During 2012, SMERU continued with its main activities on research, dissemination and outreach, networking, and capacity building. A major achievement for SMERU in terms of policy impact was gained this year with the assignment from the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) to assist in the development of the Master Plan for Acceleration and Expansion of Poverty Reduction (MP3KI). MP3KI is an important policy document, as it will serve as a comprehensive guideline on poverty reduction in Indonesia until 2025. In this assignment, SMERU was supported financially by AusAID. This assignment highlights the government’s trust in SMERU and its research. As a policy research institute, SMERU contributes to policy through the recommendations it provides to policymakers. In this MP3KI assignment, however, SMERU is directly involved in the writing up of a major policy document and this can be viewed as one of the most effective policy engagements a policy research institute can hope for. Therefore, SMERU took this assignment very seriously. Almost all SMERU researchers were involved in various stages of this assignment.

Another major undertaking for SMERU in 2012 was the development of a new poverty map of Indonesia. This is an update of the previous poverty map, which was launched in 2005. The previous poverty map provides the maps of poverty conditions in Indonesia at the provincial, district, subdistrict, and village levels. It had been developed by combining the data from the 1999 National Socioeconomic Survey (Susenas) and the 2000 Population Census. The poverty map proved to be a popular tool and served many purposes, both practical and analytical. With the new 2010 Population Census data readily available in 2012, it was time to draw a new and improved poverty map. Similar to the development of the previous poverty map, the creation of the new one is made possible by the generous support of the Ford Foundation.

Nearing the end of 2011, SMERU underwent an independent review by AusAID, with the final report released in early 2012. In 2012, as a follow-up to the recommendations provided by the reviewers, SMERU has taken several actions. 

First, to strengthen its organizational management, SMERU appointed a deputy director for administration and finance in August 2012. Second, also as an effort to improve its management practices, in addition to the regular annual staff evaluation, starƟng in 2012, SMERU implements a management evaluation carried out by the staff. Third, to implement a full cost recovery of projects, SMERU has been more careful in constructing budget proposals and gradually raising its professional fees. Fourth, to improve budget setting and monitoring processes, SMERU has implemented new accounting software, Zahir, since the second semester of 2012. The software offers various financial analyses to assist budget seƫng and monitoring.

During the twelve years in operation as an independent institution, SMERU has grown both quantitatively and qualitatively. This is only possible through the hard work and dedication of all SMERU staff and the strong support from the donors, notably AusAID and Ford Foundation. Furthermore, the trust put by various government ministries in SMERU has made it possible for the institute to implement its mission to contribute to evidence-informed policymaking process. In addition, the members of the Boards of Trustees and Supervisors have continuously shown their unwavering support to SMERU to develop into a well-established policy research institute. Last but not least, SMERU’s other stakeholders have also contributed to the institute’s development through their supports and feedbacks. For all of these, I am forever grateful.