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Aceh Reconstruction Focuses on Community Participation and Local Government Capacity Building

Since March 2005, RTI has been working in the Indonesian province of Aceh to reestablish local capacity in government and education management. Widespread devastation caused by the December 2004 tsunami resulted in an immediate need for training and technical assistance throughout the region to rebuild essential services. Through two programs being implemented in Indonesia with funding from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) -- the Local Governance Support Program (LGSP) and the More Effective Decentralized Education Management and Governance (DBE) program -- RTI is working to address important capacity-building needs in Aceh's five highest priority districts of Aceh Besar, Aceh Jaya, Aceh Barat, Kota Banda Aceh, and Nagan Raya.

Focus on Local Governments

Local government officials in Kecamatan (subdistrict) Meuraxa, Banda Aceh, meet with community representatives, civil society organizations, and NGOs in August 2005. In the absence of suitable buildings, meetings and dialogues were held in mosques that withstood the tsunami. [PHOTO: Mohammed Bisri]

The longer-running of the two programs, LGSP, is designed to develop democratic, effective, and accountable governance at the local level in the provinces of North Sumatra, West Sumatra, South Sulawesi, West Java, Central Java, East Java, Banten, and Aceh. The program focuses on three main areas: strengthened legislative processes, increased stakeholder competencies, and improved citizen participation. The goal is to foster an environment in which local governments are responsible to people's needs by effectively delivering services and governing in a transparent way.

In Aceh, LGSP is addressing the programmatic need for local capacity building through training and technical support, establishment of performance-based budgeting systems, and other necessary restructuring efforts. In the city of Banda Aceh, activities were designed in close collaboration with the city government, civil society organizations, the University of Syiah Kuala (Unsyiah), donors, and other stakeholders in an effort to avoid overlap and increase coordination of reconstruction efforts.

An important LGSP activity is support for the implementation of the first-ever local elections in Aceh. "Transparency of the election process is especially important and is being enhanced through communication systems established by community leaders with the help of LGSP staff," said Philip Schwehm, RTI's Chief of Party.

In August, LGSP also sponsored a meeting in Meuraxa, one of the most devastated subdistricts of the city of Banda Aceh, that resulted in the formation of the Meuraxa Community Forum. This forum was officially opened by the mayor of the city and has emerged as a critical link between local government and the community in ensuring citizen involvement in resolving housing, land ownership, and basic service delivery for the rehabilitation and reconstruction process in Aceh. LGSP's consistent efforts to involve citizens in the reconstruction process are designed to institutionalize this model of government and public communication.

Education and Governance Assistance Combined

Elementary school students in Aceh. [PHOTO: Mark Heyward]

As a companion project to LGSP, DBE is active in six provinces throughout Indonesia, helping local governments to improve their management systems, develop and implement more efficient and equitable systems of education finance, enhance community participation in education governance, and strengthen private sector support to education. DBE staff are working to improve the effectiveness of decentralized management and governance in primary and secondary schools to boost student completion rates and the quality of instruction. The hope is that if these goals are achieved, students' performance will be enhanced in key subjects such as math, science, and reading and they will gain more relevant work and life skills.

Program Coordination

DBE and LGSP have the unique opportunity to share resources and lessons learned during project implementation in Aceh. For example, DBE used the LGSP capacity assessment results to design its program interventions, and the two projects are jointly developing a self-diagnostic tool for local government on education management.

In Aceh, the project focuses on assisting the city of Banda Aceh as it seeks to rebuild education infrastructure, personnel, and support systems. DBE staff have helped manage scholarships provided by Chevron for over 300 youth from communities that were severely affected by the tsunami. These scholarships were part of the USAID-Chevron Public-Private Alliance and funded 3-month study programs at the Chevron Politechnical Institute in Riau Province. The project has also implemented follow-up study visits for 28 education stakeholders from Banda Aceh to Managing Basic Education program schools (see www.mbeproject.net) in Probolinggo, East Java. As a result of these activities, the stakeholders were most eager to continue DBE implementation in Banda Aceh on a larger scale. DBE staff conducted a study to determine the feasibility of extending the program to other areas in the province and proposed several different scenarios and models for implementing DBE in Aceh in the near future.

Most importantly, DBE and LGSP will establish models of systems management and transparent, responsive governance that will be replicated by other stakeholders. DBE chief of party Dan Moulton adds, "This is especially important in Aceh where numerous donors are eager to rebuild schools, provide supplies, and offer training to teachers." DBE and LGSP will establish the management and governance framework that will be the basis for maximizing other donors' inputs in Aceh and will be applied throughout the rest of the country.

More Information

For more information about the LGSP project, please contact Phil Schwehm at pschwehm@rti.org or visit the LGSP web site at www.lgsp.or.id/. For more information about the DBE project, please contact Dan Moulton at dmoulton@rti.org or visit the DBE web site at http://dbe.rti.org (available at the end of January 2006).