In this presentation by Abidah Setyowati will present her research that examines Indonesia’s efforts to realize its policy vision of energy justice by mobilizing private finance for renewable rural electrification. She will discuss how a myopic interpretation of energy justice vision could result in policies and initiatives that could perpetuate spatial inequality and reinforces the exclusion and disempowerment of energy poor communities from energy decisions.
About the speaker: Abidah Setyowati is an interdisciplinary social scientist with extensive experience working as a researcher and policy advisor. She is currently working as a senior research fellow at Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, TU Delft. She is also a visiting fellow at the School of Regulation and Global Governance, College of Asia-Pacific, the Australian National University. Trained as a human-environment geographer with PhD from Rutgers University, her research focuses broadly on energy governance, climate finance, natural resources and climate governance, nature-based climate solutions (e.g. REDD+, PES), and gender with a regional focus in Southeast Asia. She draws primarily on political ecology, governance and science and technology studies (STS) frameworks to examine the politics of energy transition, energy justice, the nexus of climate justice and finance, and the link between contemporary processes of the commodification of nature to more longitudinal processes of change in natural resources and climate governance. She collaborates with multidisciplinary scientists to examine the articulation of these processes with market-based natural resources and climate governance reforms. She has undertaken leadership, programme management and policy advisory roles as well as commissioned research for international and multilateral agencies such as UNDP, FAO, UNEP, UNREDD, USAID, among others. Working areas include (but not limited to): Indonesia, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, the Philippines, Lao PDR, Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, Malaysia.