| In this Chapter: |
|
What were NRM2's specific DG-related results that compelled USAID leadership to keep the "checks" flowing to an ENV program? What lessons can be learned from the design and evolution of NRM2, and in particular the KEMALA project1, as Indonesia underwent political changes? NRM2's civil society activities made a fundamental contribution to environmental governance and Indonesia's democratic transition by helping partners to introduce or reinforce democratic checks and balances. Our next story focuses on the specific results, design and future considerations associated with the NRM2's civil society strengthening activities.
During the 1996-2001 period, NRM2 support has enabled Indonesian CSO partners to work out new checks and balances associated with environmental governance.2 Governance has been improved by altering roles, relationships and rules in a more democratic direction. Although Indonesian CSOs still struggle to become more effective and accountable, they are proving to be a much more dynamic and energetic force for democratic reforms than their counterparts in government or the private sector. CSOs generally have much stronger incentives and greater willingness to experiment with new forms of environmental governance. NRM2 has found that investments in these partners have been very worthwhile, under both the authoritarian Suharto regime and more recent reformist governments.
Some illustrative results of NRM2 CSO support include:
1. NGOs and communities, through improved skills and tactics, have changed their roles in environmental governance. Also, government bureaucrats are more often sharing authority and respecting community and NGO expertise.
From the perspective of government and the private sector, increasing numbers of NGOs are now much more than a "four-letter word" (a common negative perception of NGOs during the Suharto era).NGOs have learned and are now using many new skills such as mapping, planning, gender analysis, community organizing and social marketing.
For example, with support from EPIQ and BSP-KEMALA, several NGOs learned mapping skills from each other. Many KEMALA grantees are clearer about their strategic plans and one former BSP-KEMALA staff member has applied one of these planning tools to an international network of NGOs. Communities are finding that the maps they create are also putting them on the local "political map" (Bennett, 10/30/00 interview). The BSP-KEMALA-supported NGO, PUTER, organized a learning network on community organizing with regional and local NGOs. KEMALA partner, RMI, has developed its expertise in gender and natural resource management training and is now receiving other funds to provide these services to other NGOs and the government. In East Kalimantan and West Papua, EPIQ and KEMALA partner NGOs, as well as Proyek Pesisir staff, have learned how to do social marketing to develop constituencies for particular issues.
NGOs are increasingly initiating policy alternatives and demonstrating participatory policymaking processes.
NGOs are increasingly being invited to provide input and analysis for government policymaking processes and are initiating their own policy alternatives. For example, the Ministry of Forestry invited input and analysis from NRM2 grantees for the new national Forestry Policy. In response, the NGOs organized multi-stakeholder dialogue at the national and regional level in East Kalimantan on the new forestry law and regulations on concessions, forest auctions and taxation. EPIQ and KEMALA partners helped organize a multi-stakeholder workshop on natural resource management under decentralization (May 2000 national workshop) that included private sector, government and NGOs.
A number of KEMALA-supported NGOs have put forth proposals on a new broad-spectrum, integrated natural resources policy, forest product marketing incentives, new categories of forest use and alternative version of a new Forest Law that take traditional indigenous rights more seriously. NGOs have developed draft regulations on technical criteria to be applied to community maps that are incorporated into spatial plans. Better and more accountable relationships with communities and government have grounded CSO policy recommendations in field and community realities.
NGOs are advocating more effectively and accountably on behalf of communities using new strategies and skills and becoming more effective at mobilizing constituents for more accountable environmental governance and policies.
NGOs are increasingly moving from reactive advocacy to less-adversarial, pro-active advocacy. Their advocacy strategies are more diverse and effective because of NRM2 support in strategic planning, communication planning, capacity building for technical analysis and alliances with other CSOs. Community partners are becoming increasingly assertive themselves and are demanding accountability from NGO and government partners.
Prior to 1998, under the repressive Suharto regime, NGO advocacy typically meant fighting or opposing the government and "breaking the silence."3 Many were not clear on their long-term objectives and strategies for reaching them. However, since 1998, NGOs have been adapting their advocacy styles by learning new technical and strategy skills. These include developing alternative laws, facilitating stakeholder-government dialogue meetings, developing analyses, working out joint action plans and policy alternatives, socializing citizens or bureaucrats about government regulations, lobbying and bringing cases to the courts. Simply put by one KEMALA grantee, "advocacy is trying to change something." Because there are few independent media at the provincial level, there is more opportunity for advocacy at the national level.4
CSOs are increasingly modeling more democratic, transparent, accountable, inclusive and empirically based processes for environmental governance.
Particularly in multi-stakeholder processes, CSOs are demonstrating new ways to conduct business. For example, the use of participatory rural appraisal in Sulawesi has modeled a new way to access community inputs for the village monograph and spatial land use planning.
NGOs have played new roles as civic educators by providing decentralization training and dialogue opportunities for communities and local government officials.
