The Indonesian Low Carbon Development Planning and Monitoring Application

Indonesia launches online platform to aid the country achieve its national economic growth targets while simultaneously addressing the sustainable development.

The Indonesian Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS) at the end of last year officially launched a Low Carbon Development Planning and Monitoring Application, known as AKSARA (a composite of the Indonesian words Aplikasi Perencanaan dan Pemantauan Pembangunan Rendah Karbon Indonesia). This supersedes the earlier PEP Online application, which was a national web-based tool for monitoring the implementation of climate mitigation actions and progress to achieve the national target of a 26-percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020.  AKSARA, is also an online platform aimed at emissions reduction; however it addresses targets set in its Nationally Determined Contribution (NDC) under the Paris Agreement and contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). It also simultaneously helps the country to achieve its national economic growth.

AKSARA is expected to facilitate more integrated, accurate, comprehensive, consistent and transparent monitoring, reporting and verification processes to steer Monitoring, Reporting and Verification (MRV) arrangements towards the Enhanced Transparency Framework (ETF) through 4 modules. These  include:

• a planning module to help the government design and plan low carbon development interventions;
• a monitoring module to help the government monitor implementation of low carbon development activities;
• an evaluation module to provide balanced evaluations of low carbon development target achievement at the national and regional levels; and
• a reporting module to provide regular, comprehensive, and reliable information to relevant stakeholders on low carbon development implementation processes.

AKSARA will also include a knowledge platform and e-learning module to enable stakeholders, particularly regional government officials become more independent through long-distance learning. 

The process of establishing AKSARA was led by the Indonesian Directorate for Environment under the Ministry of National Development Planning (BAPPENAS)’s Deputy of Maritime Affairs and Natural Resources in close coordination with technical ministries/agencies and provincial governments. Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmbH  and the World Agroforestry Centre  provided technical support under the Monitoring, Reporting and Verification for Mitigation Measures in Indonesia (MRV-MMI) Program funded by the German Federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation and Nuclear Safety (BMU) through the International Climate Initiative.