The launching of IFLS5 with a One Day Seminar "Indonesia Family Life Survey 1993–2014: The study, role, and potential of longitudinal data for development on Tuesday, August 02, 2016, at the Sari Pan Pacific Hotel Jakarta was the third stage of the IFLS5 data dissemination series. It addressed policymakers in Indonesia.

The first phase of dissemination was conducted in front of the international researchers and academics at the 2016 Population Association of America (PAA) Annual Meeting on March 31 to April 2, 2016, in Washington DC. The soft-launching IFLS5 data by RAND Corporation and SurveyMETER was also conducted. The second one was delivered to national researchers and academics at the 13th Indonesian Regional Science Association (IRSA) conference on July 25-26, 2016, in Malang city.

The Jakarta launching was successful to involve policymakers from the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture, Ministry of Education and Culture, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Health, Bappenas, Presidential Staff Office, Bank Indonesia, Fiscal Policy Agency, Central Statistics Agency, TNP2K, BKKBN, BPJS Health, and Litbangkes. Participating in this seminar were stakeholders from research institutions and NGOs such as SMERU, PPIM UIN Jakarta, IRE Yogyakarta, ELSAM, PPH Atmajaya Jakarta, the Emong Lansia Foundation, and MAMPU. In addition, international donors and research partners such as WHO, The World Bank, DFAT, UNICEF, ADB, J-PAL, Abt Associates, Rutgers WPF, and KSI also participated.

The series of events commenced with an introduction from the IFLS Principal Investigator who is also a Professor of Economics and Gerontology at the University of Southern California, John Strauss, and the SurveyMETER Executive Director, Dr. Ni Wayan Suriastini, M.Phil. She expressed her gratitude to all parties involved in the IFLS5 and declared the IFLS5 success is the fruit of the hard work of all teams, from the principal investigator to the fieldwork enumerators.

Policyholders who also participated in the seminar appreciated positively for this work. The BAPPENAS Director of Trade, Investment, and International Economic Cooperation, Mesdin Kornelis Simarmata, in his opening remarks, stated evidence-based policy is a solution to emphasize in facing 3 simultaneous challenges of public policy: globalization, democratization, and decentralization. It aims to avoid being in a political policy-making pitfall. He also expected that future research in Indonesia would be carried out by independent entities, which means that government agencies would delegate and allocate their research and development budgets to quality research firms, so they would dodge to conduct, finance, and administer research with an acquisitive arrangement (hermaphrodite) so far. With this setting, the non-government research institutions will afford to live with their works.

Meanwhile, the Head of TNP2K Policy Working Group, Elan Satriawan Ph.D., the task is to provide evidence for the decision-making process for the vice president and relevant ministers. Various data types were used both in the form of the randomized controlled trial (RCT) and non-RCT experiments, and one of the non-RCT data that has a high value and is widely used apart from BPS data is IFLS data.

Nicola Nixon, a representative from the Australian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), IFLS data may contribute to strengthening policies and supporting other data sources. IFLS data may be combined with other datasets such as SUSENAS, SEKERNAS, and the government open data systems as well as with new types of big data, and openly related to the environment data (rainfall, pollution, and earthquakes). However, according to Nicola, IFLS data has not been used optimally, especially by researchers at universities, think tanks, and Indonesian government institutions. Of the 270 peer-reviewed academic publications that utilize IFLS data, only about 5% of Indonesian researchers.

The Head of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), delivered by the Director of People's Welfare Statistics, Gantjang Amanullah MA, confirmed based on Law Number 16 of 1997 concerning Statistics that sectoral statistics organizers shall cooperate and coordinate with BPS in developing concepts, definitions, classifications, methodologies, updates, measures, and provide a synopsis of statistical activities to BPS. By launching the IFLS data, he expects that all of us convince each other that good data will produce good policies for the country.

Deputy II for the Study and Management of Priority Programs at the Presidential Staff Office (KSP), Yanuar Nugroho, Ph.D., who acted as a keynote speaker and opened the event, said ministries and agencies must provide policies based on data. The suspicion of disconnection between policies produced in the political space and evidence composed in the academic (research) space is only a matter of substance and communication methods. Through the launch of the IFLS data, Yanuar hopes that all of us can convince each other that good data can produce good policies for this country. (TPA/JF)