Direct election of executive chiefpresident at national level and governor and regent/mayor at local levelis one of significant, first-time event in Indonesias transition to democracy. Local elections have been conducted in 12 provinces and 263 regencies/municipalities throughout 2005-2006, and are scheduled to be carried out in 21 provinces and 180 regencies/ municipalities throughout 2007-2008. As a rule, the candidates make political promises on what they will deliver after they take office. To convert political promises into program, development planning and budgeting is a critical phase. Major candidates have little technical know-how in this phase, so that they depend upon the bureaucrats. This is one reason political promises are not reflected or materialized in development program and local government budget. At the same time, the society or the voters have no capacity to control the newly elected local governments, whether or not they keep their political promises. In other words, development planning and budgeting remains the elites exclusive domain.1 People lack of knowledge and capacity to engage in development planning and budgeting.
Since development planning and budgeting remains the elites exclusive domain, political promises made by political parties or executive chief candidates during the campaign cannot be materialized. State or local government budget is the most tangible reflection of development plan of either the central or the local government. It is no secret that annual budget of major local governments throughout the country indicated that at least 68-70 percents were allocated to public officials and civil servants expenditures, while the utmost 30-32 percents went to the people.
We choose the venue in the city of Serang, Banten Province for the following reasons; First, the governor of Banten elected for November last year. Public participation of Banten Province in decision making processlet alone in development planning and budgetingis insignificant. The post-election of Bantens Governor, therefore, would be the right time for implementing that objective. Second, located about two hours ride on road from the city of Jakarta, the two cities Serang and Jakarta affect each other in political, social and economic aspects.
To build the citizens capacity in development planning and budgeting necessary for them to actively engage in Public Consultation for Development Planning (Musyawarah Perencanaan Pembangunan/ Musrenbang) and policy process.
To encourage the collaboration and networking among the stakeholders that includes the government officials, the lawmakers and the public at local level in policy process, development planning and budgeting.
To encourage the making of responsive and accountable development programs of the local governments.
The target groups of our program are individuals at local level who have the following background or profession;
In order to have effective program, participants are limited to only 25-30 persons.
In the early of October 2006, IPCOS selected the provinces and/or regencies/municipality that had conducted the election of executive chief (governor/regent/mayor). Banten was on the list. We decided that Banten needed capacity building on development planning and budgeting since the public lack of knowledge on this area.
IPCOS prepared a proposal to follow up the plan and submit it to FES in the early of November 2006. As FES agreed to back up the project in the early of February 2007, IPCOS searched for local organization or group in Banten capable to organize the training. Among several local organizations or groups in Banten, we eventually chose PUWANTEN to take the responsibility to follow up the plan since this organization is renowned in socio-political arena.
At the early of March 2007, we set a plan to invite whether Director General of Regional Autonomy of the Interior Ministry or one State Auditor member (Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan/BPK) for the possibility of one of them to deliver a paper in one session of our training. We approached them at the same time and obtained positive response from them. However, when the day of our training drew closer, the Director of Regional Autonomy of the Interior Ministry declined to attend. Accordingly, we finally picked the State Auditor member to be our guest.
In the IPCOS-PUWANTEN cooperation, the latter was responsible for organizing the event, from making the list of participants (comply with our requirements) to preparing the venue. Besides, IPCOS preparing the training modules and reading materials, providing the trainers, and inviting the speaker Surachmin SH. M.H., State Auditor Body/Badan Pemeriksa Keuangan (BPK)
Training on the basic of policy process, development planning and budgeting that will take three days.
IPCOS will conduct the training in cooperation with local partner. IPCOS and its local partner will share the responsibilities and labors as follows:
IPCOS provide trainers and resources persons, besides the training and workshop materials, such as modules, books (Pelayanan Publik sebagai Perwujudan Demokrasi Sehari-hari Vol.4, Pelayanan Publik sebagai Perwujudan Demokrasi Sehari-hari Vol.5, Model Terukur) , handouts, Surachmins paper, etc.
Local partner organize the training and workshop by preparing list of selected participants, inviting the selected participants, providing the venue, office supply, note-takers, etc. Besides, the local partner provide important planning and budgeting materials needed for exercise such as Banten Province Annual Budget of 20003-2007, Banten Province Strategic Planning of 2000-2004, Banten Province Regulation/Peraturan Daerah (Perda) Annual Budget of 2003-2007, and Banten Province in Figures (Statistical Data of Banten Province) 2004-2005.
Since the subjects are too technical, we anticipate that it will be hard for many participants to swallow. To solve this problem, we will put the subjects into practice by giving actual examples as found in their daily life, and encouraging all participants to become active discussants.
The participants of the training are expected to transfer the knowledge and experiences they acquire during the training to their respective groups or network.
To make the training real as well as attractive, we give the participants many questions around problems Banten citizen and the participants answer the question themselves according to their problem and to be invited how to overcome its problem based on data Banten Province Annual Budget and Banten Province in Figures.
To expand the citizens capacity, IPCOS will provide consultation and reading materials to the ex-participants after the training.
Puwanten is one of Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) in Banten Province that focusing its activity on socio-political movement and local community organizing. As the Head of Puwanten, Zainal Mutiin put it on the opening remarks, the training was the first, important step for Puwanten as well as to play a more active role in promoting public participation in development planning and budgeting. He went on to say that to improve public capacity in developing democracy as we intended to do with the event was quite challenging since Puwanten itself was facing many constraints particularly in experience, human and financial resources, and education facilities.
Cooperating with local organizer proved to be a capacity building for the local organizer. We shared with PUWANTEN our experiences on many issues from event preparing and organizing to administrative report preparing. As PUWANTENs people admitted, the experience would be useful for them to conduct similar events in the future times.