In 2000, several KEMALA partner CSOs met with President Wahid who asked them to "teach my Parliament" about local resource rights, sustainable NRM and biodiversity conservation. KPA, together with other KEMALA partner NGOs, provided training in ten districts for newly elected parliamentarians, local officials and local NGOs on the natural resources implications of new national laws for decentralization and fiscal autonomy (e.g., West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan). In East Kalimantan, KEMALA partners and EPIQ grantees are helping village and district legislatures to form new local government structures for managing natural resources and are helping to publicize the opportunity for public input on the new Provincial Planning Document. BSP-KEMALA has also supported training for NGO activists and community organizers on their rights under national laws, natural resources regulations and international human rights conventions (e.g., Sulawesi).
NGOs have played new roles in conflict resolution.
Several KEMALA partners developed conflict resolution training materials and land/resource dispute assessment tools for other CSO partners. KEMALA partners are also playing leadership roles in conflict resolution activities in the Central Maluku (i.e., facilitating inter-religious dialogue, a position paper for President Wahid and a public survey) and in East Kalimantan (i.e., negotiating migrant-local land user conflicts in Kutai National Park.
NGOs, by learning resource monitoring and documentation practices, have taken on new roles as monitors of natural resource-related information and expanded their roles as information providers.
For example, Telapak, the Pro-Bela network and Forest Watch Indonesia (a Telapak project) have trained community members and local NGOs to monitor forest concessions and forest conditions. As a national organization, they have disseminated this information to national and international parties. In turn, international donors have pressured the Government of Indonesia to get serious about stopping illegal logging. In East Kalimantan, NGOs succeeded in getting corporate concessionaires to make their Annual Cutting Plans available to the public. In Aceh, NGO monitoring resulted in the revocation of forest concession licenses that grossly encroached upon protected areas.
NGOs have helped to scale up sustainable practices and local success stories through networking and information dissemination.
Many KEMALA partners, both national and regional, are working with communities to document sound, community-based natural resource management practices and are getting the word out to government and other interested communities and NGOs.
Communities, through working with CSOs, have gained confidence and strengthened capacity to sustainably manage (planning, mapping, monitoring), govern and advocate to government for their ancestral rights to land and other natural resources.
In many places, community management now including planning, mapping and monitoring. Governing includes creating site-specific management agreements, pursuing and obtaining legal recognition of land rights and/or traditional resource management systems, promoting traditional resource management institutions, protecting areas from external threats and using the rule of law, improved relationship with government and external support organizations. For example, some West Kalimantan communities succeeded in banning logging concessionaires from their lands and several were able to obtain compensation for illegal trespassing.
As a result of several instances of government recognition of community-produced maps and successes with resolving land use conflicts, the community demands for mapping assistance in West Kalimantan now greatly exceed the available NGO capacity. In response, traditional indigenous leaders have organized themselves to help meet this demand. In many places, these types of leaders recognize maps as a means to revitalize local cultures and traditional environmental governance institutions. They also have benefited from NGO support that helps them adapt to new issues and laws and gain local government recognition of their rights and practices (i.e., West and East Kalimantan, West Papua, Central Maluku, East Kalimantan, and South Sumatra).
Governments, as a result of more positive interactions, information and NGO-led trainings, are more often sharing governance authority and respecting the expertise of communities and NGOs.
Formally and informally, NGOs are working more with local and national government staff on shared work (e.g., land use planning, protected area management) that promotes community-based rights to resources. Sometimes, NGOs are leading training for government agency staff or trainings that include government offices on techniques, organizational development (e.g., strategic planning) and new policies (i.e., decentralization). The organizational development training for BAPEDAL staff in Jakarta required that they reveal their operations to NGOs. They are interested in other training, including conflict resolution. Government staff have included village leaders, local parliamentarians and regional and headquarters line agency staff. The government informants from BAPEDAL noted that now it is assumed that NGOs should be at their meetings with local government and government staff question each other if NGOs are not in attendance.
2. Civil society organizations are having more success at changing relationships of mistrust through accountability and dialogue
CSOs are networking for peer learning, advocacy and constituency building. They have also increased their accountability within these civil society networks.
NGOs and universities have formed topical and geographic networks. Through the networks, members have shared lessons learned and mentored each other. They have built a critical mass and developed constituencies for community forestry and coastal resources management that have achieved successes in government and policy recognition of community-based rights.
Examples of topical networks include a 12-university coastal resource management network, as well as ones working on forest product marketing, community mapping, forest monitoring and indigenous peoples issues. The latter has received NRM2 support for the first national meeting of indigenous rights organizations, outreach, staff support and workshops on community-based rights to resources and marketing strategies. Geographic networks have formed in West Papua and East Kalimantan, and they are taking local natural resources/ conservation concerns to regional authorities and regional concerns to national CSOs and central government.
In addition, two new NGOs have resulted from NRM2 support. The KEMALA partners have now registered as a network NGO (Yayasan KEMALA) to promote the movement for the democratic governance of natural resources (e.g. community-based natural resource management/conservation).5
Proyek Pesisir staff in East Kalimantan will form a new NGO this year and receive a two-year grant for the remaining NRM2 work in that area under URI's Coastal Resources Management cooperative agreement.
