By Ilham B. Saenong,
Program Director Transparency International Indonesia
Linida, as beautiful it may sound is not somebody’s name, nor a government project. It do resembles what a person needs and complements what government should do when it cannot do it the right way without citizen participation. It is a story of people engagement in negotiating their demands to shape development planning and improve public services in Batang district, Indonesia.
Considering most public services are provided by local government after decentralization, open government commitments considered by many will fail to reach the majority of citizens if only implemented at the national level. Then comes an opportunity to support the idea when the Government of Indonesia—was then the OGP chair—announced a mission to mainstream the OGP principles to the local during the OGP Summit in London October 2013. The idea has been tested in 3 pilot projects by the Open Government Indonesia (OGI) 2013 action plan with little avail on people participation. So we took over the idea and created our own local OGP initiative by promoting demand side of openness.
The Linida officially started implementation at the end of 2014. But it actually begun when group of people in Batang, led by the notorious religious activist, AS Burhan, demanded their government to improve transparency in budget allocation and public service provision. The response was somehow fabulous. The Bupati (regent), Yoyok Riyo Sudibyo, being committed to his anti-corruption vision himself in election campaign, announced and later organized the Budget Festival, where his administration showcased local budget policy and allocation to the public. To guide the process, Burhan and his organization were able to secure commitment from the Bupati and local parliament members by having them signing the Local Open Government declaration in front of local citizen and government officers. The declaration laid foundation for further citizen participation.
How Linida works
Linida stands for Lumbung Informasi dan Inovasi Daerah, translated as Community Center on Information and Innovation. Linida serves as a platform to gather information on village assets and potencies in improving socio-economic lives of villagers. The Linida envisions that in the end of their endeavor, villagers constantly use public information or even produce their own data to engage with decision makers so that development policy and public service provision respond to people priority and needs. The spirit of co-governance and co-creation was embodied with the willingness of the Bupati to initiate the Local Open Government initiative and support Linida.
The creation of Linida basically responds to firstly, low level of people participation in development planning and monitoring of local budgeting. It is either because of awareness and capacity issues or the formalistic tendency of the existing mechanism where political inclusion of ordinary people and deliberation of their aspiration are quite low. Secondly, transparency of local budget and programmes that in turn discourage people participation in using government information to improve provision of public services. Thirdly, the new Villages Law that was enacted to recognize the village as unity of legal community that is authorized to regulate and manage the interests of the local community, based on their origin and local customs. By that law, the Government of Indonesia should provide funding worth Rp 283,8 million for each village (of 72.944 total villages). Not surprising that the Linida covered 3 areas: participatory planning and local budgeting, development of village medium term plan (RPJMN-Des) and monitoring of budget implementation through procurement and public service provision.
Empowered Community
We established group of facilitators from villagers themselves and train them with related skills that are enable them to perform as facilitators and community organizers. The were 30 facilitators were recruited from various background and age for 10 pilot villages of several sub-districts (Tombo in Bandar, Kembanglangit in Blado, Pandansari in Warungasem, Rejosari Timur in Tersono, Ngadirejo in Reban, Clapar and Kemiri Barat in Subah, Kepuh in Limpung, Karangtengah in Subah and Denasri Kulon in Batang. Of each village, 3 facilitators were provided with capacity building that consists of facilitation, participatory planning and budget literacy, access to information and social audit.
With newly equipped capacity, the facilitators are able to promote the Linida among villagers. They conducted public outreach that, in turn, enabled them to get support from communities and heads of villages, with the exception of 1 out of 10 heads of villages. In addition, the Linida and its facilitators are also acknowledged by the Bappeda (local Planning Bureau). After serial meetings Bappeda had more understanding on citizen engagement in ensuring proper consultation and substantial dialogue in planning and budgeting process. The Bappeda issued circular letter to village heads that guarantee Linida facilitators role to help facilitating forums during Development Planning Meetings (Musrembang) and ensure improvement of existing mechanism and diversify sources of ideas
With supports from community, village heads and the local government, Linida facilitators are confident and able to facilitate several meetings at village and sub-district to enable community use public information to influence results of the multi-stage planning process of Musrembang. In most villages, Linida facilitators perform the facilitation or act as village spokespersons to ensure community proposals are included to sub-districtmeeting, district meeting until its final approval in the local parliament. Until this writing, the Musrembang is on the local parliament where 65% of village proposals where adopted by the executive in their Local government budget draft and submitted by the executive to the legislative. The budget draft particularly covers their demand to village development related support. For 2016 for example, Govt of Batang has allocated 250 to support the implementation of Linida in 10 village.
