Challenges in promoting and institutionalizing community participatory planning within government planning and budgeting systems in Indonesia

Presented in Mexico City, Mexico August 2012

Background

Planning are sought to be a problem definition tool with close relation of efficiency. When attached to the idea of planning, it became dominating there too. Planning was then seen as a process of designing problem - solutions that might be installed and operated cheaply. However, as time move on and situations concerning the plan are changing and uncontrollable, by now we are all beginning to realize that one of the most intractable problems is that of defining problems  and of locating problems. In turn, and equally intractable, is the problem of identifying the actions that might effectively narrow the gap between what-is and what-ought-to-be. Budget on the other hand, plays a key role to successful planning since it will be the device to transform a vision into reality. 

As theory might sound easy and adaptable, in reality this is not come hand in hand with the socio and political situation of a country. Political aspect influenced heavily on the way a country implement its public economy policy, this will compromise the planning and budgeting capability of a country or a region. Governance structure changes such as unitary to decentralization can affect the planning and budgeting system if it is not carefully and gradually implemented.

Most of the South East Asian countries are just an infant in democratization compared to their Western counter part. With only sixty years or less after their independence these countries still struggle to implement democratization. Indonesia as largest populated country in the South East Asia face heavy task and challenges in developing the ideal democratization process, with an archipelago situation and quite big region the relatively new decentralization policy is still an on-going challenges. While participatory planning is still a new thing to adopt, the decentralization policy in Indonesia hampered the effective planning and budgeting process since it does not supported by clear concept of ‘appropriate ‘ grand design of decentralization that suit the uniqueness of the country.

Participatory Planning Process in Indonesia’s National Development Planning and Budgeting

Indonesia began the process of reformation (reformasi) in 1998, which resulted in decentralization as mandated by Law No.22/1999 on Regional Government[1]. This law emphasized the role of district governments as the central locus of regional autonomy, and removed the hierarchical structure between provincial and district governments. Under the new law, the two governments were treated autonomously, without organizational ties between the two structures.

This structure has resulted in confusing intergovernmental relations. National and provincial linkages to district level governments were weak, and their roles were unclear. Dwindling coordination, unclear division of labour and a lack of alignment to conflicting national priorities and regulations were among the results of the law.

After three years, the law was revised (Law No.32/2004), but many of these issues remained unresolved. A dual role of the provincial governors (as both heads of autonomous regions and representatives of the national government in the province) was clearly stated in the law, but at the same time links between provincial and district governments were still lacking. In addition, the mandate for governors in coordination with district government was weak, and governance capacity in district governments was limited.  While the first decade of decentralization was focused primarily on attempting to resolve these internal issues, external government responsibilities, including public service, were also neglected.

The participatory planning process itself began in parallel with the new laws on decentralization which along with it has challenges and bottlenecks in the way. The ‘big bang’ process of Indonesian decentralization and democratization is so fast and sudden, that it gives the people hard time to catch up. While the real process of decentralizing the country is fast and growing, the laws and attribute that needs to support it is slow and pragmatic in approach. This allows big gap in planning budgeting system between national and regional, hence creating misinterpretation and confusion at regional level in the administration system of its regional autonomy management.

The current National Annual Development Plan (Rencana Kerja Pemerintah-RKP) is developed through the Participatory Development Planning Process (Musyawarah Rencana Pembangunan-Musrenbang), which works from the village up to the national level as a forum to synergize development planning. However, national and regional development plans are not always aligned and integrated. A number of factors impeding effective development planning have been identified by the government: 1) development goals and objectives are not sharply defined; 2) the deliberation process is merely focused on De-concentration and Functional Assignment Funds (Dekonsentrasi/Tugas Pembantuan), while issues related to fund transfer, regional investment plans and banking credit are neglected; 3) development programmes designed by national ministries are too normative, with no clear explanation; 4) the national-provincial arrangement of programmes and activities is not standardized, thus potentially disconnecting planning from budgeting; 5) priorities in programme criteria are unclear; 6) the Musrenbang process is bound to a schedule which does not allow for adequate deliberation between national ministries and provincial governments; and 7) there is no guarantee that the results of Musrenbang will be used as the basis for formulating the national development plan.

One way to smoothen the process of planning and budgeting process in the context of decentralization is to focuses on the alignment of national and local development priorities and plans. Through this activity the government can apply tools such as Pro-Poor Planning, Budgeting, and Monitoring-Evaluation (P3BM) and the Provincial Human Development Report (PHDR), and will initiate a Decentralization Award to strengthen the link between national and regional plans to achieve effective development planning. The target for this action is to create an evidence-based development planning. The tools as well as the capacity buildings are important to improve the participatory mechanism in development planning and budgeting so that the community and civil society will understand the process and have more contribution in obtaining the public service.

The development of a guidance note on the alignment of national and regional development plans through support to linking government offices (Satuan Kerja Perangkat Daerah-SKPD) with national line ministries. This note is expected to provide step-by step guidance for both government offices (SKPD) and national line ministries in aligning national priorities into regional plans, while at the same time recognizing the needs of the regions in the national development plan. As part of the efforts to align national and local policy/development plans, the project plans to support the government in initiating an incentive to motivate the regional as well as line ministries that are successful in aligning national and local policy or development plans.

