Step Forward to Governance Reform

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Indonesia’s OGP IRM report to obtain public comments has been publishing. As an emerging country, Indonesia drafted a pretty ambitious action planAction plans are at the core of a government’s participation in OGP. They are the product of a co-creation process in which government and civil society jointly develop commitments to open governmen..., although only 5 of 12 actions were completed within the time frame, while the other 7 commitments are on the progress. The ambitious actions covered a broad range of sectors, including poverty, public services on subsidies of educationAccountability within the public education system is key to improving outcomes and attainment, and accountability is nearly impossible without transparent policies and opportunities for participation ... and health, budget transparencyAccording to OGP’s Articles of Governance, transparency occurs when “government-held information (including on activities and decisions) is open, comprehensive, timely, freely available to the pub... More, reform on policy department, civil servants recruitment, integrity services on taxation and land, as well as on natural resources and environmental management through a digital (spatial) map of forest and transparency in the extractive revenue sectors.

The broad scope of the action plan is supposed to be accompanied by a strong breakthrough of policy. It is important to determine the actions that are the highest priority, as well as achievable and measurable. At the bureaucratic level, encouragement and coordination between ministries and specific sector agencies is an important factor in the success of the action plan, so that the impact and changes that take place before and after the OGP action plans can be measured . The involvement and the creation of incentives has begun to emerge, such as through multiple models of competition between the ministries and institutions. However, the agenda of ‘open government’ is still perceived as a lower level policy. In other words, open government is still not becoming part of mainstream policy for the current government yet.

As a multi-stakeholder initiative, the involvement of civil society and the public is essential. Substantial involvement in policy decisions, the division of roles and coordination are also crucial points that must be improved in the OGP process. This also includes the communication model in OGP, both among government agencies and civil society organizations. Therefore, the institutionalization of OGP in the Government’s policy framework should be more robust, especially toward to transitional government in the next year 2014.

As a method, the IRM has conducted its assessment, which is limited just to the national action plan. These are submitted formally by each country to the OGP. Indonesia’s OGP team have conducted a series of actions, within its action plan, over the 3 main tracks: (1) to strengthen and accelerate the implementation of existing open government programs and initiative; (2) focused toward establishing a portal for public services, public participationGiving citizens opportunities to provide input into government decision-making leads to more effective governance, improved public service delivery, and more equitable outcomes. Technical specificatio..., and public institution openness; and (3) to accommodate new innovations in open government for both the central and local governments, with three pilot project envisioned. An example of a meaningful achievement was the launch of a regulationGovernment reformers are developing regulations that enshrine values of transparency, participation, and accountability in government practices. Technical specifications: Act of creating or reforming ... from the Ministry of Information and Communications and the Ministry of Internal Affairs that provides guidance on PPID formation (Center for Information and Documentation ) in local government, both at the provincial and district levels. PPID was obligated by FOI Law (No.14/2008), required for all of public institutions.   

I feel that openness as it relates to FOI Law in Indonesia has not been as strong as it could be, especially in the execution of Information Commission’s decision. There are some cases where public bodies did not comply with the decision made by the Information Commission, such as education funds of BOS and dispute on oil & gas contracts. However, as a multi-stakeholder initiative, the public has put a high-lvel of expectation on positive breakthroughs of OGP for the agenda of reform in Indonesia. The IRM provided meaningful tools and check points for improvement to the action plan and thus to robust policy reforms. The action plan was targeted to strategic sectors and the public interest, which is already a step forward for governance reform. In the next round though, it will require stronger and more mainstream policy in Indonesia. 

Image credit: Jakarta skyline, via Wikipedia