New public policy mechanism proposed

New public policy mechanism proposed

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

Representatives of business associations, researchers and
members of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) met on Thursday
to consider a new policy-making process aimed at uniting
disagreeing parties to help the government produce effective
policies.

During the meeting, the United Nations Support Facility for
Indonesian Recovery (UNFSFIR) and the Indonesian Business
Association (TIBA) proposed to create a public policy network,
which would be called JAJAKI.

The network aims to create a network of institutions to
discuss public policy issues facing Indonesia and to present the
outcome to policymakers in the government and the legislature.

The deputy chairman of the National Institute of Sciences
(LIPI), Dewi Fortuna Anwar, said public involvement was lacking
in the country's policy-making process.

"It (involving the public) may take more time, but once a
policy is implemented, there will be a greater sense of ownership
among the public," she said.

However, she added that since the government could not
consider all the opinions that were raised within the public, a
filtering mechanism was required.

"The objective of JAJAKI is to gather various options coming
from different analyses, then jointly think them over to come up
with a limited number of options," she said.

"How do you filter out which options would be really effective
from one hundred different policies?" asked UNSFR chief advisor
Satish Mishra.

To this end, JAJAKI would stimulate discussion to reach a
solid agreement even among conflicting parties.

"(It's aimed at providing) communication between people who
normally don't talk to each other, or when they talk to each
other they simply attack each other," he said.

But Partnership for Governance Reforms' Rizal Malik added that
in reality, policy-making in Indonesia was not based on
rationality but rather on politics.