CSOs are working more closely and accountably with communities to understand their priorities, sharing skills with maps and research and help them access external resources.
NGOs and universities have developed improved relationships with communities through new diagnostic approaches, training/education, conflict resolution and legal and policy assistance. NGOs have taught communities new skills in participatory mapping, geographic information systems, participatory rural appraisal, monitoring and site management planning as inputs for government spatial land use plans. National and regional universities have worked together and with NGOs on community-level pilot activities, mapping and policy issues related to resource management issues (e.g., work on coastal resource management in North Sulawesi and in Central Maluku).
NGOs have educated communities about the need for negotiating local/regional provincial regulations related to community production and marketing of forest products. They have taught communities in East Kalimantan, West Papua, North Sumatra and SE Sulawesi to monitor logging concessions. NGOs have helped communities to resolve resource-based conflicts and secure site-specific management agreements (e.g., multi-community agreement in Central Maluku on coastal/marine management, community conservation agreements facilitated in North and Central Sulawesi).
In addition, NGOs and universities have helped to bring government officials or external support institutions to the community (e.g., KEMALA partners drawing on ELSAM's legal expertise to help communities). BSP-KEMALA's support for critical legal training has helped to increase community understanding of rights and improved the responsiveness of public interest lawyers to communities.
NGOs, in many places, have improved their relationships with local, regional and national government.
Governments are increasing consulting with NGOs on policy dialogue. There is more NGO-government-community dialogue about government recognition of local sustainable resource management/ conservation practices and resource rights. There is more trust among these parties. Government is becoming more transparent so it is easier for NGOs to understand how government works and engage in policy advocacy. Government officials are becoming more comfortable with the idea of participatory, co-management of natural resources and protected areas. Government is reaching out more to NGOs to provide training or to be involved in community training. For example, the new Department of Marine Affairs and Fisheries has worked out a Memorandum of Understanding on coral reef fish with several NGOs, including one supported by NRM2 and one headed by a former BSP-KEMALA staff member. In East Kalimantan, an EPIQ-supported NGO network now has a Memorandum of Understanding with a local legislature for decentralization education, legal information sharing and procedures for setting up NGO-government hearings.
CSOs have stronger relationships with international institutions.
CSOs are reaching out more to international donors and international research centers located within and outside of Indonesia. DFID, the British development assistance agency, has included some crucial aspects of the KEMALA approach within its new program and they regularly consult with BSP-KEMALA staff and KEMALA partners. Several of the KEMALA partners and EPIQ grantees have conducted joint policy analysis and advocacy related to forestry policy reform with the Center for International Forestry, and the International Center for Research on Agroforestry has worked with NRM2 partners on forest policy reform.
More partnerships are forming between communities and universities, local government and line ministries.
In North Sulawesi and South Sumatra provinces, universities have networked with each other, with communities and with government to work on coastal resources management.
NGOs have expanded their relationship with the media.
NGOs have reached out more often to the media (e.g., planning a river rafting field trip for environmental journalists, inviting the media to local trainings for logging concession monitoring). In addition, the media have responded to their advocacy efforts (a government radio program invited West Kalimantan NGOs to discuss the links among cultural revitalization, participatory mapping and land use planning issues). NGOs are also starting their own local radio stations to improve local communications about innovations in natural resource management and governance.
3. Rule-making processes and rules are changing in favor of community rights to sustainably manage and govern natural resources.
(Note: see Roles section for a description of changes related to more democratic rule-making processes)
Communities have established site-specific resource management agreements for single and multiple communities.
As a result of NRM2 work, over 50 communities have developed management agreements.
Communities have successful defended their resource rights from external threats.
Through NGO-assisted community monitoring, communities have used the rule of law to expel logging concession violators or increase the transparency of their operations (e.g., West Kalimantan community expulsion of trespassers to community lands, East Kalimantan's new procedures for monitoring small logging concession procurement process).
Government, as a result of NGO and community advocacy, is beginning to recognize community resource rights, sustainable traditional management and governance systems.
Because of quality community maps, assessments and management plans prepared with help from NRM2 NGOs, more district, provincial and central government units are recognizing community traditional production systems and the role of traditional village council as resource managers. For example, ten local governments have incorporated community maps at the sub-district level of spatial land use planning (e.g., West Kalimantan). Communities in West Kalimantan have used government decrees to redraw state forest boundaries and adapt government spatial plans to recognize community territories delineated on community maps.
The national government, as a result of community-level assessments, has recognized community-managed zones within four protected areas in North Sulawesi, Central Sulawesi, West Papua and East Java. This recognition formalizes community participation for national park planning activities and limited use arrangements for co-management. For South Sumatra, the Ministry of Forestry has recognized one community Special Use Zone that permits limited community access to "state-owned" lands for specific forest products. NGOs and the community worked through existing legal provisions to promote government recognition of local sustainable resource management/ conservation practices and resource rights
In North Sulawesi, three Marine Sanctuaries and village management plans have been established and recognized by either village ordinance, the head of the district or the local regency.
