The Disruption of Personal Protection Equipment Supply Chain: What Can We Learn from Global Value Chain in the Time of Covid-19 Outbreak?

The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted many aspect of life and it has sought to multifaceted crisis in a global scale. With the continued of health crisis caused by this communicable disease, medical device and personal protection equipment become precious commodity for the general public and healthcare professionals. Therefore, there is a growing demand of Personal Protection Equipment especially face mask and N95 respirators in all over countries. Unfortunately, the decade of expansive trade had been distorted by pandemic of Covid-19 that made the medical supplies cannot meet the global demand. Prior to the outbreak of covid-19, there was an interdependency of medical supplies trade through Global Value Chain. GVC had made the production of medical supplies are effectively fragmented and globally integrated. This article tries to examine the architecture of global medical supply through the lens of Global Value Chain (GVC) before and after pandemic. Using a qualitative methodology this article tries to provide analytical descriptive on global medical devices fragmentation. We use the full UN Comtrade data from 1990 to 2018, Foreign Direct Investment Data from OECD and mass media news to track the shifting of medical devices production during pandemic. The main results indicate that the worsening situation of Pandemic Covid-19 has brought state actors and non-state actors to create new pattern in GVC to provide medical devices worldwide. Finally, this article aims to cast a light on the importance of global cooperation and trade interdependency during crisis.

Community Development, Local Wisdoms, and Ineffective Government Aid: The Case of Lombok Post-Disaster House Reconstruction Project

Despite the high frequency of disasters, post-disaster development projects in Indonesia have yet been implemented effectively. Such may not be easily reflected through the number of aid projects given, for the reality is much more complex. This article believes that the significance of development projects should be assessed from the aid recipients' perspective. The excess rebuilding back in Aceh's 2004 post-disaster case is one example that shows the importance of paying attention to recipient needs from their perspective rather than aid giver perceptions. The post-disaster condition in Lombok back in 2018 could serve as an example to show the effectiveness of post-disaster development in Indonesia recently. In accordance, this article aims to show how the post-disaster community development programs implemented by multi-stakeholders in Indonesia, especially government-initiated ones, have yet successfully fulfilled Lombok post-disaster victims' needs. The article also found that active initiation from the locals and careful attention to local potentials and wisdom is crucial to determine post-disaster development's success. Such a conclusion is based on the assessment of whether the programs have fulfilled community development principles, in addition to satisfying the victim's human security.

Bridging the Gap: Securitizing Lack of Accessible Education in Indonesia During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Global South continues to face new threats and challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. The debate over health and economy continues and often leaves one aspect out of the equation: education. Especially in Southeast Asia, where regional and domestic disparity still lingers. Association of Southeast Asia Nations (ASEAN) acknowledged that the development gap remained one of the most crucial issues in the region. Using Wæver and Buzan’s securitization theory and Japanese approach of human security, the article tries to prove why the current state of education should be considered as a new non-traditional security threat and should be securitized by countries in the region. The article will use a qualitative method and hypothesizes that the inability for states to ensure quality education during the pandemic will affect the quality of the states’ human capital. The pandemic forces education institutions to rely on online learning. However, not every student has access towards required facilities such as, internet connection, gadgets, technologies, etc. Students in underdeveloped areas might struggle to participate in online classes, forcing them to be left behind. In the long-run, this will slow down Southeast Asian countries’ progress in tackling the development gap.

Indonesia’s Self Identity in the Development Assistance Policy through South South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC)

This article aims to examine the link between self-identity and foreign policy, particularly focusing on how state’s self-identity is built and sustained through policy. Using Indonesian development assistance policy through South South and Triangular Cooperation (SSTC) as a case study, this article finds that Indonesia self-identifies as a middle power country with strong affiliation towards developing countries as a result of national role conception processes. This self-identity in turn are built and sustained through SSTC development assistance policy, due to the suitability of role obligations as a middle power country with the values carried by the act of providing development assistance, as well as the deeply rooted historical dynamics of SSTC development policy with developing country status.

Scrutinizing the Political and Economic Dynamics of China's Distribution of Vaccines in Securitizing Health

In the previous Pandemic of the H5N1 virus, the world is facing an uneven distribution of the vaccine. The irony is that developed countries get more access to vaccines compared to the country with more cases especially the global south countries. Today, the world is facing another pandemic which is The Covid-19 Pandemic. This virus vaccine has been found by Russia but has not yet gained international trust. According to experts, China is the country with the most potential to produce this vaccine. However, after the vaccine is successfully produced, there is no assurance that the vaccine will evenly be distributed as mandated by WHO. Based on these considerations, the researcher aimed to project the possibilities of vaccine distribution from China to global south countries. Researchers want to analyze the influence of a country's economic capacity and international politics on vaccine distribution, especially with China. To achieve this objective, we will compare the political and economic situation during the H5N1 pandemic and the political and economic situation during the Covid-19 pandemic. Countries used for comparison are Kenya, Yemen, the Philippines, and Indonesia. These four countries were chosen because it could represent different conditions of political and economic relations. The expected result is that we will get an overview of the distribution of the Covid-19 vaccine when China has started the distribution of the vaccine. We hope that this paper can be a consideration for developing countries' governments to be more sensitive and intense in carrying out vaccine diplomacy.

Challenging Underrepresentation of Women Leadership in Global South during COVID-19

The WHO's analysis of gender equity in the health workforce of 104 countries has recorded that 70% of the global health workforce is women, while only 25% of them have the opportunity to be decision-makers in COVID-19 leadership. This large percentage has targeted women to be the majority group to get an infection exacerbated by fatigue and mental stress both in the workplace and family. The situation is worsened in Global South due to the low score of the global health system and a high gender gap that leads to inequality. Some important arguments reinforced why women's leadership during the crisis is matters and should be considered. This research will compare several case studies between Global North and Global South countries led by women and men as decision-makers in the COVID-19 pandemic case and in the end, these case studies would challenge women leadership in Global South. The success of the leadership parameter will be assessed from the total number of COVID-19 cases and total deaths from January 17th until October 21st, 2020. The findings found that the underrepresentation of women as decision-makers and policies in COVID-19 leadership led to the length of pandemic management and an increase in the number of COVID-19 cases in the Global South. In further explanation, the research identified several significant factors that explain why women leadership could be more successful to overcome the COVID-19 pandemic in Global South.

Rethinking the Emergence and the Practice of Three Praetorian States in Southeast Asia: A Comparative Study between Indonesia, Myanmar and Thailand

Military forces have had many important roles in political life in Southeast Asia where the military has a full power or major role and influence in the domestic politics. These forms of military intervention in domestic politics are called praetorianism, which is characterized by the military being more inclined to take care of domestic political affairs rather than carrying out its professional duties as guardians of sovereignty from external threats. We can find this practice from seeing the New Order regime in Indonesia to the Military Junta of Myanmar and Thailand. This paper aims to analyze what factors are the background of the widespread practice of praetorianism and how the practice can last for a certain period of time, even still to this day in Southeast Asia. The main argument is the weak political institutions and the low political culture of developing country are the main causes of various intervention efforts made by the armed forces in the domestic political realm of a country.