Crecimiento Personal

In Kuningan, development planning is regulated by local law 04/2009 on the Local Development Planning System. There have been no records of donor assistance in improving citizen participation in Kuningan. In formulating the bill for development planning, Kuningan district was also not assisted by an international donor, NGOs or CSOs. Although the Musrenbang is regulated in the local law, there is no further explanation regarding an indicative funding ceiling for each local agency and subdistrict area or any the details about citizen participation. In fact, many district governments did not provide indicative budgets for local agencies even until after the district

Musrenbang (LGSP ). This indicates that planning processes have not been well integrated

into the budgeting processes. Nevertheless, Musrenbang is an important process in formulating the local government work plan.

The planning system in Kuningan provides separate channels for district leadership—head and deputy head of district—and local MPs to input their priorities into the local government annual plan (RKPD). The district head usually gathered citizens’ immediate demands during the visit to villages, whilst local MPs gathered citizens’ demands during recess and hearings. Some of

the local MPs’ proposed projects would be accommodated in the local budgets and is calleddana

pokok-pokok pikiran. The members have to input their proposals before the RKPD is signed by

the district head. The time frame for imputing proposals for DPRD is similar to the Musrenbang’s. Since recess is conducted three times per year, the community aspirations through local MPs can be accommodated in RKPD twice a year. The recess conducted before the RKPD is signed—around June—and can be directly accommodated into the local government work plan. The result of recess after June can be accommodated either in the revised RKPD or in the upcoming year’s RKPD.

However, there was no indicative budget explicitly allocated to address communities’ demands from Musrenbang. An interview with a local official (January 5, 2016) revealed that they had informally discussed the possibility of adopting PIK along with indicative budgets for political leaders—the head of the district and local MPs—but there was no significant effort to realise it. Local agencies were informed of the indicative budget ceiling during Forum SKPD (thematic forum). Because the information was provided in the middle of the processes, the agencies tended to include many projects in their preliminary work plans. Problems arose in the district Musrenbang when several local agencies were reluctant to change their plans, arguing that their proposed projects were important. As a result, the meeting ended without any decisions, and the Executive Budgeting Team (TAPD) decided to discuss the indicative budget in another session.

4.3.1 Planning and budgeting processes Preparation stage

The information about local government development themes (RPJMD) for the next financial year, and Musrenbang time schedules and mechanisms were sent to local agencies, subdistrict and village offices in October; four months before the village Musrenbang began in January. Apparently, the information was not well delivered to the village level, as one of the villages investigated ended up holding its Musrenbang in December. The village was not aware of the information provided by BAPPEDA. Moreover, there was no mechanism that specifically allowed local agencies to inform subdistrict and village offices about their preliminary work plans. Since the annual development

10. According to MOHA decree 54/2010, in the formulation of the local government work plan, DPRD provides

pokok-pokok pikiranor main ideas that cover general development priorities, as well as proposed programs and projects. 11. Local governments can revise their budgets after the revised national budget (APBN) is enacted in order to accommodate the central government’s policies and to adjust their spending.

themes in RPJMD are very broad and must be translated into programs and projects, informing only the themes to the village officials does not provide sufficient information about local agencies’ main priorities in the upcoming year. To obtain the information, village officials had to visit local agencies. It may be difficult for the village community to synchronise their proposals with the local government’s priorities in RPJMD without technical guidance from local agencies or FDM in

the case of Sumedang. Similar to Sumedang, the community atdusun(hamlets) also informally

discussed their needs to be proposed in the village Musrenbang.

Village Musrenbang

In general, the mechanisms of village Musrenbang were similar to those in Sumedang. The main source of data for village Musrenbang in Kuningan was obtained from interviews and an FGD with village officials and community members in February 16 and 17, 2016. This is because, during the fieldwork, several villages had already held Musrenbang in December, as mentioned above. An interviewee argued that they did not know that Musrenbang should have been held in January. As a result, one of the village Musrenbang was not attended by subdistrict officials. Since there was no facilitator recruited or provided by the local government, the community held the Musrenbang without any information regarding local agencies’ preliminary work plans for the upcoming financial year.

In the second village, Musrenbang was attended by subdistrict officials. The decision on the village’s priorities was made through deliberation, and the proposal lists were finalised by village officials. Similar to those in Sumedang, village grants in the two villages were also allocated to each of the hamlets (FGDs February 16, 2016 and interview February 17, 2016). After deciding village priorities, the meeting proceeded with discussing proposals for the subdistrict Musrenbang, followed by selecting five delegates to attend the subdistrict Musrenbang. After the village Musrenbang, the village officials sent the list to the subdistrict office to be uploaded to the local government work plan online system (RKPD online). Although the system provided access for the village office to input their proposals, most villages’ proposals were uploaded by subdistrict officials. Each village was advised to propose up to five proposals for each of three thematic sectors, namely infrastructure, social and economic sectors, as well as the area of governance.

