Part2 of 2: Does the master plan for Aceh rehabilitation drive NGOs away?

Part2 of 2: Does the master plan for Aceh rehabilitation drive NGOs away?

Daniel Kingsley, Washington DC

The MoF, as a monitoring institution, has not had its position
in the monitoring process clearly defined either. The master plan
seems to indicate that these tasks will be executed at the end of
the flow process. If the flow chart from volume 11 of the master
plan is consulted, it can be seen that the MoF is only given the
responsibility of "documenting" the execution process of the RRA.

Given the importance of accountability, administrative
procedures must be carefully defined for the donors. The MOF
should be empowered to implement monitoring processes determined
through collaborative decision making between all stakeholders to
protect the integrity of the donors and GOI. Other issues that
should be considered and weighed in before the project approval
process begins include:

O Creation of a working model, that has been tested, for
project approvals

O Review of how those models used in the relief phase- such as
the UNDP "programs partners model"- have performed

O Clearly establish monitoring processes of the flow of grants
and loans from beginning to end

O Transparent authority of regulatory and policy control of
the RRA

O An accountability mechanisms for project approval and funds
flow.

In the master plan there is a steering committee and board to
address the above, but to what degree are these committees
empowered and representative of stakeholders? Institutional
policy guidelines should focus on accountability and transparency
by the donors and the GOI, its staff and institutions.

The RRA has the capacity to manage the donor partnerships
according to the master plan, but to do so effectively and
transparently requires a cooperative effort with regulatory
certainty and not an authoritative hierarchy that will drive
donor funding away from Indonesia.

It is reasonable to enforce compliance by the donors to the
policy guidelines, just as the agency should be compliant to the
stakeholders. Admittedly, this is quite a lot to ask the GOI, and
certainly raises nationalistic and sovereignty issues, but is a
fact that it is foremost in the minds of the international
community as a result of the endemic corruption that has plagued
the country for so many years.

A Private Sector Summit on Tsunami Reconstruction was held on
May 12 in Washington DC focusing on some of the issues. In that
Forum, Jan Egeland, the UN Under-Secretary for Humanitarian
Affairs, stated: "What we cannot afford any kind of scandals
(and) money going into the wrong direction or into the wrong
pockets because we had such unprecedented generosity and such
unprecedented needs".

Other officials heading the UN efforts on tsunami
reconstruction went on to add that some donors have been
reluctant to release funds to tsunami-hit economies because of a
lack of firm action plans with guarantees of transparency,
officials told the conference. Egeland added that the
reconstruction effort is still too slow and that although
national governments were taking the lead in the rebuilding
process, they should form "effective partnerships with local
authorities and international donors".

He urged governments to be transparent in awarding multi-
million-dollar reconstruction projects to avoid corruption
scandals : "We have to make sure that it is transparent and
accountable as can be. "

There are currently clear revisions that should be made in the
master plan to impact the international concerns regarding
transparency. A few immediate issues:

o Project approval and funding approval processes empowered
with regulatory autonomy.

o The MoF to monitor funding flow prior to execution of
project review by the agency, as is the case in the on-budget
process.

o The MOF and BAPPENAS independent of the Coordinating
Ministry policy control in the monitoring and execution processes

At the top, autonomous regulatory control should cover policy,
budgets and fiduciary matters and technical approach to project
approval and implementation. There can never be complete
agreement between the agency implementing the projects in Aceh
and all stakeholders, but it should remain independent from the
territorial issues that will arise in relation to the various
ministries that have overlapping policy and regulatory control of
the project sectors.

At the bottom, the most important responsibility should be in
the government agencies that support the communities. It is the
communities in Aceh must be empowered throughout the process.
This is one issue that cannot be easily ignored, nor will it go
away.

The local government and communities have a right to review
and approve the master plan, and the general consensus is that
they have rejected it as non-inclusive. Therefore, until they do
approve of the plan, it can be assumed there will be a disconnect
between the international donor community that must represent
their interests on behalf of the global pool of contributors and
the GOI.

The new director himself has addressed this issue, quoted as
saying: "I can assure you that we will develop Aceh using a total
community participation approach". This is an encouraging sign
that the agency is in good hands, but it would be most be
conveyed clearly through consensus building efforts to reasonably
assure the individual contributors around the world.

This could be conveyed through a concise and transparent
master plan that was formerly endorsed by all stakeholders in the
reconstruction and rehabilitation process.

The writer is an international development consultant who has
worked on Tsunami related reconstruction planning for bilateral
and multilateral donors in Indonesia and Sri Lanka. He can be
reached at dkingsley@tmiconsulting.com