Gender and Development

Indonesia: Gender Responsive Public Policy

Schoolgirls in Karangasem, Bali receive a scholarship, supported by ADB’s Decentralized Basic Education Project. Photo provided courtesy of Karin Schelzig Bloom, 2006.

Increasing women's participation in local representative bodies requires changing public mindset, challenging traditional views, and strengthening women's capacity to play a public role. Indonesia has undergone political and social reform since 1998, resulting in greater political participation and a demand for increased representation of women in political decision making processes. In 2003, legislation was enacted allowing each participating political party to nominate candidates for the national parliament and the local parliament for each electoral district, with at least 30% female representation.

Indonesia has undergone political and social reform since 1998, resulting in greater political participation and a demand for increased representation of women in political decision making processes. In 2003, legislation was enacted allowing each participating political party to nominate candidates for the national parliament and the local parliament for each electoral district, with at least 30% female representation.

Despite the legislation, representation of women in local representative bodies remained low at 13% following the election in 2004. The law fell short of achieving desired outcomes. The main reasons include: (i) few women are involved in political parties; (ii) women lack the confidence and skills to operate in politics; (iii) traditional views about the roles of women in public life; and (iv) women's lack of knowledge and awareness about public institutions. Legislating change without the accompanying social preparation led to less than optimal results.

Aside from legislating women's political participation, Women's Empowerment Divisions (WEDs) were established in district governments and given the responsibility for mainstreaming gender issues into local planning and policy development. However, WEDs lacked sufficient resources and technical expertise to provide inputs and monitor the level of gender-responsiveness of local administration.

ADB's technical assistance project, Gender Responsive Public Policy Administration, started in May 2005, focused on making public policy administration more gender responsive. The TA supports MDG3 of increasing women's representation in local representative bodies. The TA aimed to assist regional governments increase women's participation in political decision making and improve the gender responsiveness of regional policies and programs. The Project had three key outputs: (i) increased capacity of women as present or future candidates of local representative bodies to influence political decisions at the district level, (ii) increased capacity of district administrations to design, monitor, and evaluate programs and projects at the local level, and (iii) development of a Presidential Regulation on Gender Mainstreaming.

Working with three local governments—Tanah Laut and Tapin (South Kalimantan) and Bogor (West Java), the TA provided capacity development activities at the district level in the following main areas:

• Citizenship education for women members of NGOs, professional associations and women's organizations at the district, subdistrict and village levels;
• Gender-responsive governance for planners from BAPPEDAS, WEDs, finance, statistics and sectoral offices;
• Budget literacy training for women members of the Family Welfare and Empowerment offices, NGOs, women's organizations, BAPPEDAS and WEDs;
• Women in politics training for potential candidates and political party members, including others identified from the citizenship education course.

A training of trainers course was also supported in Tanah Laut district to develop a pool of trainers capable of delivering the gender-responsive governance training. The approved Tanah Laut district budget for 2006 included funding for a further training of trainers course in citizenship education to expand capacity development activities within their local government.

The State Ministry for Women's Empowerment used the TA to help support the development of a Presidential Regulation on Gender Mainstreaming to follow from the Presidential Instruction 9/2000. The draft regulation is currently under review. For more information, contact Karin Schelzig Bloom, SESS.