Environmental Sciences

The demands of mitigation and adaptation policies are important to understanding a country's climate change preparation by providing microfinance in the agricultural sector. This could be seen as a strategy to fight against the challenges of future food security. In 2014, Indonesia established climate change adaptation policies. This legislation aims to pave the way for making actions on climate change adaptation mainstream in national and local development planning. Public and private finance have supported the implementation of the climate actions. However, most funding is still used for mitigation. Adaptation finance needs support, especially in agriculture. This research paper studies opportunities for microfinance to play a role together with existing resources in supporting climate change adaptation in Indonesia. The data was acquired and analysed through a literature review, analysis of case studies and interviews with stakehold-ers in the climate change-related financial sector. The central findings regarding the opportunity for microfinance to contribute to the existing schemes in Indonesian climate change adaptation finance for agriculture are worthy of the result. This study found that adaptation finance is mostly used for indirect activities. Meanwhile, local communities, and farmers in particular, need directly targeted measures to adapt to climate change. An alternative approach is providing mi-crofinance, insurance and capacity development for farmers to produce high quality agricultural products. This would contribute to optimizing the agri-food value chain, which supports socioeconomic development of stakeholders, especially farmers. Hence, microfinance appears to be one potential solution to support direct climate change adaptation actions for the agricultural sector. However, this may not be strong enough to finance the entire needs for agricultural climate actions. Adaptation is contextual, so it has to be grounded in the needs of local communities. Microfinance needs public sectors support as well as other resources from the private sector. In the case of rapid response to disasters, which often destroy the agricultural sector, microfinance should be advantageous in supporting adaptation. However, in reality, it does not work, as it is prevented by regulations. So, this can be an area the public sector can support as a risk-taker as well as by providing initial funds and resources for scaling up efforts.

Globalisation has given rise to new and intensified transnational and translocal relationships. This is reflected in the rise and intensification of a range of mobilities of individuals and communities. In the 'age of migration', workers in varied skill sectors, investors, tourists, students, (health) care providers and seekers etc. are moving across and within national borders and living in transnational/translocal spaces more than ever before. New and/or intensified flows and circulations of people (bundled with other non-human flows) are contributing to rapid transformations in all parts of the world. Human mobility has indeed become one of the most important stratifying factors in this time of globalisation. While there is a global competition for so-called skilled migrants and talented students creating smooth pathways for some movers, other migrants looking for humanitarian protection face hard borders and long asylum procedures in their migration processes. This 2-day Workshop focuses on the politics of mobility and examines the nature of different types of mobilities and their impact on human development in our urbanising world. The Workshop considers the importance of place, space and temporalities. It encourages in particular a translocal perspective to interrogate the causes, nature and impact of migration and mobilities, paying attention to the contexts of and processes in migrants' places of origin, destinations and on the road.