Catalog

1. Participatory COS Preparation

216. As part of the participatory process of preparing the Indonesia COS, the Mission held consultations with civil society and local governments. Consultation with civil society was held on 26 June 2000⁴¹ with 12 major NGOs and community-based organizations. Following a brief presentation by the Mission, civil society representatives gave detailed views on Indonesia’s future development prospects and strategy. In view of ADB’s poverty reduction strategy, the rural sector and SMEs were major sectors of future ADB assistance proposed by civil society. Strong support for rural financial services, rural infrastructure, gender equity, and good governance was expressed. Civil society institutions pointed out the critical need to support empowerment of the poor. ADB’s financial sector operations were perceived as being anti-poor and civil society institutions requested ADB to channel its resources directly to the poor.

217. Consultation with local governments was held on 24 July 2000. About 40 local government officials from 15 provinces attended the meeting, including representatives of three provincial governors and 17 bupatis (head of a village). The meeting was cochaired by the deputy chairman for financing, BAPPENAS (national development planning board), and the Director, IRM. The Mission presented an assessment of major development challenges facing Indonesia and its views on appropriate strategic directions for the future COS. The local officials drew particular attention to a number of common concerns for sustained poverty reduction and uplifting of living standards. In particular, it was stressed that local government officials need to be intimately involved in planning and implementing assistance programs. The ongoing decentralization should allow empowering local governments in this important direction, however, it is clear from the discussions that much remains in the way of planning and training to realize the promise of decentralization.