There are five cases in which KEMALA partner NGOs have assisted local government to draft regulations on natural resource management. In West Kalimantan, a KEMALA partner NGO has obtained Memorandum of Understanding with Provincial Government to support participatory mapping and input into spatial plans (and drafting regulations on technical criteria for community maps).
In East Java, a new regulation allows community-based production of a medicinal plant. In West and East Kalimantan, NGOs are making progress on removing government-imposed obstacles to community-based production and trade of non-timber forest products.
Indigenous peoples rights have been strengthened through new agrarian land reform and regional autonomy laws.
Several KEMALA partners led efforts to get these provisions enacted under Ministerial Decree SK5/1998. Many KEMALA partners are exploring how to use them as a basis for protecting indigenous community rights. In addition, in 1998-1999, there were unprecedented opportunities to push for reforms with the Ministry of Forestry and Estate Crops.
What factors influenced the design of NRM2? In 1995, a team of American and Indonesian contractors 6 identified the following design issues via interviews and focus groups:
Graduation
The USAID mission was already making plans to "graduate" their bilateral program with Suharto's Government of Indonesia (GOI) by 2000. The mission would have far fewer staff and less management capacity during NRM2. Accordingly, NRM2 was interested in emphasizing partnerships with Indonesian CSOs that would manage USAID assistance after mission close-out.
GOI movement toward NRM decentralization
Government control over natural resources had been highly centralized. To quell political pressures in the mid-1990s, the Suharto government was beginning to test policies and provide guidance for decentralization under a new national development strategy (Repelita VII). With a focus on decentralized and strengthened natural resource management, USAID wanted to expand its field work through partnerships with Indonesian CSOs (NGOs, networks and universities) working on initiative related to community-based coastal and forestry planning and management, as well as protected area policy.
Weak government commitment to natural resources policy reform and protection.
Despite a few policy successes during the first phase of the NRM Program, rates of resource degradation were alarmingly high. By the mid-1990s, it was apparent that environmental degradation was due to demographic pressures, as well as policies, mismanagement, corruption and a lack of political will. The forestry sector had received some attention but considerably fewer government resources had been devoted to coastal and marine resource management. (See Section II.D. for additional information)
The NRM1 Design
Operating from 1990-1995, the first phase of the Natural Resource Management Program (NRM1) worked primarily with central government and large international (or nationalizing) environmental NGOs in Jakarta and at two national park field sites located in West and Central Kalimantan and North Sulawesi. NRM1 focused on national policy reforms, institutional change and local-level demonstrations of improved practices to promote community-based natural resource management and planning participation.7 However, it became clear that successful local examples of community-based natural resource management had no chance of being scaled up without addressing the core policy problems related to land use and tenure (property rights).8 The Government of Indonesia had no genuine interest in addressing these issues or becoming more accountable. However, NGOs and communities were very interested in addressing tenure policy questions.
NRM1 experiences with CSO capacity building
From 1990-1995, CSO capacity had been built in several ways. Indonesian NRM1 staff re-joined NGOs and some of the North Sulawesi staff formed a new NGO (i.e., Yayasan KELOLA in North Sulawesi. Local NGOs and communities were involved in national park pilot activities and NGOs and other CSOs received grants and/or technical assistance.
Through NRM1 "buy-ins" to its global cooperative agreement, the Biodiversity Support Program had been managing grant-plus-technical assistance programs (i.e., PeFoR and BCN) in Indonesia since 1993. PeFoR (Peoples, Forests and Reefs) provided NGO partners with grants, technical assistance and NGO networking support. The partners focused on community mapping in four provinces, advocacy activities to promote dialogue between communities and government and sharing experiences with other NGOs. They succeeded in securing two district-wide, precedent-setting legal agreements between indigenous people and local government. BCN grants supported sustainable, community-level natural resources enterprises and community-government resource use agreements.
NRM1 provided support to two bilateral cooperative agreements with new Indonesian NGOs (the Eco-Labeling Institute and the grant-making Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation-KEHATI). KEHATI, provided with a USAID endowment and start-up funds, made activity grants for community-level pilot projects by NGOs and also academic or scientific institutions (KEHATI evaluation 2000).
The civil society climate and donor support
The 1980s and early 1990s were characterized by both openings for civil society (e.g., the 1982 Environmental Law provided citizens with the right to sue environmental violators) and some restrictions (e.g., the 1985 NGO registration law and other measures resulted in more human rights violations that politicized many ENV NGOs). By 1993, the Suharto government had begun to institute more restrictions on CSOs and political dissent and 1994-1996 were particularly difficult years for NGOs working in the regions. Public debate about natural resources or other topics was limited. Although "advocacy was never a dirty word"9 among Indonesians, NGOs more often called their work, "community development" before 1998. From the perspective of government officials, NGOs were often viewed as adversarial, vocal and not very constructive.10
However, USAID was one of the few donors with the "off-shore mechanisms"11 available for funding civil society groups working to reform governance. Their strategy began with non-competitive selection of a few key NGOs that were intellectual leaders with the requisite credibility, competence, financial rigor, mobilizing ability and national scope.
