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.