Bulukumba Participative PRSAP, March, 2006

Laos, Luang Prabang March 21 – 23, 2006

PARTICIPATIVE APPROACHTO FORMULATING REGIONAL POVERTY REDUCTION STRATEGIES:

EXPERIENCES FROMBULUKUMBA DISTRICT

BY:

Agung Putu Joni Wahyuda

(PRSAP Working Group)

  1. DECENTRALIZATION AND POVERTY REDUCTION

In 2001, the Government of Indonesia devolved authority for many sectors to district and municipal governments. District Governments are now responsible to plan and implement programs in various sectors related to poverty reduction such as education, health and infrastructure.

As poverty has some locality specific causes, decentralized poverty reduction efforts are as important as large-scale national ones. Through local planning and budgeting processes, it is hoped that good strategies can be developed to reduce poverty. Local planning and budgeting systems also have the benefit of being close to the beneficiary poor communities that require assistance.If local governments are willing to support participation and transparency, poor people will be able to give important input to policy on poverty reduction.

  1. BULUKUMBA DISTRICT

Bulukumba Districtis locatedin the southern part of South Sulawesi province, about 150 km from the provincial capital,Makassar. The district is approximately 1,154 km2or about 1.85% of the total area of the province. Bulukumba has 10 sub-districts, split into 125 village units. Based on 2005 population data, the total population is 371,453 with 88,686 individuals (23.87%) living below the poverty line, which is approximately $1.50 per day. Agriculture and fisheries are the two largest income-generating activities in the district.

  1. OVERVIEW OF ILGR PROGRAM

The ILGR (Initiatives for Local Governance Reform) was designed to support good governance in local government. The program was developed through cooperation between the Indonesian Government Central Planning Agency (BAPPENAS)and the World Bank. The first phase of the program beganin October 2002and ended in2004.

The Good Governance component of the ILGR program focused on three primary initiatives: transparency and participation; fiscal management; and, government procurement.

As part of the first initiative, transparency and participation, ILGR sought to use participation in poverty reduction. To achieve this goal, a pilot program was designed touse public participation in developing a Poverty Reduction Strategy and Action Plan (PRSAP), including an assessment of local poverty conditions byusing PPAs (Participative Poverty Assessments).

The participative PRSAP approach aimed at encouraging agreement between local stakeholders on poverty conditions and strategies to reduce poverty. In addition, the project sought to institutionalize the resultant PRSAP and create a monitoring and evaluation system for the action plan.

  1. PRSAP ACTIVITIES AND OUTCOMES

Key district stakeholders, with the support of an ILGR District Facilitator, produced and implemented the PRSAP in Bulukumba District through the following steps:

  1. Lessons Learned from the Participative PRSAP Process
  2. Participation

One interesting result of this process was that the stakeholders involved realized they did not have the same understanding of “participation”. For purposes of developing the PRSAP, “participation” was defined as the responsibility of the local government to support opportunities and “space” to the public to be actively involved in activities related to creating public policy. Government support can mean policy or funding. The public should be given the opportunity to give input to public policy, and, if unsatisfied with the decisions made by the government, take action or complain and receive a response to their complaint.“Space” is given to the public to participate in easily accessible activities designed to ensure public involvement in decision-making. During the PRSAP process, this “space” was created through holding participatory field level poverty assessment, public hearings on the radio, public consultations, focus group discussions (FGDs) and discussions with sectoral departments.

In order to ensure that the process ran according to the framework, a Working Group (Pokja) was formed. The Pokja was flexible and fluid in nature giving the possibility for all stakeholders to be involved in designing the process and later formulating results.In order to ensure maximum independence and flexibility to the Pokja, stakeholders were allowed to “enter” and “exit” at will. Membership consisted of members of several government departments, including Dept. Animal Husbandry, Dept. Women’s Empowerment, the District Planning and Budgeting Board and the District Family Planning Office. The local non-government organizations involved included LSM Mutiara and Forum Peduli Perempuan (support and advocacy for women and children), Melati MAS and YPR (community empowerment), and a farmer’s association, Citra Tani.

  1. Factors Informing theParticipative Approach

The preconditions that informed the participative approach used during the PRSAP process were as follows:

Previous and other current programs that utilized participative approaches such as the DELIVERI (rural development), P4K (microfinance) and P2D (rural development)programs allcontributed to the growing understanding of participation.

Support from ‘elite bureaucrats’ in Bulukumba encouraged the rest of the bureaucracy to use the participative approach, eroding previous doubts about the validity and legitimacy of the approach. Evidence of this support appeared when the District Government allocated funding for government and public training on participation.

Due to government and public support, the District Government passed regulation in 2005 on “Transparency and Participation”. It was hoped that this regulation would help the government “internalize” and “institutionalize” participative practices.

The combination of previous experience, elite government support and formal regulations on participation were essential to ensuring there was multi-stakeholder participation throughout the PRSAP process.

