The Journal of Indonesia Sustainable Development Planning

Connecting Institutions, Communities, and Systems for Sustainable Development

Hanan Nugroho — 2026-08-31

Prioritizing Climate-Resilient Road Infrastructure Strategies in Greater Honiara, Solomon Islands

Elmar Rautiku — 2026-08-30

Climate change poses significant risks to road infrastructure. Despite growing research on climate vulnerability in SIDS, limited studies have prioritized road adaptation strategies. This study contributes by identifying priority strategies for climate-resilient road infrastructure in Greater Honiara. The research utilizes secondary data to examine the climate patterns and the state of the road network. It also involves collecting questionnaire data through purposive sampling of 40 respondents, including urban planners, engineers, experts, academics, and local government representatives. In addition, 10 participants were selected for follow-up semi-structured interviews based on their knowledge and experience. Descriptive analysis, the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP), and Multi-Criteria Analysis (MCA) were applied to prioritize climate-resilient road adaptation strategies. Extreme rainfall and flooding were identified as the most significant threats. AHP results indicate durability as the most important criterion, followed by suitability and affordability. MCA results ranked sustainable drainage systems as the highest-priority strategy across all zones in Greater Honiara. Therefore, the study helps address a research gap by identifying suitable climate adaptation strategies for different zones in Greater Honiara. The findings provide guidance for improving climate-resilient road infrastructure planning and management in the Solomon Islands.

From Fear-Based Moral Transmission to Critical and Inclusive Moral Education: Rethinking the Discourse of Anak Durhaka in Malin Kundang

Rafi Raihan Nafis — 2026-08-26

This article rethinks the discourse of anak durhaka in Indonesian folktales. This type of folktale is commonly regarded as a suitable source for children’s moral education. However, its narrative structure emphasizes fear-based moral transmission which does not align with SDG 4 Target 4.7 on sustainable education and 4.a on safe, non-violent, and inclusive learning environments. Using qualitative textual analysis and Derridean deconstructive reading, this study examines the discourse’s narrative structure, binary oppositions, contradictions, and shifting meanings to find an alternative reading of the folktale. The result of the deconstructive reading reveals the instability within the narrative structure and opens an alternative educational interpretation. The new reading is centered on dialogue, empathy, children’s agency, forgiveness, and mutual recognition. Building on this reading, the study proposes Critical Folklore Literacy as a pedagogical approach that combines canonical folktales with structured critical discussion. For education policy and curriculum development, the study recommends integrating critical reading into character-education guidelines for a more inclusive, dialogical, and critical moral education.

Governing Land Legacy Issues: An Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) Perspective on the Jatigede Dam

Wahyuni Wahyuni — 2026-08-30

The Jatigede Dam, first conceived in the Dutch colonial era and formally advanced in 1963, was completed only in 2015 after a 52-year development process. This prolonged land acquisition phase gave rise to Land Legacy Issues (LLIs). Using the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, this study examines the institutional dynamics and strategies used to address these issues across three action situations: compensation (A1), relocation (A2), and the cultural heritage debate (A3). Data were gathered through literature review and interviews with BBWS (the project initiator), affected communities, and relevant institutions. Findings show that formal actors dominated all action arenas, creating power asymmetries and limiting community participation. The prevailing rules-in-use reflected a technocratic, administrative logic that marginalized local norms and customary practices, generating friction between state-led governance and community values. These impacts can be minimized through corrective action, particularly by optimizing the complaint-handling mechanism established under Sumedang Regent Decree No. 400/KEP.418-HUK/2019.

Special Allocation Funds, Stunting, and Regional Policy Typologies in West Java: Panel Evidence

Mahpudin — 2026-08-26

This study examines how previous-year Physical and Non-Physical Special Allocation Fund (DAK) allocations relate to stunting prevalence across 27 regencies and municipalities in West Java. A balanced panel of 135 observations was estimated using regional fixed effects with HC1 cluster-robust errors, CR2-Satterthwaite correction, targeted wild cluster bootstrap, and year fixed effects. The analysis also assessed proximal indicators, a limited indirect linkage, regional typologies, and policy-document evidence. Physical DAK remained negatively signed across specifications: a 10% allocation increase was associated with a 0.213-percentage-point decline in the main model, although support weakened under bootstrap and year-effect checks. Non-Physical DAK had no stable direct association. Three diagnostic typologies were identified: High-Priority, Transition/Strengthening, and Relatively Better. DAK optimization should integrate infrastructure and operations, verified territorial targeting, implementation readiness, and results-chain accountability rather than rely on nominal allocation increases alone.