Through its Civic Participation (formerly NGO) office, USAID/Indonesia had already been funding environmental and other types of advocacy12 since the mid-1980s. The mission was interested in folding these pre-existing environmental grants into NRM2. For the environment sector, most donors were supporting pilot and demonstration projects or specific training activities.
In addition to all of these Indonesia-specific circumstances, USAID/Indonesia NRM staff and the design team were aware of global paradigm shifts taking place in the early 1990s. At many locations worldwide, development professionals in the fields of NRM and biodiversity conservation and other sectors were talking about how to make their projects more participatory. For example, what was the best way to support community-based activities in conservation and natural resource management? How could environmental decision-making processes become more democratic? What type of support was appropriate for host country NGO partners? At the same time, democracy promotion and consolidation were becoming part of the U.S. government's foreign policy. At this time at USAID, the new leadership for DG programs were focused on establishing unique programs in the agency and were often reluctant to co-mingle DG and sectoral funds. ENV staff perceived a similar threat to their programs from combined funding and were very selective about their use of political science terminology, despite the fact that many ENV staff have long recognized the contribution of ENV programs to DG objectives.
The final NRM2 design focused on decentralized and strengthened natural resource management:
More NRM2 work would take place at the local and provincial level than at the national level.
Focus provinces would expand to include North and Central Sulawesi, East and West Kalimantan, West Papua, Sumatra, Java and Central Maluku.
NRM2 would expand beyond forestry and protected area issues and include coastal resource management.
To help re-balance environmental governance and promote more democratic decision-making, NRM2 would place greater emphasis on institutional strengthening of civil society organizations (CSOs).13 One element of NRM2 would focus on those national and regional CSOs that were engaged in pluralistic environmental advocacy.14 The new project would encourage local communities and NGOs to collaborate with forward-looking local and national government on more pluralistic resource management. To link best practices with policy, NRM2 activities would strengthen links among policy NGOs, regional NGOs and communities.
To track results en route and adjust to new needs, all partners would contribute to a cross-cutting monitoring and evaluation system.
Nearly 50 million dollars was allocated for activities over seven years. The Strategic Agreement with the Government of Indonesia was signed in August 1996 and implementing partners began work during 1996 and 1997.
Three partners would carry out the majority15 of NRM2 work: a global cooperative agreement partner from NRM1 - The Biodiversity Support Program-BSP,16 under a project approach known as "KEMALA"17 ; a new global cooperative agreement partner - Coastal Resources Management Project (CRMP) - Phase II, also known as "Proyek Pesisir" 18 in Indonesia; a new global contractor - the Environmental Policy and Institutional Strengthening Indefinite Quantity Contract -EPIQ.19
The cooperative agreement partners received grants and set their own scopes of work in cooperation with the mission.
To allow for rapid reorientation when new opportunities arose, the mission hired EPIQ under short-term, performance-based contracts. Besides its technical work in forestry, protected area management, policy and planning, EPIQ managed the NRM2 Secretariat (program coordination and support services, communications and information management). EPIQ also transferred funds to NRM2 bilateral cooperative agreements (i.e., Conservation International,20 The Nature Conservancy, World Wide Fund for Nature - Indonesia).
The NRM2 implementing team used a number of approaches to build balance into the CSO institutional strengthening activities:
1. Assigning one partner with primary responsibility for comprehensive CSO capacity building related to advocacy (KEMALA) but building CSO strengthening into the work of the other partners (EPIQ, Proyek Pesisir).
2. Partnering with different types of CSOs:
|
NGOs |
KEMALA, EPIQ, Proyek Pesisir |
|
NGO networks (regional, topical, national) |
KEMALA, EPIQ |
|
NGO-Government-University21 networks |
EPIQ |
|
University units: |
Proyek Pesisir |
3. Supporting both existing and new CSOs and networks.
The NRM2 implementers identified local partners already working on decentralized and sustainable natural resource management and new organizations with relevant objectives. When partners expressed a felt need, BSP-KEMALA and EPIQ helped to support new NGO networks (e.g., both supported a new national indigenous peoples network and BSP-KEMALA supported the formation of both topical and geographic networks). BSP-KEMALA also invited service-providing NGOs into their new national network and when necessary, helped them to develop their skills and organizational capacity. EPIQ also provided in-kind support to a multi-stakeholder (NGO, university, government) forestry network initiated by the Ford Foundation.
4. Building relationships with CSOs with diverse agendas.
NRM2 partnered with most of the few Indonesian CSOs focused primarily on nature conservation as well as working with a much larger group of CSOs who were driven by broader agendas related to community economic development, education, governance and policy advocacy, indigenous and human rights and/or land reform issues. These latter groups shared NRM2's objective for decentralized and sustainable natural resource management and were working to advance community rights to natural resources.
5. Planning for future political changes by focusing capacity building efforts on CSO skills, relationships, organizational development and visioning.
