Indonesian hospital in northern Gaza resumes inpatient services

JAKARTA: New sovereign wealth fund Danantara Indonesia will focus on large-scale projects generating good returns as it prioritizes sectors championed by the government to increase economic growth and create jobs, its chief investment officer told Reuters. Danantara, which was launched this week and is slated to eventually manage more than $900 billion worth of assets including government stakes in state firms, has been described by officials as Indonesia’s version of Singapore’s Temasek fund.
“All the money that goes to Danantara will be used commercially and productively to generate economic activities,” chief investment officer Pandu Sjahrir told Reuters on Friday, adding the fund was not restricted to investing in state firms or projects.
President Prabowo Subianto has pledged $20 billion for Danantara’s “first wave of investment” that will target projects in natural resources processing, artificial intelligence development, and energy and food security.
The initial capital will come from the government and dividend payments from the state company stakes that it will hold. In 2025, Jakarta has said it expects dividends from state-owned enterprises of 90 trillion rupiah ($5.4 billion).
“We will be deliberate, slow, and most likely be boring in our investment activities. Because our job really is to find good returns,” Pandu said, noting risk management would be paramount given the public scrutiny the fund will face.
The government has pledged transparency, saying the fund could be audited anytime.
The company is still in a discovery stage for its cost of capital, Pandu said, and would be looking at projects with minimum acceptable rate of return close to those on Indonesian government bonds.
In its first year, Danantara will focus on domestic investment, including in private equity and debt markets, and will be open to offshore investment after that. Danantara’s size means it will look to invest in projects worth $1 billion or more, with investment decisions based on the returns and the ability to create high-value jobs, he said. A number of investors have already approached Danantara for potential partnership, including large funds from the United States, Middle East, North Asia and Southeast Asia, Pandu said.
Unlike Jakarta’s existing sovereign fund, the Indonesia Investment Authority, Danantara is not required to have partners for its investment projects, Pandu said.
Fitch Ratings said on Monday in its report the credit profile of some state-controlled firms could weaken if Danantara requires higher dividend payouts or if they were pursuing riskier projects as a result of Danantara’s approach.

ROME: Nations cheered a last-gasp deal to map out funding to protect nature Thursday, breaking a deadlock at UN talks seen as a test for international cooperation in the face of geopolitical tensions.
Rich and developing countries hammered out a delicate compromise on raising and delivering the billions of dollars needed to protect species, overcoming stark divisions that had scuttled their previous meeting in Cali, Colombia, last year.
Delegates stood and clapped in an emotionally charged final meeting that saw key decisions adopted in the final minutes of the last day of rebooted negotiations at the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization headquarters in Rome.
COP16 President Susana Muhamad of Colombia hailed the fact that countries worked together for a breakthrough, enabling progress “in this very fragmented and conflicted world.”
“This is something very beautiful because it’s around protecting life that we have come together, and there cannot be anything higher than that,” she added.
The decision comes more than two years after a landmark deal to halt the rampant destruction of nature this decade and protect the ecosystems and wildlife that humans rely on for food, climate regulation, and economic prosperity.
Scientists have warned that action is urgent.
A million species are threatened with extinction, while unsustainable farming and consumption destroys forests, depletes soils and spreads plastic pollution to even the most remote areas of the planet.
The agreement on Thursday is seen as crucial to giving impetus to the 2022 deal, which saw countries agree to protect 30 percent of the world’s land and seas.
Talks were also seen as a bellwether for international cooperation.
The meeting comes as countries face a range of challenges, from trade disputes and debt worries to the slashing of overseas aid — particularly by new US President Donald Trump.
Washington, which has not signed up to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity, sent no representatives to the meeting.
“Our efforts show that multilateralism can present hope at a time of geopolitical uncertainty,” said Steven Guilbeault, Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change.
Ousseynou Kasse of Senegal, speaking on behalf of the Africa Group, also threw support behind global cooperation.
“We believe that this is the way that can save the world, and we must continue down this path,” he said.
Countries must be “accountable to our children, to the generations to come,” he added, saying he was thinking of what he would tell his own son when he returns home.
“I will give him good news that we have a compromise, we have a deal.”
The failure to finalize an agreement in Cali was the first in a string of disappointing outcomes at environmental summits last year.
A climate finance deal at COP29 in Azerbaijan in November was slammed by developing countries, while separate negotiations about desertification and plastic pollution stalled in December.
Muhamad, who has resigned as Colombia’s environment minister but stayed on to serve until after the Rome conference, was given a standing ovation as the talks drew to a close in the early hours of Friday.
Countries have already agreed a goal to deliver $200 billion a year in finance for nature by 2030, including $30 billion a year from wealthier countries to poorer ones.
The total for 2022 was about $15 billion, according to the OECD.
The main debate in Cali and later Rome was over developing countries’ calls for the creation of a specific biodiversity fund, which has seen pushback from the EU and other wealthy nations, who have argued against multiple funds.
Thursday saw intense closed-door talks based on a “compromise attempt” text that Brazil put forward on behalf of the BRICS country bloc that includes Russia, China and India.
The agreement reached in Rome leaves it to the 2028 COP to decide whether to set up a specific new fund under the UN biodiversity process, or to name a potentially reformed existing fund to play that role.
Georgina Chandler, Head of Policy and Campaigns at the Zoological Society of London, said the finance roadmap was a “key milestone,” but stressed that money is needed urgently.
Other decisions sought to bolster monitoring to ensure countries are held accountable for their progress toward meeting biodiversity targets.
One achievement in Cali was the creation of a new fund to share profits from digitally sequenced genetic data from plants and animals with the communities they come from.
The fund, officially launched on Tuesday, is designed for large firms to contribute a portion of their income from developing things like medicine and cosmetics using this data.
Delegates in Cali also approved the creation of a permanent body to represent the interests of Indigenous people.