Land Price Variation in the Urban Fringe of Banda Aceh: A Hedonic Analysis of Syiah Kuala District

Yunita Arafah — 2026-08-30

Land price modeling plays a key role in supporting spatial planning and sustainable development. This study focuses on Syiah Kuala District, Banda Aceh, where post-2004 tsunami residential growth has transformed land-use patterns and prices that have not yet been systematically mapped or analyzed. This study used a quantitative deductive approach, employing the Hedonic Pricing Model (HPM) and multiple linear regression to examine the influence of 14 predictor variables on land prices based on 61 observation points from the 2025 NJOP dataset. Spatial network analysis measured distances between sample points and facilities. The results indicate that the regression model is statistically significant, with moderate explanatory power and an Adjusted R-square of 0.375. Distance to supermarkets (X4) and hospitals (X10) emerged as the most significant determinants, both with negative coefficients, indicating that land closer to these facilities commands higher prices because of access to essential services. Public facility variables and disaster risk (X14) were not statistically significant. These findings suggest that accessibility and hazard exposure alone cannot fully explain land price variation in post-tsunami Banda Aceh. Future research should consider risk perception, institutional trust, and adaptive capacity.

Institutional Readiness for Amdalnet Implementation in Environmental Approval Services: A STOPE Assessment in East Java

Dewi Erianik — 2026-08-31

Amdalnet is Indonesia's national digital platform for environmental approval services. Instruction of the Minister of Environment 01/2025 requires regional governments to fully adopt it by 1 June 2026. Subnational readiness remains understudied. This study assesses East Java's provincial institutional readiness and identifies leading and supporting sub-domains in each STOPE (Strategy, Technology, Organization, People, Environment) dimension, using questionnaires, interviews, and document review, supported by descriptive quantitative analysis. Readiness reached 75.34% (Ready), highest in Strategy (79.69%) and lowest in Organization (73.96%). The Relative Importance Index shows the highest-ranking components of each dimension were ICT Leadership, ICT Basic Infrastructure, ICT Regulations, ICT Education and Training, and General Infrastructure. The results indicate transitional institutional readiness where formal compliance has been reached but coordination, personnel, and resource systems remain under consolidation. To achieve higher digital maturity, the province needs to strengthen coordination, technical competence, and financial planning, and engage with the central government on system infrastructure.

Batik Quest: An Educational Role-Playing Game for Learning Indonesian Batik and Supporting Sustainable Cultural Heritage Preservation

Dewi Khairani — 2026-08-31

Young people commonly wear batik, but this does not always mean they recognize its traditional motifs or understand the meanings. This concern led to Batik Quest, an offline Android RPG that introduces nine traditional motifs as players follow quests, solve puzzles, explore the setting, and talk with characters. Development followed the Game Development Life Cycle (GDLC). Evaluation included black-box testing, User Acceptance Testing (UAT) with 35 participants, and a preliminary pre-test/post-test exercise with a different group of five. Overall UAT results were 86.60%, indicating that participants responded positively to the gameplay, usability, and educational content. In the preliminary knowledge assessment, the mean score increased from 3.00 to 7.00 out of nine immediately after gameplay. With only five participants in that assessment, the increase offers an early sign of educational potential, not proof that the game is effective. These results suggest that a mobile game may be a useful, accessible medium for learning about batik. In sustainable-development terms, the study relates most directly to education and cultural heritage preservation. Economic and consumption-related effects were not examined here.

Sustainability as A Global Norm: Power Asymmetry and Neocolonialism?

Nino Viartasiwi — 2026-08-31

Sustainability as a global norm has been implemented for the last two decades with standards and regulations to ensure the compliance of the global community. However, the implementation of such a global norm is not always smooth, such as in the case of Indonesia and the European Union (EU) disputes on palm oil trade caused by the EU’s Renewable Energy Directive (RED) II policy. The application of sustainability standards, especially by the Global North countries to the Global South countries, brings the suspicion of a neo-colonialist attitude characterized by asymmetric power dynamics and economic domination. Using qualitative methodology research by analyzing primary materials on reports and case observation, this study explores the neocolonialism perspective in enforcing sustainability norms in the context of North-South relations. To illustrate the discussion, this study uses the case of the RED II policy toward Indonesia’s palm oil export to the EU. The findings reveal the asymmetric power in norm-making of sustainability, asymmetric power in regulatory making, economy as an instrument of control, and discrimination in implementation. The findings suggest features consistent with neocolonialism in the implementation of sustainability as a global norm through trade relations.