All of the NRM2 implementers helped CSOs to develop new skills and relationships. BSP-KEMALA focused in particular on building advocacy skills, NGO-NGO networking, organizational development and visioning. All of the partners supported multi-stakeholder processes for planning and management of natural resources. Partners developed new technical skills (e.g., community mapping, participatory rural appraisal). BSP-KEMALA supported organizational development (e.g., institutional assessments, strategic planning) activities for all of its partners. The annual KEMALA Forum also helped NGO partners share strategies, advocacy agendas and training interests. KEMALA, in particular, focused on CSO organizational development and visioning through several standardized tools. BSP-KEMALA provided the widest array of training opportunities for CSO staff, including formal training, mentoring, apprenticeships, etc.
6. Adopting varied approaches to CSO capacity building (full-service grants, once-off grants or technical assistance).
BSP-KEMALA was the only NRM2 partner providing multi-year, "full-service" grants that included funds, technical support and a national partner network for sharing lessons learned.
EPIQ's grants provided small grants that typically ran for one-year or less.22 EPIQ provided technical support and/or some financial resources to four collaborating NGOs (The Indonesian Communication Forum on Community Forestry, Indonesian Center for Environmental Law, The Indonesian Eco-Labeling Institute and The Center for Economic Studies). EPIQ funds helped to institutionalize three new NGOs, the Alliance of Indigenous Peoples of the Indonesian Archipelago (AMAN), the Forest Watch Indonesia and the Indonesian Eco-Labeling Institute. EPIQ staff provided help with grant-related documentation for some grantees.23 EPIQ staff in their five provincial offices have provided technical assistance, grants and discretionary assistance to grantees and non-grantees, particularly in the two larger offices in East Kalimantan and North Sulawesi.
Proyek Pesisir has provided grants and technical assistance to their primary university partner, the Center for Coastal and Marine Resources Studies of the Bogor Agricultural University - IPB. They have helped to secure private foundation support for the new, 11-member Indonesian Coastal Universities Network (INCUNE) which spans from Sumatra to W. Papua. They have provided organizational development assistance through a Memorandum of Understanding with a new NGO, the new Indonesian Coral Reef Foundation (Yayasan Terangi). In addition, Proyek Pesisir will support the transformation of one of their field offices into an NGO and provide two years of start-up funding.
All of the projects hired and provided training for former or seconded CSO staff for NRM2 activities and many of these individuals are likely to be capable of strengthening CSO work at the conclusion of the NRM2 program.
Informally, field office staff from EPIQ and Proyek Pesisir have worked with NGOs on a regular basis and provide technical assistance on organizational development, technical analyses and political strategies. EPIQ and Proyek Pesisir have tapped CSOs to organize and be involved in public consultations that "establish publicly held values."24 These groups are asked to serve as informants for communities, stakeholder groups and the general public. Rather than working through an NGO, Proyek Pesisir and its university partners work directly with communities through employee extension workers.
7. Using a variety of financial mechanisms to support CSOs (i.e., grants, purchase orders and sub-contracts).
BSP-KEMALA's 30 national and regional partners received grants ranging in size from US$15,000-110,000 per year.25 The average total grant to partners ranged from US$20,000 to 400,000.
EPIQ provided 15-20 sub-awards (grants and sub-contracts) under each of its two contracts and USAID approved all grants. From 1997-1999, EPIQ awarded 30 sub-awards, including 17 grants ranging in size from US$ 3,600- 83,000. Four of these grants were sizable institutional strengthening grants to new institutions.26 Via a grant, EPIQ transferred NRM2 funds to WWF-Indonesia. Some EPIQ purchase orders were used for NGO training (e.g., message development/press relations for Syarifa Foundation and AMAN, a regional development policy seminar for the Indonesian Regional Science Association, participatory mapping training for Yayasan Pancur Kasih).
Proyek Pesisir supported its university partner through a large grant. EPIQ supported three sub-contracts to international conservation organizations, ranging from US$ 21,000 to 348,000, for technical and training services related to protected area management (e.g., Wildlife Conservation Society and RARE Center for Tropical Conservation).
In addition, all of the projects used purchase orders with already qualified CSOs for specific services, studies or activities with very short time-frames.
Although the end results of these CSO activities were very positive, there was not much coordination across the three NRM2 implementers on these CSO capacity building activities and some important strategic synergies were lost. EPIQ and BSP-KEMALA occasionally co-funded the same CSOs, particularly for forestry issues and community mapping. Some of the KEMALA grantees were included in EPIQ or Proyek Pesisir activities. In regions where the NRM2 partners overlapped, their CSO partners often interacted regularly. Because they shared the same office space, the NRM2 partners informally shared information and attended EPIQ-organized brownbag presentations. However, according to staff members, information sharing on workplans, proposed grantees and policy agendas was inconsistent.
