Indonesia

Clean Cities, Blue Ocean Indonesia: From Ocean Pollution to Lasting Solutions

Indonesia, the world’s largest archipelagic country with over 270 million people, is renowned for its prosperous seas, vital mangroves, and over 17,000 diverse islands. However, like many countries around the world, its waste management infrastructure is struggling to keep pace with rapid urbanization and escalating plastic pollution, threatening the country’s… Read More

Preventing More Than One Million Tons of Plastic from Entering the Environment

How USAID’s Clean Cities, Blue Ocean program has prevented more than 127 billion plastic bottles from entering into the environment  Clean Cities, Blue Ocean, USAID’s flagship global program under the Save Our Seas Initiative, has reached a significant milestone: preventing more than one million metric tons of plastic from entering… Read More

Developing the Transjakarta Busway: The World’s Longest Bus Rapid Transit System

Cross-posted from USAID.gov Twenty years ago, the United States, through USAID, worked with the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy (ITDP) to design a new Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) system for Jakarta. The system, known as Transjakarta, opened its first transit corridor in 2004. That 13-kilometer route was the… Read More

United States and Indonesia Celebrate “Clean Cities, Blue Ocean” Collaboration to Reduce Plastic Pollution

The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) successfully completed its Clean Cities, Blue Ocean (USAID CCBO) program in Indonesia, implemented in close partnership with national and local governments.  Read More

Grassroot Actions Against Polluted Skies: How Jakarta’s Urban Villages Tackle Air Pollution 

Jakarta’s air quality was front-page news when pollution levels spiked to some of the highest in the world during the 2023 dry season.  For these women, breathing in dirty air is a daily occurrence.  Read More

Rapid Appraisal Facility Tool

The Rapid Appraisal Facility Tool (RAFT) is a form-based tool that provides solid waste management staff and planners a quick and efficient way to collect key data about a city’s current solid waste and recycling systems, including its individual disposal and processing facilities, to inform solid waste management planning and… Read More

Creating Economies of Scale for Plastics Recycling

Alarming levels of plastic are produced every day, much of which makes its way into the environment and our ocean. Of the seven billion metric tons of plastic waste generated globally to date, less than 10 percent has been recycled. For the world to succeed in stopping plastic waste from flowing into our oceans and damaging the environment, much higher volumes need to be collected and recycled at the source: on land. Read More

7 Things to Know About Jakarta’s Air Pollution Crisis

On August 31, 2023, Jakarta residents woke up to a thick blanket of haze and news that their city was again ranked the most polluted city in the world by Swiss technology company IQAir. Read More

Women in Waste’s Economic Empowerment Activity: Empowering Women to Reduce Ocean Plastics

Women have vital roles in the waste value chain—from informal waste collectors, street sweepers, local junkshop managers, to community recycling leaders and policy makers—with great potential to increase the amount of plastic waste collected and recycled and to help reduce the amount of plastic reaching the ocean. Read More

Announcing the Winners of the 2023 Urbanlinks Photo Contest!

We are excited to announce the winners of the inaugural Urbanlinks 2023 Photo Contest! Over 80 submissions representing 12 countries were submitted to the contest. Submissions to the four themes of Air Quality, Climate, Ocean Plastics, and Urban Communities highlight the work that USAID engages in with local partners, alongside… Read More