Determinants of the Village Development Index (IDM) on Madura Island: A Classical and Machine Learning Comparison

Dita Amelia — 2026-08-31

Development disparities on Madura Island are characterized by an uneven distribution of basic social infrastructure, reflected in persistently low human development indicators and high poverty rates relative to other regencies in East Java. This study aims to identify fiscal and social infrastructure determinants of IDM status and to compare the performance of ordinal logistic regression (OLR), K-Nearest Neighbors (K-NN), and Support Vector Machine (SVM) in classifying IDM status across 62 sub-districts on Madura Island using 2024 data, evaluated under Stratified 10-Fold Cross Validation. K-NN achieved the highest overall accuracy (71.00%), followed by OLR (67.62%) and SVM (50.00%); however, the macro-averaged F1-Score of 0.42 for both K-NN and SVM indicates limited performance on minority classes. OLR reveals that healthcare facilities and equitable school access are significantly associated with IDM status. The models are best positioned as early-screening tools to support more responsive village development policies, with findings relevant to SDGs 1, 8, and 16.

Capacity-Centred Intergovernmental Collaboration: Evidence from a Village Recognition of Prior Learning Programme in Bojonegoro

Muhammad Farid Ma'ruf — 2026-08-31

This study examines how intergovernmental collaboration was organized through the Village Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) program implemented in Bojonegoro Regency and evaluates its contribution to strengthening village administrative capacity. A qualitative case-study approach was used, drawing on in-depth interviews with key institutional actors, field observations, program documentation, and the Nominal Group Technique. The findings indicate that collaboration successfully expanded access to higher education by integrating national policy direction, regional financing, university-based competency assessment, and workplace learning. Based on these findings, this study proposes a Capacity-Centred Intergovernmental Collaboration (CC-IGC). The model provides a practical governance framework for strengthening village administrative capacity while maintaining academic quality and supporting the long-term sustainability of intergovernmental collaboration in village capacity development.

Towards a Seamless City Framework: Integrating Sentiment Analysis and Adaptive Indicators in Bandung’s Urban Development

Ahmad Aldhiya — 2026-08-31

Smart city agendas in Indonesia are organized around administrative boundaries rather than functional urban dynamics, producing disconnected and fragmented digital services. This study develops the Seamless City as an analytical lens for urban-service integration and translates it into adaptive indicators for Bandung. The methodology uses lexicon-based sentiment analysis of an archived corpus of 6,795 Twitter/X posts on urban services, mapping the resulting citizen-perception signals against ISO 37120, ISO 37122, ISO 37123, and the Sustainable Development Goals. The results show that public discourse centers on service discontinuity rather than on the absence of technology, with governance sentiment distributed as 58.9% positive, 30.4% negative, and 10.7% neutral, indicating divided rather than uniformly critical opinion. Accordingly, 237 candidate indicators are proposed across four pillars: governance (111), mobility (24), economy (21), and environment (81). Urban-service integration therefore depends on cross-agency coordination rather than platform provision, with Bappeda a plausible convenor.

Exploring Food Security Through Traditional Practices: A Case Study of Kasepuhan Gelaralam

R. Muhammad Rouffie Putera Kesuma Runjung — 2026-08-31

Kasepuhan Gelaralam is an indigenous community that sustains its livelihood through traditional rice cultivation, deeply embedded in cultural values and customary institutional systems. While modern food security approaches often prioritize technological and market-based solutions, indigenous cultural systems remain under-explored within multidimensional frameworks. This study examines observable cultural practices in Kasepuhan Gelaralam across six food security dimensions: availability, accessibility, utilization, stability, agency, and sustainability. Using a qualitative-descriptive ethnographic approach, data were collected through triangulation in in-depth interviews with community members, participant observation, and document analysis. The findings reveal that traditional cultivation, communal labor, and collective rice storage strongly support rice-based food security. However, vulnerabilities exist in non-rice commodities due to limited diversification, income constraints, and inadequate nutritional knowledge. These findings highlight the importance of integrating culturally grounded systems into contemporary food policies, though further focused research is required to generate deeper, context-sensitive insights.

Sustainable Bioavtur Development Strategy in Indonesia

Moristanto — 2026-08-31

Reducing emissions in the aviation sector in Indonesia is in line with international decarbonization efforts. This study aims to assess the potential for sustainable bioavtur development in Indonesia, to project future demand and emission reduction requirements, and to identify priority feedstocks and process technologies. Aviation fuel consumption is projected to grow from 4.9 million kilolitres in 2024 to 12.5 million kilolitres in 2060, while the sector must move from 1.9 million tons of CO2e in 2024 to a reduction of 25.6 million tons of CO2e in 2060, in line with the global target of an 85% cut from 2019 levels and carbon-neutral growth in international aviation from 2027. The study combines demand and emission projections, simulation of raw material availability, and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) to rank feedstocks and technologies. The results show that crude palm oil, used cooking oil, and the organic fraction of municipal solid waste, partly generated by the free nutritious meals programme, together with HEFA and FT processes, are the current priorities for development. A series of policies need to be promoted to support bioavtur production, including raw material security, decarbonization technology options, ease of investment, incentive support to achieve economic viability, and balanced information dissemination.

