Returning power to development planners

Returning power to development planners

Owen Podger, Jakarta

One of the last deeds of the House of Representatives (DPR)
for the 1999-2004 period was to pass Law 25/2004 on the national
system of development planning. While this is not the return of
the new order, it is a return to national development planning of
the wrong order altogether. The new planning system however works
against international trends in national planning. It contrasts
with Law 17/2003 on state finances which is close to state of the
art.

The purpose of long term planning should not be to constrain a
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's reforms plan.

Long term planning should be to determine what policy and
action is needed now -- not in the long term -- to avoid
undesirable future scenarios. Long term planners uses science to
help politicians determine priorities on specific complex issues.

Bappenas (National Development Planning Agency) has already
drafted a long term plan. But this draft plan has no projection
of population growth, no projection of land needed for food crops
to feed future generations, and no projection of urbanization or
projection of how much irrigated land will need to be converted
to urban uses. There is no mention of the greenhouse effect.

The purpose of medium term planning should not be to spend
just three months in every five years preparing strategic plans
-- or limit ministers to less than two months to finish their
strategic plans. And why should we call a strategic plan a
development plan? Is the current title of Bappenas so important?
Why not forget the old term development planning, and have
strategic planning that will look at every aspect of planning
needed to perform? Not just development, but also human
resources, outsourcing and insourcing, alternative financing,
risk, application of technology.

And why not make Bappenas into a strategic institution, that
helps the President? Which is more important, a new law which
hinders the President in being strategic in running the country,
or using all that expertise in Bappenas to help a new President
fulfill his promises to the people?

Bappenas has also already drafted a medium term plan. It is
terrible. It plans a reduction in the share of funds for regions,
for government investment, and even for civil servant salaries.
It plans a 10 percent budget surplus for 2009. But the sectoral
plans show no less responsibility of regions, no frugality in
investment, and no plan to cut salaries or staff. There is no
connection between the opposite sides of the balance sheet. This
is not a plan, but a dream. From cover to cover there is no
strategy.

Modern medium term planning focuses on continual improvement.
The starting point of medium term planning should be the
President's own strategy, that will evolve throughout his
presidency, demanding each minister's plan also to push the
limits of corporate performance. If Bappenas is given the job to
help elucidate his policy, that is a wise application of his
prerogative, provided that responsibility for the development of
planning in each sector is handed over to the ministers who are
responsible.

Each minister needs his or her own time to develop detailed
strategies and policies. Two months for strategic planning are
ridiculous.

For example, the law on the national system of education is
over a year old, and the ministry has still not announced how
finances are to be shared between the three levels of government.
It is a complex issue that the new minister will not be able to
resolve within two months, and maybe not for another year.

A strategic plan allows time to develop policy. This new law,
by not giving time, is not strategic, and compliance with it will
result in bad plans, and bad performance.

In strategic planning, development planning is not separated
from other policy. The minister for education, for example,
should have not have half his policy in education legislation and
the other half in a separate piece of legislation. All education
policy, beneath the guiding strategy of the President, should be
stipulated in education legislation.

There is no need for Bappenas to coordinate planning.
Ministers should do their own coordination, and should be held
accountable for it. Bappenas would be more successful in
achieving coordination for the President if it gave advice to the
President when sectoral ministers fail to perform.

For example, the minister for education should be responsible
for integrating education policy with the policies of related
industries, isolated regions, agriculture, and so on, negotiating
with those ministries as required to continually improve
effectiveness and efficiency.

Each minister should also be responsible for assuring that his
or her policies are acceptable to stakeholders. This requires far
more than holding one multi-sector mass gathering of stakeholders
in a national planning conference once every five years. It
requires packaging of concepts into public announcements,
consultations across the country over time, research into user
needs, professional policy impact assessments, on a continual
basis so that the minister always knows how his policies respond
to community needs.

The third type of plan in the new planning law are the annual
development plans. These are prepared before the annual budget
process starts. No argument is provided why the Medium Term
Expenditure Framework used successfully in so many other
countries and adopted in Law 17/2003 cannot work on its own in
Indonesia. In other countries, the type of annual planning in
this law is just not needed. What is needed is a statement by the
government on general policy linked to the budget of each
ministry. This is already covered by Law 17/2003 on state
finances, which calls for such a policy to be agreed with the
House and the Council of Regional Representatives (DPD).

The driving force of change is the process of continual
performance review. This process starts with every public
official reviewing his or her own performance. This will lead to
program reviews to update strategic plans. Cabinet reviews will
keep the President's strategy on target. And at the top of the
review process, the House and DPD reviews will lead to better
budgets and better performance. This happens at least once a
year. And nothing less is good planning.

The new minister of planning hopefully will recognize that
behind this dreadful display of ignorance of good planning,
Bappenas is still a national treasure of brilliant people, and
should not be judged by this law.

The writer is a free-lance consultant on governance reform,
and co-author of ADB's Country Governance Assessment Report of
the Republic of Indonesia. He can be contacted at
micah68@centrin.net.id