Partners attributed their lack of coordination on CSO capacity building to a number of factors. KEMALA began work in 1996, Proyek Pesisir commenced in January 1997 and the EPIQ project got underway in August 1997 due to a contested contract. There was very little sectoral overlap between EPIQ and Proyek Pesisir, and Proyek Pesisir was the only partner working in Southern Sumatra. As cooperative agreements, BSP-KEMALA and URI's Proyek Pesisir had greater freedom to select CSO partners than did the performance-based contractor, EPIQ. While BSP-KEMALA focused on NGO-capacity building, the other two projects were tasked with building government capacity and some of these partners were reluctant to work with NGOs when these projects began.27 In addition, because of the political instability, each NRM2 partner was working hard to maintain their own program operations and relevance and these challenges meant less time for NRM2 partner coordination on work planning.
Under the NRM2 umbrella, the BSP-KEMALA project was structured so that a number of balancing measures could help NGO partners achieve environmental governance reforms under both repressive and reformist governments:
Learning from Experience
The mission selected BSP to implement the CSO institutional strengthening component because: 1) it was the only NGO partner from NRM1 with sufficient experience in grants management and capacity building in Indonesia (i.e., PeFoR, BCN) and elsewhere, 2) its global cooperative agreement allowed the mission to support reform-minded NGOs through off-shore financial transfers, 3) it already had solid relationships and credibility as a neutral facilitator with Indonesian NGOs, particularly indigenous rights organizations and national-level support CSOS, through PeFoR work, and 4) its first acting project manager could quickly start up activities because she had been living in Indonesia and knew the track records of potential partners.
Relying on Local Expertise
The BSP-KEMALA headquarters is located in Jakarta and is staffed by the Teamleader, two Senior Program Officers and administrative staff who work from this office. Another Senior Program Officer is based in a nearby university town, Bogor, and maintains a satellite office to meet the needs of the numerous environmental NGOs and KEMALA partners that are also located in Bogor. The fourth, part-time Senior Program Officer is based in California and travels to Indonesia to work with KEMALA partners on a quarterly basis. The Senior Program Officers travel frequently to the field to work with regional partners and observe community-level accomplishments. The Washington, DC office of the Biodiversity Support Program provides on-going administrative support and technical oversight. Local long term consultants were also hired for communications and training facilitation. Expatriate consultants were limited to those with expertise not available in Indonesia.
Balance Among Partners
BSP-KEMALA pro-actively and non-competitively selected 30 partners, including 20 NGOs and 10 NGO networks. Although all of them worked on environmental issues, not all of them fit the stereotype of an environmental NGO since their primary goals related to social justice, indigenous rights, etc. Selection criteria included:
their track record of results,
evidence of accountability to stakeholders,
potential to make a complementary contribution to a network of organizations concerned with supporting environmental governance that promotes community-based resource rights and management,
activities at different scales (national, provincial, district and/or community levels).
BSP-KEMALA first had a geographic mandate for partner selection (NRM2 priority provinces) but they were able to expand their geographic scope by focusing on grant-making by themes. Regional groups worked with communities and the policies of local governments; national partners worked on legal and policy issues and provided technical assistance to field-based partners. A few partners focused on forestry, coastal and protected area resource management but most worked on just one or two of these topics. The agendas of the networks were topical (e.g., community mapping) or geographic (e.g., Sulawesi). KEMALA partners were based in Java (Jakarta, Bogor, Bandung) and six provinces (West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, North Sulawesi, Central Maluku, West Papua),28 that in turn, worked in more than 10 provinces and over 150 field sites. When partners felt the need to initiate new organizations and networks, BSP-KEMALA sometimes took these new entities on as partners. (See Appendix D for the KEMALA partner list)
Moving Beyond One-Time, Short-Term Project-Based Grants
Based on BSP's experiences in Indonesia and elsewhere, the KEMALA approach was designed to provide full-service, multi-year support of the programs of partners rather than short-term grants for specific projects. KEMALA also emphasized capacity building through peer learning. Grantee partners were linked into a network that met annually to guide BSP-KEMALA's annual workplan and their own joint work (KEMALA Forum).29 KEMALA partners often received an initial planning grant under which the BSP-KEMALA staff assisted the NGO with its overall strategic planning as well as specific workplanning for the project to be funded by USAID. Then they received subsequent grants for a total of three to five years. This strategy30 enabled USAID to form medium- to long-term relationships with Indonesia's environmental NGO leaders.
BSP and USAID made the decision early on to create a demand-driven and client-responsive program under the new KEMALA approach. BSP has helped KEMALA partners to set their own agendas rather than simply responding to donor priorities and the availability of funding. On an on-going basis, Senior Program Officers provided technical assistance to partner NGOs to help them determine their own goals with some standardized tools such as a Strategic Scoping Tool,31 an Institutional Development Framework and financial management procedures.
KEMALA partners identified their initial and subsequent needs for training and technical assistance in areas such as organizational development, technical analysis and political skills, including advocacy.32 Training opportunities were usually identified by partners, and whenever possible, training was provided by members of the KEMALA network. As the project progressed, BSP-KEMALA provided grants to some organizations to help them develop expertise that could help other network members (e.g., gender, community organizing). For some topics, BSP-KEMALA arranged for other Indonesian and expatriate consultants. Besides KEMALA-organized training workshops, KEMALA partners shared their expertise with each other and other NGOs through apprenticeships, mentoring, electronic networking, study tours, Indonesian and foreign workshops, etc.).
