Waqf: Busy or Making an Impact?

More than two decades have passed since Indonesia’s Waqf Law came into force. During that time, enthusiasm for developing waqf has grown, with seminars, conferences, training, nazhir certification, programme launches and various productive waqf innovations continuing to emerge.

Waqf is discussed more often, introduced more widely and involves an increasing number of professionals. Yet amid this development, which deserves recognition, a fundamental question needs to be asked: has the growing activity in the waqf movement been accompanied by greater benefits that people actually experience?

This question is not intended to belittle the hard work of those advancing waqf. Many organisations and individuals have devoted their energy and ideas, and even made personal sacrifices, to its development.

But recognising these efforts must not prevent us from having the courage to evaluate their results. In managing a social trust, good intentions, busy activity and administrative success do not in themselves prove that the public good has been achieved.

Law No. 41 of 2004 provides clear direction. Article 5 states that waqf serves to realise the potential and economic benefits of waqf property for religious purposes and public welfare.

Meanwhile, Article 43(2) explicitly mandates the productive management and development of waqf property. More than two decades on, therefore, the challenge should no longer be limited to promoting waqf’s economic potential. Greater emphasis should be placed on demonstrating how that potential is converted into tangible and sustainable benefits.

Institutional development has indeed advanced. According to a publication by the Indonesian Waqf Board (BWI), the 2024 National Waqf Index (IWN) score rose to 0.316 from 0.301 in 2023. However, the same publication identified process and outcome as areas requiring further strengthening, particularly in recording surpluses from productive waqf management and the distribution of benefits.

These findings are a reminder that institutional progress does not by itself prove that waqf’s economic and social benefits for the public have been optimised.

This points to a more fundamental concern: we must not become increasingly adept at expanding waqf activities without becoming equally adept at demonstrating the added value they create.

A seminar may be declared successful because it attracts hundreds of participants, features prominent speakers, produces recommendations and receives extensive coverage. Administratively, all the event’s indicators may have been met. But the economic questions remain unanswered.

What changes after participants return to their organisations? Have any waqf assets become more productive? Has nazhir governance improved? Have communities received additional benefits?

The problem is not the seminar itself, but the assumption that success in holding an event is equivalent to success in achieving its objectives.

In organisational theory, this phenomenon is known as goal displacement, in which the means gradually replace the ends. An activity originally intended to improve waqf management risks becoming a measure of success in its own right.

The same issue should be considered in nazhir certification. Improving competence is a genuine need and should not be treated as a matter of dispute. However, individual competence is different from organisational capacity. A nazhir may understand risk management, asset development and waqf accounting, yet still lack the authority, systems support or resources to put that knowledge into practice.

Therefore, the number of certified participants is not enough as a final measure of professionalisation.

Evaluation should examine changes in practice six months or a year later. Certification should be part of an institutional transformation process, not merely an administrative achievement that ends when a certificate is issued.

From an economic perspective, this issue is directly related to the efficient allocation of resources. Every rupiah spent on seminars, training or institutional development has an opportunity cost. The money and staff time devoted to one activity cannot simultaneously be used for alternatives such as supporting nazhir, resolving asset-ownership documentation, strengthening accounting or building the capacity of waqf enterprises.

Of course, an expensive activity is not automatically wasteful. A large-scale forum may generate strategic partnerships and policy changes whose benefits far exceed its costs. Conversely, even a modest activity may be inefficient if it does not address real problems. The appropriate measure is not the venue’s prestige or the size of the audience, but whether the costs are reasonable in relation to the expected and verifiable benefits.