Devolution a must to fight poverty

By S. Abdurrahman

CANBERRA (JP): Various development programs, from the "vindicative" perspective of the Indonesian government, have been able to significantly ease out rural poverty for the past two decades.

The development programs introduced by the government include presidential assistance programs, a presidential instruction program for the least developed villages, a savings scheme and a credit scheme.

However, are these poverty alleviation programs sincerely devolved at the village level in a wide-range scope and to a far- reaching extent to ensure their effectiveness and efficiency? And more importantly, do they include the participation of the poor? How do the determinants of implementing devolution at the village level interplay for the goal of poverty alleviation?

Devolution, in its fullest local sense, is a precursor to alleviating poverty at the village level. By common definition, it is the transfer of administrative and political power from the upper echelon of the government to lower levels. Many commentators have claimed that it is the strongest form of decentralization with multidimensional and propoor objectives. As usually assumed and professed, one of the objectives of devolution is the alleviation of poverty on the basis of a "participatory and emancipatory approach".

What is devolution in Indonesia? Policy statements on rural development during the New Order government era devote considerable attention to engaging the participation of the poor, rural population.

The policy stipulated in the Broad Outlines of State Policies states that the greatest attention must be given to furthering rural development by increasing participation, preparedness and self-reliance of village society. It has been proclaimed by the Ministry of Home Affairs that villages, the smallest autonomous territorial communities, are the "pillars of public participation in all facets of government, development and society".

In addition, Law No. 5/1974 recognizes the right of villages to manage their own internal affairs. A village is headed by an official elected periodically, who is responsible to a district head. The other village functionaries are nominated or appointed directly by the village head. Administrative structures of the village are determined by the Village Government Law of 1979, stipulating the need for increasing public participation in development and the effectiveness of village administration.

But the principle of wider representation of the public in village administration has been treated with lip service. The 1979 village law actually formalizes the centralization of authority in the hands of the village head and supravillage head officials from the district and upper levels. The village function is limited to the administration of centrally-planned policies of the national government and upper-level regional administrations.

To support the finances of the village, the government authorizes it to use part of the locally collected tax on land and buildings. On the other hand, over time, villages lose their sources of income when their control and rights over many resources cease.

Likewise, the administration deconcentration does not extent to the political sphere. Political responsibilities are expressed and shouldered by second-level local administrations (regencies and mayoralties) as stipulated in Government Regulation No. 45/1992. Under this ruling, governmental matters other than security and defense, judiciary, foreign affairs, currency, monetary and other functions not affecting national interests are within the scope of accountability of second-level local administration.

Notably, the three Indonesian political parties, the dominant Golkar, United Development Party and Indonesian Democratic Party, are not rooted in villages and districts. As such, they do not have strong representation and clout at local levels. People at village and district levels are collectively a "floating mass" and they are not directly involved in political activities.

The strongest rationale for this is the claim by the government that people at these levels have no interest in democratic processes and they have limited capacities to deal with modern political and social changes. The rural populace's immature understanding in political affairs and limited organizational skills are suspected of being responsible for this problem. It is assumed that their involvement in political parties will do more "harm" than "good" for their own lives and for the unity of the country. But this is an exquisite example of political "window dressing" to cover up the vested interest of the government.

The hidden agenda of separating rural people from the political parties is to maintain the status quo of the present government under Golkar. A greater bulk of the 200 million population in Indonesian, most of whom live in rural areas, constitute the biggest and strongest partisan groups for Golkar.

Unlike the two other political parties, Golkar has official channels at the village and district levels through functionaries at those levels. Such official functionaries have no choice other than supporting the ruling party and influencing the whole society to support Golkar in order to win the general election, held once every five years.

Of course, there is a win-win condition offered by Golkar to the village and district officials -- if Golkar stays as the ruling faction, they will also stay in their positions or might be promoted to more desirable positions.

Another striking fact is that most of the government-sponsored development schemes for alleviating poverty at village levels are not uncommonly named as Golkar's social development programs, such as rural banking, presidential assistance, a presidential instruction program for the least developed villages, family planning, savings scheme, credit scheme and other forms of poverty-alleviation programs. People at the village levels are required to make a vow as partisans of Golkar in order to have access to these development-assistance packages.

The rhetoric of participation is obviously shown by the widening discrepancy between what should be and what is in the delivery of the development programs. It is also explained by the ingrained assumptions regarding the limited capacities of a traditionally oriented rural populace to deal with modern social change. And by the higher priority given to insuring perpetuation of the central government hegemony in all aspects of the political process. These centrally planned priorities and paternalistic tendencies are reflected in central government policies reinforcing the bureaucratic rigidity of village-level administrations throughout Indonesia.

So, is devolution a successful strategy for helping the poor in Indonesian villages out of their plight? No. Are the poverty alleviation programs, which are masqueraded as "propoor", really devolved down to the village levels? No. What is wrong with the determinants of implementing devolution at the village level in Indonesia?

Primarily, there is inadequacy of financial support for the implementation, monitoring and evaluation of "supposedly" devolved poverty-alleviation programs. Because of this, the mobility of rural poverty workers in villages can hardly gain impetus and are definitely not sustained. The financial constraint in providing incentives and rewards explains the lack of proper orientation and training for them. This breeds "halfhearted" commitment and incompetence of field motivators and poverty technicians in actual village propoor development works.

There is an obvious lack of community organization and participation of the poor in decision-making and implementation of programs and projects for alleviating their poverty. This is partly explained by the highly elitist structure in the inegalitarian local societies.

The present community structure is executive-centered. Decisions emanate from the so-called "executives", and poor people are only consulted, if ever informed, or not at all. The personality and orientation of the leaders strongly influence the process of decision-making. This constraint on structure affects the various inputs to the system, which has also subsequent influence on the benefits or outputs of programs and projects as well as their impact in the long run. This strengthens the people's dependency attitude, which kills their initiative for participation and develops low self-esteem.

The incidence of "politicizing" of poverty-alleviation programs is highly notable. This is in light of the culture of graft and corruption by officials who define their involvement with the handling of resources within the stream of aggrandizing parochial interests. Out of the practice of political manipulations, "small empires" are established on the turf of local leaders in some villages that are controlled by political dynasties.

In other words, there is a replication of the top-heavy and rather "blurred" or "shady" social structure of the central government at the village levels. This could be an aftermath of the faulty selection of formal community leaders. What is crucial in this scenario is that the people do not necessarily share the thinking of village leaders, which render attempts of devolution as exercises in futility.

Given these realities, how then should devolution be implemented relevantly, responsively and proactively to the goal of poverty alleviation, particularly at the village level?

The writer is a non-governmental organization activist now pursuing postgraduate studies in development administration at the Australian National University, Australia.

Window: The hidden agenda of separating rural people from the political parties is to maintain the status quo of the present government under Golkar.