  1. Achievements and Difficulties in Using theParticipative Approach

One of the greatest achievements of the PRSAP process in Bulukumba was that the resultant strategy and action plan were made legal through a decree from the head of the district government. Later the document became a reference for planning and budgeting to be used in government efforts to reduce poverty beginning in FY2005. The document was also well received by the public, as the participative approach had allowed them a voice in its formulation.

Another success was the consistency to which all stakeholders participated in the Pokja. The Pokja became a space in which the public could participate and take action in formulating the PRSAP. Members of the Pokja were also actively involved in developing the principles of participation.

One area that could have been betterwas attendance of the poor in district-level Public Consultations. Many of the poor people invited did not attend because they could not afford transport and/or to miss a day of work to attend the meeting.Apart from attendance, it was also noted that the poor participants were less likely to voice their opinions in these forums. This issue represents a valuable experience that should be taken into account when planning future participative activities. The issues identified to be addressed in future are that each individual should be invited separately and the purpose of the forum explained clearly; and, organizers should take into account transport and opportunity costs to the poor.

The other problem that occurred was that the participative process was very time consuming and the working group was unable to complete the strategy within the designated timeline. This was caused by a variety of issues in the field such as when stakeholders were available for meetings, which can be dependent on seasonal or routine activities. In addition, routine government tasks had to be taken into account when planning activities involving the government. Ultimately, the process took almost two years.

  1. The Role of the Poor and Women

The poor had a strategic role in the field level assessment process,as they were able to give input toward the PRSAP through PPAs (Participative Poverty Assessments). There was also good participation from the poor in public consultations at the cluster level. The results of these processes were a strategy and action plan on the following:

Education - cross-subsidies and scholarships

Health- a voucher program for health services for the poor

Training – through a Mobile Training Unit (MTU) system designed to trainthe poor in skills without transport and opportunity costs for participants

Environment - a program to clean up polluted areas

Business credit – to ensure access to financial institutions for the poor

Poor women’s participation at the field assessment level was very influential and should be optimized in future programs. Women dominated and were active in the assessments and gave a concrete contribution to the PRSAP. A third of all active participants in the Pokja were also women. The final PRSAP had the following programs that represented poor women:

Increasing the awareness of policymakers to their duty to ensure policy and programs are designed with women in mind beginning in 2005

Increasing women’s capacity, including a quota of minimum 30% female participation in all training

  1. Opportunities for the Poor to Influence Government Policy

The PRSAP is now a “policy document” that will become a reference for planning and budgeting, and for implementing poverty reduction programs in Bulukumba district. Indirectly the document comes from the poor; however, the PRSAP process required outside facilitation. Providing that the government and non-government organizations are consistent in considering the poor as an integral part of the district, they will be able to take part in determining public policy. By internalizing the participative system into regular government planning and budgeting cycles, the poor will be given a role in the decision making process.

For the poor to be directly involved in preparing and influencing policy, the process requires time and facilitation.We have discovered some of the obstacles that limit poor people’s participation.We still need to work on strengthening individual capacity and awareness so that the poor can become actively involved in district decision making.

Whilst there is room for improvement on the participative processes utilized during the PRSAP formulation process, participation from the various stakeholders, including the poor of Bulukumba, contributed to creating a much more relevant and accurate Poverty Reduction Strategy and Action Plan.

  1. IMPACT AND SUSTAINABILITY

Because of the success of the participative PRSAP activities, it is hoped that all policy decisions in the district will be based on participation and transparency in the future. A simple illustration of the impact of this pilot program is as follows:

The discussion process for the 2005 Budget Amendment was broadcast over the radio and the public was able to voice its opinion throughout the process. Messages received by members of the legislative praising them on the process is evidence that this process was both necessary and successful.

Formulation of the District Medium Term Development Plan (RPJMD) was carried out in a participative manner. Members of the formulation team reflected a multistakeholderbasis, with government, CSO and community leaders involved. The draft document was also passed through several public forums such as public consultation and focus group discussion, and public comments received response from the Legislative. The Bulukumba Medium Term Development Plan was then agreed upon and legalized through Regulation of the District Head.

Formulation of the 2006 Development Plan and Budget was carried out using transparent methodology, and although public stakeholders were not permitted an official role in the process, public and community organizations could follow the process and ensure accountability in the resulting budget plan.

In order to increase and improve policymaking using participative and transparent methods, these methods need to be continually institutionalized at the government, legislative and public level. This institutionalization requires concrete policy support. Implementation under the legal umbrella of the Local Regulation on Transparency and Participation of Local Government in a consistent manner will give good opportunities for this institutionalization. Another factor that is very influencial is when the legislative or district head changes. These new people will have a new understanding and different interests which can influence the basis of institutionalization. Because of this, the strength and ability of the public to control and give input to the government and legislative becomes the most important issue in building participation and transparency. So opportunities to sustain these processes that have been developed via the participative PRSAP process can still be fought for consistently by all stakeholders to carry out the process.

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