One Test Cannot Serve Two Masters: Validity Risks in Integrating Indonesia's National Assessment with the Academic Ability

Agus Saptono — 2026-08-31

Pusat Standar dan Kebijakan Pendidikan (PSKP, 2026) proposes to merge Indonesia's National Assessment (Asesmen Nasional, AN) with the Academic Ability Test (Tes Kemampuan Akademik, TKA) into a single assessment database serving both institutional quality evaluation and student selection. The administrative case for doing so is not in dispute here. What is in dispute is the measurement premise beneath it: that one instrument carrying high-stakes consequences for individual students can simultaneously yield valid low-stakes evidence about school quality. This commentary argues that it cannot, and that the indicators extracted from such an instrument will describe test-taking behaviour and access to private tutoring more faithfully than they describe teaching and learning.

The proposal begins with one central assumption, namely that a single assessment instrument is capable of producing distinct forms of evidence that support fundamentally different evaluative purposes (Newton, 2010). Before considering such integration, it is important to recognize the conceptual and operational differences between the two assessment systems. Table 1 summarizes these key distinctions, highlighting the contrasting philosophical foundations and implementation characteristics of each model.

Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design

Siti Nuurlaily Rukmana — 2026-08-31

This book review discusses Charles Montgomery's 2013 book entitled 'Happy City: Transforming Our Lives Through Urban Design'. This book discusses the relationship between the form and design of the city and happiness. The physical shape and design of the city affect emotions, health, and the way people interact with each other. The theories in this book draw on perspectives from urban planning, environmental psychology, neuroscience, and behavioral economics. In addition, the regions studied in this book are Bogotá (Colombia), Vancouver (Canada), New York & Atlanta (USA), and Copenhagen (Denmark).

The cover of this book represents the contents of Montgomery's book. We argue that the colorful images of tall buildings fit the book's purpose: happiness. Among these tall buildings, the author tries to visualize the existence of green open spaces with garden benches. This suggests that green open space supports psychological recovery, increases physical activity, and strengthens social activities/interactions, especially in urban communities (Alhadedy and Alomary 2024; Samavati et al. 2025; Samavati and Veenhoven 2024). There is a silhouette image of children playing with kites and bicycles. This illustrates that the city should be built not only with a complete infrastructure that supports economic activities, but also with a sense of security and comfort for children and the elderly. Thus, the city can be considered inclusive and may become the center of community activities.

This book contributes to the shift in urban development, where initially the city was built with economic growth, to human-oriented development. Several statements are strengths in his writing. At the beginning of the chapter, he wrote about the psychology of mobility. Montgomery explains how people (in this case, society) get stuck in daily commuting. They prefer to live in a suburb far from their work, so they spend their days commuting. This book also mentions that the existence of public transportation often causes disappointment, especially in terms of uncertainty of departure schedules and infrastructure design that is not optimal and comfortable. The impact of high stress levels triggers a decline in the quality of life. On the other hand, people who use their own power to move, such as walking or riding bicycles, consistently report the highest levels of excitement. In the next chapter, Montgomery discusses freedom. He criticized the notion that freedom in mobility is defined by the speed of vehicles through the toll road construction, but rather by the freedom to choose how to move safely and comfortably. He explained that the highway used to be a common space, but cars are currently the priority. This phenomenon certainly harms children, the elderly, and the poor who cannot or cannot afford to drive.

We argue that the phenomenon written by Montgomery is relevant to conditions in Indonesia, especially in metropolitan cities. So far, the urban development is oriented towards private vehicles through road widening, toll road construction, among others. The dominance of this mobility movement certainly creates inequality for marginalized groups, the elderly, and children. Rapid urbanization in metropolitan Indonesia, such as Tangerang, forces people to face long journeys to urban centers (Rosida, Sari, and Irjayanti 2019). This book substantially provides a framework for the concept of a happy city, namely (1) Public space that must be neutral and easily accessible, (2) The existence of an integrated space that encourages the creation of social interaction, (3) the existence of inclusive public transportation and safe and comfortable pedestrian paths, (4) the design of a city that can adapt to the local culture. Therefore, the concept of a happy city, in this case, involves the existence of city spaces, such as a fostered environment, that serve as a forum to improve the quality of life of its people. The four points above show that the better the urban built environment, the higher the level of happiness of the community (Khare and Chatterjee 2024; Makki and Khalid 2025; Mirzaei et al. 2016; Sepe 2017). However, the ideas Montgomery writes about in this book are more narrative and inspirational than technical-empirical, so there is no operational technical formula for developing a happy City. This limitation offers another perspective, written by Brdulak (2017), titled Happy City: How to Plan and Create the Best Livable Area for the People. It offers a more systematic approach to formulating the elements of a livable and happy city. As such, the two books are considered complementary approaches.