The number of participants in the first day of our training was 28 persons, which was more than our expectation. As some of the participants told their friends or colleagues how important the training was, demand for taking part in it rose. Several participants approached us and local committee on the possibility of some more people might participate in the training. We and local committee told that this was possible as long as it was affordable to our budget. Accordingly, the second and the third day of our training were actually attended by 28 persons but there were only 25 persons in the presence list.
All participants were very eager and enthusiastic to participate in most sessions even though several participants had to leave one session or to since they had some things to do outside or at their offices. Their enthusiasm on the subjects of the training was also shown off-session when they continued the discussion with our trainers and facilitators during coffee-break, lunch-break and dinner.
For major public officials and lawmakers at national level and several provinces, policy process, planning and budgeting were day-to-day activities but for the participating public officials and lawmakers in Banten those subjects seemed new ones. And connecting the subjects with political platform of executive chief candidate who won the local election held on November 26, 2007 were another problem. All participants learned how to convert political platform of political parties or executive chief into development plan and annual budget of the local government. They use real data as mentioned earlier. For the opposition parties and the public, this would be useful for controlling the government in policy implementation. And for the public officials and the ruling parties, this would be useful to improve public policies.
Even for the participating public officials and lawmakers, planning and budgeting were not as easy as they thought. However, with thorough discussion, the participants found planning and budgeting were not only as difficult as they had previously thought but also were interesting.
Planning and budgeting are quite important knowledge for deepening democracy but to make them easy to understand for the publicand actually also for the public officials and lawmakersthorough discussion and living examples either from Banten and other parts of the country or from foreign countries have to be adopted. The time we allocated for each subject or session, however, was not enough since each subject and session were quite exhaustive and intense.
Presentation of a State Auditor, Mr. Surachmin SH, MH at the third day of the training was not only revealing but also encouraging the participants to take an active part in controlling the public budget. He gave his private and official phone number for 24 hours a day for any report.
From the very beginning, IPCOS and Puwanten intended the male and female participants were 50-50 percents as our effort to promote and encourage women participation in decision-making process. But unfortunately, there were only five female participants in our training. According to several female participants, major female in Banten were less-educated and regarded politics was the males playground, not theirs, despite the fact that the elected Governor of Banten is a lady and one Vice Governor candidate was also a woman. As we observed, traditional Islam values or way of life were quite dominant in Banten where women were required to wear head-dress in public offices and public space, and not take part in important decision-making process. There are only five females in the Local House of Representative (Dewan Perwakilan Rakyat Daerah/DPRD) of Banten that has 35 seats.
The five female participants were never absent from the beginning to the last of our training sessions. From the questions they asked and the comments they delivered, it was indicated that the subjects of our training was like an eye-opener to them as the subjects were relevant to their interests, whether concerning the women issues or their organizations and their activities. Education and health were their main concern. When it was indicated that at least 70 percents the Public Annual Budget of Banten was allocated to the public officials and civil servants, the females were quickly aware that budget allocated to education and health were very insignificant.
The training was held as scheduled, April 3-5, 2007.
The participants attended each session enthusiastically and raised some questions or delivered opinion. Many of them continued their discussion even during break, lunchtime, dinner and after dinner at the hotel coffee-shop.
Legislator typically has hectic schedule but the participating legislators attended major session.. According to the legislators, the training was quite interesting and useful for their tasks. A participating lawmaker took a day off for an official meeting at the local House of Representative, while one other participating lawmaker cancelled his scheduled program as he considered the training was more important.
Topics of conversations among some of the participants before and after sessions were mostly about the subjects they had learned.
Major participants expected that the training will be continued focusing more on one subject e.g.: planning or budgeting or financing because each of these subjects would actually need at least three days to learn and discuss.
After the training was officially closed, the participants chose the set a plan to arrange regular meeting beginning with choosing the coordinator, the place and agenda of the next meeting. The objective of the meeting was to set up a kind of forum for taking part in development planning and budgeting. By participating in the development planning and budgeting, they expected that corruption could be minimized or prevented. The forum would consist of voluntary members who dedicate their time and resources for the public. They expected IPCOS would do the same by providing technical assistance on voluntary basis.
Democracy is not simply free and fair election, freedom of speech and expression, and so forth, but also improving public welfare and social justice, citizen engagement in public issues becomes main priority in democratization. If public welfare was not improved, democracy will be meaningless which means the public will see democracy has nothing to do with their interests and their basic needs. Non-democratic system can provide welfare as the practiced in several countries. To promote citizen engagement in public issues, capacity building in policy process including and particularly in planning and budgeting need to be held. Such capacity building is supposed to be held in areas where politics are dominated by the elites (as we did in Banten Province) that lack of latest information and knowledge of democratic practices and quality human resources but is still dominated by authoritarian political culture.
Development planning and budgeting are important subjects to improve not only public capacity but also legislators and public officials. Planning and budgeting cannot be separated from each other but to make better comprehension, each subject needs at least three days to learn and discuss.
To have better result, theoretical knowledge on planning and budgeting should be strengthened with practical experience. Therefore, one pilot project or two for applying the knowledge on planning and budgeting into real world, e.g.: Musrenbang, shall be held.
Women participation in similar training has to be encouraged, particularly in the regions or provinces where women are subordinated in any decision-making process, whether it is caused by local custom or religion. The essence of democracy in participation of the citizens regardless their background.
To have more women participating in the training on development planning and budgeting or similar topics, phrasing is important. For women living in old values or tradition in provinces like Banten, e.g.: the words such as development planning and budgeting sounds mens domain, not womens area. Perhaps, the words strengthening the women participation in promoting healthcare and the likes might be added to the central theme.
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