Challenges Overcome
The New York and Washington terrorist attacks of September 2001 occurred just prior to the start of the project but their indirect impact on the project was not foreseen. This realisation came in October 2002 with the Bali bombing, which occurred the night before the start of the first AAMRUG meeting and a planned PCC meeting in Jakarta. The AAMRUG meeting continued but the PCC meeting scheduled immediately after was moved at short notice to Kuala Lumpur, an unanticipated burden on all concerned.
Thereafter, Department of Foreign Affairs travel warnings for Indonesia became dire and have hardly changed for the project duration. Uncomfortable warnings were also issued for Manila and to some extent for other project countries. Project team members were in Jakarta at ACE and very near the sites of two further attacks; one on the Marriott Hotel and one on the Australian Embassy, the latter in 2005. Both explosions were clearly heard by EPSAP participants working at ACE and the bomb clouds were clearly visible. The Embassy explosion was about half a kilometre down the road, with the shattered windows of surrounding buildings clearly visible.
Faced with these warnings and near misses, the project team members had no real choice but to continue travelling to all these countries as necessary for the project, and did so willingly.
The AMC was not aware of any clear reluctance to travel on the grounds of a terrorist risk, whereas this did occur with the SARS and Avian Flu incident.
Overall, the strengths of EPSAP were:
- Objectives appropriate to ASEAN needs.
- Strong technical input.
- Interest and goodwill from participating countries and ACE.
The weaknesses were:
- Insufficient time and resources to maximise knowledge transfer.
- Insufficient time input by the most capable country and ACE personnel.
- Insufficient support for a transition phase to maximise the prospects for sustainability.
- Project software (ANSWER/MARKAL) for which the reliability and accessibility of documentation were sometimes inadequate.
The AMC considers that EPSAP met a real need in ASEAN and was substantially successful in building the analytical skills necessary to support energy policy development, both nationally and regionally. This assessment was generally supported by most project participants.
However, the creative use of those skills and the commitment needed to ensure sustainability remain as challenges for the future. Improving energy sector outcomes should deliver very large benefits in ASEAN so the project goals, if ultimately fully achieved, will be demonstrated to have a high degree of merit.
The project generally succeeded in enhancing the capacity of participants to build national MARKAL models and use them for energy analysis, as demonstrated by the completion of three national energy policy studies and reports by 5 countries (and one each by the CLM countries).
Particularly pleasing was the success in building and using an ASEAN regional model from each of the national model components. This work and the three resulting studies and reports provided a regional perspective on ASEAN regional energy trade opportunities and policy issues that was not previously available or possible. Previous studies were sector-specific and failed to resolve some important policy issues such as the appropriate fuel mix for electricity generation.
While there was some evidence during the project that these skills were beginning to influence policy development in some countries, the goal of having these skills fully used and accepted by decision-makers at both the national and regional levels was not fully achieved at project completion. The Handover Plan and Strategy has specifically addressed this issue with a strategy to provide some ongoing technical support and promotional activity over the next two years, with some assistance from AMC team members offered. |
