Regional Autonomy in Indonesia: Field Experiences and Emerging Challenges

After more than three decades under a centralized national government, Indonesia decided to implement a new policy of regional autonomy that became effective on january 1st, 2001. this paper examines both the preparations for and the initial implementation of autonomy in the regions, as well as some of the challenges which have emerged during implementation. the paper is based on research conducted in fourteen districts across eleven provinces over to the last two years. this presentation has two areas of focus: first, the internal processes used by local governments to manage their new powers and responsibilities; and second, the extent to which the process of creating public policies under regional autonomy for the regions reflects the spirit of transparency, good governance and democracy. law no. 22, 1999 on local government has devolved central government authorities to local governments in all government administrative sectors, except for security and defense, foreign policy, monetary and fiscal matters, justice, and religious affairs. consequently, local governments have had to reform their internal structures to accommodate the huge increase in responsibility that has been passed on from the central government. a significant part of this process includes placing a large number of central government employees under the regional governments and increasing their financial capacity to implement regional autonomy. the absence of a detailed plan for the transition process and the lack of supporting regulations to clarify the procedures which need to be undertaken, have hampered this sweeping devolution of authorities. the change in government administration must also deal with a lack of initiative and support from government employees for the policy. many of the government employees who are now implementing regional autonomy are accustomed to being the implementers of centralized government policies. in addition, the previous government was characterized by its practices of corruption, collusion, and nepotism. the main objectives of regional autonomy are to promote better delivery of government services and to raise the level of local government accountability. therefore, the focus of this discussion covers both the impact of regional autonomy on local governments, as well as the impact of this policy on the performance of local governments in delivering services. assuming that local governments are more familiar with the needs of their communities than the central government, we expect local governments to be able to create more suitable public policies. ultimately, regional autonomy is not simply a matter of regulating the relationships between the various level of government. rather, it is about regulating the relationship between the government and the people. however, this is still difficult to achieve in the regions, because almost all local interest groups, including political parties, remain weak and poorly organized, because they have been almost completely left out of the political decision-making process over the last three decades. without strong civil society institutions, it will be difficult to achieve practices of good governance

Regional Autonomy in Indonesia: Field Experiences and Emerging Challenges

After more than three decades under a centralized national government, Indonesia decided to implement a new policy of regional autonomy that became effective on January 1, 2001. This paper examines both the preparations for and the initial implementation of autonomy in the regions, as well as some of the conducted in fourteen districts across eleven provinces over to the last two years. This presentation has two areas of focus: first, the internal processes used by local governments to manage their new powers and responsibilities; and second, the extent to which the process of creating public policies under regional autonomy for the regions reflects the spirit of transparency good governance and democracy

The Role of the Fiscal Stimulus Program in Expanding Labor-intensive Infrastructure in Response to the Impact of the 2008/09 Global Financial Crisis

The global financial crisis (gfc) that swept over the world in 2008/09 had an influence on the Indonesian economy. in an attempt to reduce the impact of the gfc, the government introduced a fiscal stimulus program (fsp) in 2009 in order to encourage economic growth. the program consisted of two main elements, namely, tax cuts and increased government spending. this report presents the results of research into the implementation of the fsp, in terms of government spending to expand infrastructure in the context of reducing the impact of the crisis. the study, for which samples were selected in the kabupaten of demak, sragen, sukoharjo, and klaten (in Central Java) and the kabupaten of gowa, sinjai, and bulukumba (in South Sulawesi), was part of the activities involved in monitoring the socioeconomic impact of the gfc, which has been carried out by the smeru research institute since july 2009. this research was done in a qualitative way in order to obtain a general understanding of the impact of the gfc on the socioeconomic situation of the population, the process of formulation and decision-making in the implementation of the fsp, and the benefits of the fsp in overcoming the impact of the crisis on community livelihoods. on the whole, research findings indicated that fsp targets have not been in accordance with the impact of the gfc. although the gfc had a sufficiently significant effect on the national economy during the period from the end of 2008 until the middle of 2009, its impact on the economies of the study areas was relatively minor. the allocation of fsp funding for kabupaten and kota shows a wide variation and was not related to the level of impact of the gfc or to the economic position of the region that had been impacted. the fsp funds had already raised the capacity of development spending in the recipient regions and the expansion of infrastructure provided benefits to the local economy; however, the fsp did not contribute directly to the assistance of community members who had been affected by the crisis. keywords: global financial crisis, fiscal stimulus program, infrastructure developmen

The Specific Allocation Fund (Dak): Mechanisms and Uses

Research team smeru: syaikhu usman, m. sulton mawardi, adri poesoro, asep suryahadi griffith university: charles sampford translator: kate weatherley editor: budhi adrianto abstract this study aims to analyze the management of the specific allocation fund (dak). the three largest dak-recipient sectors are the focus of the study: education, health, and roads infrastructure. the study sample areas are four districts. this paper was compiled based on the results of in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with various stakeholders as well as analysis of dak policy and secondary data. the main objective of dak is to reduce interregional inequalities in public services. we came across policies in dire need of national uniformity but that still allow variation on some aspects. conversely, we found some enforced national uniformity in policies that should have provided rooms for variations to accommodate regional specific conditions. in practice, regional governments have become passive recipients of dak grants. the attitudes of regional government towards the dak allocation process indicate a general feeling that the central government is not transparent. furthermore, it is evident that coordination and communication surrounding dak management between agencies are still limited. based on the above findings, we recommend a new paradigm where the central government is suggested to decentralize the authority for the allocation, coordination, and monitoring of district/city use of dak to provincial governments. keywords: specific allocation fund, education, health, roads infrastructure, new paradig