Our Expertise
It has been over a decade since efforts began to develop good communication and effective dialogs between researchers and policymakers. Although facing many challenges, efforts to matchmake research and policy have not wearied over the years. They have even gained larger support.
The SMERU family offers its deepest condolences on the passing of Sri Budiyati, a researcher of The SMERU Research Institute, on 26 May 2015 in Jakarta.
The year 2005 was designated by the United Nations as the Year of Microfinance. Microfinance is considered aan important strategy in poverty reduction and various microfinance services have been opened by government, donor institutions, NGOs and public banks. While there has been significant growth in microfinance activities, a number of issues of concern have arisen.
The government of Indonesia implemented an unconditional cash transfer (UCT) program in October 2005 in order to mitigate the impact of a removal of fuel subsidy in the same month. The program is targeted at 15 million poor households, determined by BPS (Statistics Indonesia) using a proxy means testing method.
Since the deregulation of the retail industry in 1998, the number of supermarkets, hypermarkets, and minimarkets (collectively coined “modern markets”) in Indonesia has skyrocketed. Several groups claim that the resulting intense competition with modern markets has caused the decline of the traditional market. In 2006, SMERU conducted a study on the impact of supermarkets on traditional markets in Indonesia’s urban centers.