In order to championing the change in the community participatory planning process is to assist local governments in mainstreaming the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) into the formulation, implementation, and monitoring of provincial development strategies, and will help build the capacity of relevant stakeholders to plan and budget using Pro-Poor Planning, Budgeting, and Monitoring-Evaluation (P3BM). In undertaking this activity, we need to closely collaborate with government national planning agency to ensure the efforts will be sufficient and coordinated, including, in particular, providing training to civil servants, parliamentarians, civil society at regional levels in formulating pro-poor and MDG oriented planning and budgeting. This will also ensure the active participation of relevant stakeholders, including communities, civil society, development partners and the private sector in all stages of the development planning processes.

---

[1] Its sister law was also launched in parallel with Law No. 25/1999 on Fiscal Equalization

STOCKHOLM WORLD WATER WEEK 2011

Hi,

In the busy year of 2011, I was invited by Stockholm World Water Week to present my paper on "Kelurahan Empowerment in Climate Change Adaptation" in Stockholm, Sweden. I was honored with fellowship by The Stockholm Water Council.

AUTHOR
Bob Eko Kurniawan is a professional with various expertise ranged from urban planning to community development. I have 15 years of working experience with national agency for housing and settlement in Indonesia as Corporate Program and Evaluation Manager. Our mission as government long arm in housing sector is focused on providing adequate and affordable housing for low income group in Indonesia. The housing projects are spread all over the archipelago. After that, he had the opportunity to work for several years with international mining giant company as Community Relation Development Superintendent. This job gives him the opportunity to won prestigious award from the Indonesian Ministry of Mining & Energy in 2008.  In his current role as Urban Director for Mercy Corps in Indonesia, I manage to oversee successful projects related to climate change adaptation and mitigation.

PAPER PRESENTATION ON:
BALANCE BETWEEN COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND SUPPORTING FACILITATION ROLES OF THE LOCAL GOVERNMENT TO REDUCE THE IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE
STOCKHOLM WORLD WATER WEEK 2011

KEYWORDS: CLIMATE CHANGE, COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT, CLIMATE RESILIENCE CITIES, FLOOD MANAGEMENT, COMMUNITY ACTION PLAN

INTRODUCTION
The purpose of this abstract is to give clear understanding of community approach in climate change adaptation and utilizing the government support. Current phenomenon in climate change has given great impacts towards urban communities all over the world. Climate variability increase and manifest itself in forms of unpredictable rainfalls pattern, raising temperature, rising sea-levels, and increased flooding. Efforts had been initiated and implemented to reduce the green house effects and mitigate future rise in temperature, but still we are witnessing relatively less attention from the authority.
The urban poor are among the most vulnerable group that in the face of climate changes, as they are incapable to adapt the consequences of the impacts. Those who lived in Asian cities such as Jakarta (Indonesia) are especially susceptible to unpredictable environmental changes, particularly because these cities are expected to be responsible for more than 60% of global population growth in the next 30 years. The rapid growths of urban population in these cities are in contradiction with the availability of resource and infrastructures in order to cope with compounding challenges of urbanization, poverty and environmental degradation.
Much of the problems in these cities such as Jakarta are on the incapability of managing the risk on the preventive side in terms of planning, budgeting and implementation from the local authorities as well as the communities. Limited or inadequate knowledge in environment preservation and climate change adaptation or risk mitigation added by uncoordinated cross sector work relationship, hampered the capability of the city to overcome the climate change challenges. Other possibility to address this is from private sector as Urban Climate Change Resilience Building (UCCRB)  suggest. Unfortunately, the role of private sector in this case is still limited and incidental since their involvement usually based on event and business interest.
A proper technical assistance is in need to improve the capacity and capability of the local authority and its communities in adapting with the climate change. The imbalance of knowledge in climate adaptation between local government and communities needs to be addressed. Current tendency in top-down planning must also address bottom-up in order to capture the real need of the local community in their particular habitat. Therefore, a comprehensive action plan should be introduced to the community living in urban poor settlement within disaster prone areas.

ANALYSIS
Jakarta as the capital city of Indonesia is one of the densest city in Asia. Divided into five municipalities and one administrative regency (Central, North, East, West, South Jakarta and Kepulauan Seribu Regency), total of the area is 661.52 km2 with around 35 km of coastal area in the north. With various areas under sea-level of 3 up to 7 meters; the north part of Jakarta is practically prone to flood by sea-level rise. The eastern part of the city which consisting of several large rivers, also prone to flooding caused by the upstream flows.
To overcome this, the government of Jakarta had done some significant efforts such as dredging the river floor and dams, constructions of pump house in flood prone areas including mobile pumps, large canal construction on east and west side of the city, and socializing through clean campaign in solid waste management to the people. But all of this effort still doesn’t answer the challenge of climate change adaptation since it calls for more comprehensive way of tackling the urgency ahead.
The community in urban poor context nowadays has the opportunity and capacity to manage themselves to be more self-sufficient. The fact that the local government staff limited knowledge on some urban technical development aspects and management, lack of knowledge from the community in project management presents the need to bridge the gap and to accompany the knowledge transition.
 A program for climate adaptation in community context is called for. In concept, the program is addressing the challenge to create a balance between community engagement and government role in supporting the facility. The main concern of the program is how to educate the community and local government officer in the sub district to be able to self-sustain when it comes to climate change adaptation. New ideas and innovations will likely be introduced in the program and the aim is that both the community and local government official could produce and fully utilize the Local Resilience Action Plan (LRAP). The LRAP will provide a framework to establish a pragmatic and comprehensive action plan for the community to better manage DRR in the short term, and climate change ad