaged in agriculture and food. And the trend continues towards a further concentration of power. Agrifood corporations are driving industrialization along the entire global value chain, from farm to plate. Their purchasing and sales policies promote a form of agriculture that revolves around productivity. The fight for market share is achieved at the expense of the weakest links in the chain: farmers, and workers.

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Global demand for coal is still rising: EU member states have been reluctant to take action against coal projects and continue to subsidize coal related business with almost 10 billion euros per year. King Coal also generates 43 percent of Germany’s total energy.

Our Coal Atlas contains the latest facts and figures on the use of coal and its environmental and social consequences. With more than 60 detailed graphics, the atlas illustrates the coal industry’s impact on nature, health, labour, human rights and politics.

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Without the ocean there would be no life on our planet. But the future of this unique ecosystem faces a grave threat today. The Ocean Atlas 2017 delivers with its 18 contributions and 50 graphics the relevant facts and figures about the ocean.

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We are using the world’s soils as if they were inexhaustible, continually withdrawing from an account, but never paying in. For it takes several thousand years to build a thin layer of fertile topsoil, but only an hour of heavy rain to lose it. The average European needs 1.3 hectares – two football pitches – to produce all of the food and other products he or she consumes each year. That is about six times more than is available to each Bangladeshi. Almost 60 percent of the area consumed by Europeans lies outside the European Union.

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The publication sheds light on the impacts of meat and dairy production, and aims to catalyse the debate over the need for better, safer and more sustainable food and farming.

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