Local Governments' Financial Accountability Responses in Critical Time: Reflection from Intergovernmental Management in Indonesia During the Early Covid-19 Pandemic

The article aims to analyze the complexity of financial accountability initiatives at the local level during the Covid-19 pandemics. Research on government accountability during Covid-19 shows how covid-19 have laid bare the fragility of governance process in various countries including Indonesia. The pandemic reveals how several governments do not have sufficient accountability measures in handling critical times. One worthy cause of government lackluster accountability stems from the emergency nature of the Covid-19 pandemic in which governments immediately create short time policies to reduce the spread of Covid-19 on the expense of accountability measures. Our case study is derived from the experience of two local governments in Indonesia and is illustrative to show the weak coordination mechanism to ensure financial accountability during Covid-19 pandemic. We find that local governments have different mechanisms and capacities to conduct financial accountability measures. In place with larger administrative capacity, the financial accountability mechanism involves more mitigation process which eventually leads to more scrutiny and accountability. In contrast, those with lower administrative capacity and more political fragmentation faces challenges to enforce financial accountability measures due to low coordination among local government units. © 2023 Warsono et al.

A study of non-medical impact on mitigation policy of asean countries against covid-19

At the end of 2019, the world was shocked by the emergence of an unusual pneumonia outbreak in Wuhan-China. World Health Organization (WHO) received the first case on December 31, 2019. At the end of January 2020, the WHO officially identified the pneumonia outbreak case as Novel Coronavirus or COVID-19. Responding to the development of Coronavirus, several countries applying mitigation policies. Thus, mitigation policies are starting from issuing travel warnings, restrictions, and closure of flight routes until restrictions on importing several goods. Several countries choose different approaches to mitigate COVID-19 within their border. Some existing studies related to Emerging Infectious Disease (EID), such as COVID-19, focus on mitigation mechanisms, the impact and effectiveness of mitigation only on medical variables. Rarely studies have evaluated a country's EID mitigation policy regarding nonmedical aspects such as economics. By studying Southeast Asia Countries COVID-19 mitigation policies, this paper seeks to describe the variety of EID's mitigation policies and the country's economic performances during the period of mitigation. The researchers choose Southeast Asia (ASEAN) countries due to their diverse religion, culture, history, political system, and economic condition. This paper uses both quantitative and qualitative as sources of data. Qualitative data is mainly collected to describe various mitigation policies undertaken by ASEAN Countries, while quantitative data is used to portray economic performances. The result of this research shows that each ASEAN countries have different mitigation approaches for COVID-19. During mitigation periods, the countries' economic performance varies depending on their economic foundation and the COVID-19 Public Health Directives. © IEOM Society International.