Subdistrict Musrenbang

The subdistrict Musrenbang were conducted differently in the two subdistricts observed. In the first subdistrict, after the opening ceremony, the discussions on priorities were divided into the aforementioned three thematic groups. The participants discussed and ranked the proposals from villages, and the final results would be finalised by the subdistrict office. In the second subdistrict, there was no discussion on the priorities at all. After the opening ceremony, local MPs and local agency officials left the meeting. Village delegates were upset and decided to give the

mandate to the subdistrict office to formulate the priorities. The participants asked them to

stay to provide advice and to get them involved in consensus-making so that they could be held accountable if the Musrenbang priorities were not realised in the upcoming year (interview with Musrenbang participants, February 15, 2016). There was no discussion on selecting the delegates that represent subdistrict in Forum SKPD and district Musrenbang. Data from Musrenbang documents over the last three years (2014–2016) show that the delegates for district Musrenbang from both subdistricts were subdistrict officials instead of community representatives. Therefore, the representation of ordinary citizens in the subsequent meetings after the subdistrict Musrenbang (i.e., thematic meeting and district Musrenbang) was limited, rather the representation merely reflected the subdistrict authority.

4.3.2 Participation In Musrenbang

Data from village Musrenbang attendance lists in both of the observed villages show that the number of participants was relatively similar over the period of 2014 to 2016, around 38 to 45 participants. The percentage of female participants ranged from the lowest at 6 per cent in

the first village in 2015 to the highest at 21 per cent in the same village in 2016. However,

the participants of the subdistrict Musrenbang tended to decrease over the years. In the first subdistrict, for example, participants decreased from 150 in 2014 to 80 in 2016 (see Figure

and Figure for the participants of village and subdistrict Musrenbang in West Java).

12. This problem was also found in participatory budgeting in Brazil, in which high ranking local officials were absent from budget discussions and did not directly engage with the community (Goldfrank , 187).

13. Although the graph shows zero per cent of women participants in the first village in 2014, interview verifications revealed that some women from the Family Welfare Movement (PKK) participated in the meeting.

Similar to Sumedang, the participants of village Musrenbang reflected the institutional and

social structure of the villages. Participants were mostlyKadus, RWs, RTs and community leaders.

Unlike in Sumedang where anyone was allowed to register in order to participate, there was no such a rule in Kuningan. Hence, all the participants were invited by the village and subdistrict officials. An interviewee stated that he participated in the subdistrict Musrenbang because he respected the invitation from the subdistrict head. He was actually reluctant to attend the meeting because Musrenbang results were rarely funded (interview, February 15, 2016). As noted above, the delegates of the thematic meetings were dominated by subdistrict officials rather than ordinary citizens. As a result, citizen participation in the subsequent meetings after subdistrict Musrenbang remained limited.

In budgeting

In the budgeting stage, there was no citizen involvement. Several community representatives were invited to a ceremony on the final decision on the local budgets, in which the local budget was enacted as a local law. However, there was no space for citizens to formally engage with state actors in the budgeting processes.

4.3.3 Responsiveness and transparency

Local government responsiveness to community demands from Musrenbang

The effectiveness of Musrenbang to channel citizens’ preferences in Kuningan varied from one village to another. The first village that was close to the city centre received many projects over the past years, whereas another village that was far from the city centre received very few projects. The village received many projects not only because of its proximity but also because they could align their proposals with local agencies’ work plans. For instance, the first village was assigned as part of the green open space program, and if the villagers proposed a project that supported the program, it would be likely that the proposal would be realised. This shows that the technocratic approach has been more dominant than the bottom-up one.

The other village had proposed the same projects—a bridge and irrigation—over the past few years without success. The village head had asked the public works agency about why their proposals had not been funded, and the response from the agencies was that was due to fiscal

constraints (FGD, February 16, 2016). A local official pointed out that community proposals were often rejected because they were not aligned with the agency’s work plan (interview, January 6, 2016). The irony is that the purpose of local agencies attending Musrenbang is to get an understanding about community needs and to guide deliberation so that their proposals could align with the agency’s work plans. However, since local agencies decided to leave the discussion session, this ideal mechanism has not delivered its intended purposes. From the local agency perceptive, Musrenbang results were overwhelming and impossible to fund (interview with an official, January 6, 2016).

Some villages and subdistricts followed up their proposals with local agencies and local MPs in order to get them funded. A subdistrict official who managed the village and subdistrict Musrenbang said that they advised village heads—whose proposed projects become priorities in subdistrict Musrenbang—to send a letter to local agencies and DPRD regarding the importance of the projects. They also advised the village heads to informally lobby local agencies to accommodate their demands. Without doing this, he argued that the proposals would be hard to realise (FGD with the village community and officials, February 16, 2016). This claim was supported by a member of DPRD (interview, January 7, 2016) who pointed out that he frequently helped his constituents with follow up village proposals with local agencies.

Information and transparency

The information regarding the local government provisional work plans and Musrenbang schedule was not disseminated properly as several villages did not receive the information. As a result, one of the villages held Musrenbang without assistance from the subdistrict office.

The participants of subdistrict Musrenbang eagerly sought transparency and accountability from bureaucracy and legislature during the meeting. However, as explained above, local MPs and local agencies tended to leave the meeting after the opening ceremony, giving no space for the community to directly engage with them. Therefore, Musrenbang in Kuningan has not extended social accountability for two reasons. First, the Musrenbang has been merely a ceremonial meeting. Both bureaucrats and local MPs were not interested in getting involved in real deliberation. Secondly, there is no formal participatory mechanism for the citizens to monitor their proposed projects after the Musrenbang stages. This has made the budgeting processes less

accessible to the citizens.

The delegates were actually interested in engaging with the local authority. However, the lack of commitment from local agencies and local MPs has made them disappointed about both the process and the result of Musrenbang. They consistently required the government to realise their demands. However, the community efforts have been undermined by the absence of a more effective participatory institution that allows them to exercise their rights to obtain information and transparency from the local government.