The same also applied with the Village Law implementation. Linida particular role, in addition to their facilitating, is to provide as much as information on village assets and potencies that help shaping the formulation Village Medium-Term Development Planningmandated by the Village Law as condition to access village fund. A village mapping was conducted in 10 villages and subsequently the information were produced, stored and managed in the Linida database system. The so-called APIDESA application consisting of social and spacial data has been develop to strengthen the initiative.
This community driven data was highly regarded by Bupati. Pacet village as projected tourism spot will get 1 billon rupiahs from the local government alone to develop and promote its tourism. Other village like Tombo achieved trail bike and GPS for community-based village mapping. In addition, each village received laptop to support Linida activities.
It is only a matter of time that the Linida begin to involve in public service monitoring. With good relationship with the Batang Planning Bureau that also become coordinator of public services quality as well as local authority to manage public procurement, the Linida begin to function as a strong partner. It has been 3 years since the Batang government established the Public Service for Quality Improvement Unit (UPKP2) as part of complain handling mechanism. Yet the unit is only as effective as much it gain support from community that use government services. So the Linida help them to generate public demand and concern on certain service performance.
It started with Linida and the UPKP2 conducted public outreach on the existence of the unit and public complaint mechanism at village level. The UPKP2 received 86 citizen reports in 2013, 137 in 2014 and 86 until September 2015. In the end village facilitators serve as a ‘bridge’ or mediator between the community and UPKP2 to jointly monitor public service provision.
Where are we now?
In vast literature of theory of change and development, we may say that the results will be structured and varied depend on the stage of intervention and conditions. Very often overlooking impact does not do justice to process and more technical results. So let begin with very carefully observe what kind of changes resulted from the Linida.
Firstly, government and civil society showed an improved awareness of openness by convergence of their interest to adopt Open Governance and OGP principles. In the case of Batang, the Linida provides solution to the regent’s vision on clean government and economic improvement through people participation, while for civil society it can improve people demand on openness in relation to pro-people programs/budget and improved public services.
Secondly, the community generated data has been produced and, subsequently, triggered government interest. Batang government, seeing potential impact of Linida, has shown tremendous support, among others, by allocating core-fund for Linida implementation in those 10 pilot villages, while providing more fund and equipment for particular villages. It has also dynamized government own programs to villages, e.i organizing thematic training for citizen and village innovation contest.
Thirdly, as the project progresses, second tier reformers come to form. The regent appointed new Head of Bappeda as counterpart of civil society in developing Linida. He eventually issued letter to enable Linida as co-facilitators for the Musrembang and becomes strong supporter of participation both in development planning and procurement monitoring.
Fourthly, Linida has helped promotion of village and local economy. The Linida effort was covered in local newspaper, the first time some villages on the front page about positive stuffs. The media sets up the tone for sub-national Open Governance implementation through Linida.
Fifthly, public have understanding on budget priority and trend during Regent Yoyok’s administration the last 3 years in Batang. Local CSOs and activists produced Budget Policy analysis, showing that the budget allocation should have been better should it developed with a more substantial consultation with ordinary citizen.
The initiative is just one year old. It is promising, but very immature to expect more than what Linida achieved so far. The sustainability of the initiative will depend more on how this civic space is protected, how the Linida work and facilitators are preserved and improved and how political buy in of the local government the next 2 years, particularly after the local election. Transparency International Indonesia (TII) has been helping Linida in making sure the OGP can showcase and learn from country experiences, while helping people achieve their basic demands in lives.
Transparency International Indonesia (TII)is strong supporter of the OGP platform through participation as the Core Team of Open Government Indonesia, Planning Committee and Organizer of Open Government Asia-Pacific Regional Summit and CSO day, organizing Sub-national, National and Regional Outreach, while also implement our own pilot project of the Open Governance Scorecard, Local Open Government and Institutionalization of Public Participation.
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