The founder of one of Kemala's partner organizations, Mr. Menjin, described the benefits of KEMALA assistance in the following way, "...without KEMALA, we would be walking now but because of KEMALA support, we are now riding a bicycle." Another KEMALA partner, TELAPAK, acknowledged that BSP-KEMALA's strategic planning assistance had helped them to articulate their long-term goal and they were better able to see their advocacy and communication work within a larger organizational framework. According to founder, Ade Cahyat of an East Kalimantan NGO (SHK), his group did not know what to do besides campaign in the beginning. With BSP-KEMALA support, they have shifted their core focus to community organizing and now their policy advocacy work supports their core program.
Helping Partners Take Advantage of Political Space for Environmental Governance Reform.
KEMALA work has focused on, "what is the appropriate role of government," in environmental governance rather than the more common government and donor question, "what is the appropriate role for NGOs."33 Under Suharto's repressive regime, the KEMALA strategy was to build upon successful advocacy reform activities. This work was already being done by NGOs and NGO networks focused on advancing community-based natural resource management and biodiversity conservation.
KEMALA support helped these organizations to identify how they could improve their own internal management, form effective coalitions with other NGOs, dialogue with government, become more accountable to communities and promote best practices at the community level. KEMALA provided opportunities for these partners to discuss joint policy advocacy agendas and they opted to maximize their chances of success by focusing on four issues: community forestry, spatial land use, non-timber forest products and coastal/marine issues influenced by forestry. KEMALA support enabled existing and new coalitions to become more confident, more well-informed, technically competent in environmental advocacy, creative and politically active. This work nurtured the growth of democratic structures for the future. In addition, KEMALA partners were working on more than 40 specific policy initiatives.
In the post-Suharto reformasi era, KEMALA followed the same general strategy but adjusted to some new opportunities. BSP-KEMALA provided support for partner activities related to advocating for indigenous rights to natural resources, resolving conflicts and educating politicians and citizens about the ENV aspects of new laws on decentralization and fiscal autonomy. They also adapted to the expanded expectations of communities. As a result of KEMALA support, partners had the skills and relationships needed to take leadership roles in environmental governance reform at the local and national levels.
In the post-Suharto reformasi era, new opportunities and new expectations set the stage. Decentralization and other reforms hold great potential for improving environmental governance and community rights to natural resources. However, time is of the essence. Increasingly, communities and local government are demanding information that will clarify the future roles, responsibilities, relationships and accountability of government organizations. Citizen expectations are high but the pace of change is slow at all levels because so many Suharto-era bureaucrats are still in place. Horizontal and vertical conflict is increasing and patience is running low. Windows of opportunity may be closed in the near future when central government bureaucrats or local élites feel more threatened.34
"The single greatest failure of decentralization would be the failure of locals to participate."35 Without a strong civil society, decentralization of natural resource management is likely to only benefit élites and local government officials. Citizens and NGOs are being accorded greater political space by government but they often lack the capacity to take advantage of these new opportunities. Democratic environmental governance is not just about opening doors for civil society. It also includes providing all participants the confidence and capacity to play effective roles in these settings and building trust relationships through shared work and information (transparency).
Most informants would prioritize support for civil society over support to build government capacity. However, training in management and operations for government staff and parliamentarians could help "to ensure that government fulfills their responsibilities to citizens and communities" (K. Shurcliff article, NRM Headline News, 2/27/01). President Wahid, speaking to a May 2000 NRM2-organized event, said that, "with respect to NR, the government or state is only a management advisor and supporter of good negotiation processes" (NRM Headline News article, 2/27/01). Some informants believe that government is likely to remain unaccountable and undemocratic and uninterested in capacity building until they feel pressure from citizen and NGO constituents.36For many informants, citizen and NGO pressure is necessary to improve democratic checks and balances including those related to Indonesia's rule of law, separation of powers and fighting the culture of corruption.
Citizens can be helped via civic education programs that help them to understand the rights, responsibilities and roles of citizens and government under democracy. It will be easier for rural citizens to understand abstract terms like governance and corruption if educators put them in the context of natural resources rights. In addition, citizens need better skills to articulate their interests, organize themselves, advocate for desired policy reforms and effectively demand more accountable government (e.g., skills such as mapping, planning, governance and advocacy).37
For ENV work, NGOs need greater capacity to work effectively and accountably with communities, provincial and national government and with each other. Besides civic education and training on technical topics, NGO need to be able to scale up models of sustainable practices. NGOs and grassroots activists also recognize their increasing need for training in conflict resolution, civic education and human rights.38 NGOs need to become more internally accountable. Within NGO networks, NGOs need to become more accountable to each other and share skills and expertise. NGOs working on ENV issues are becoming more closely associated with the struggle for traditional indigenous community (adat) rights. However, some believe that it would be more relevant to pursue community-based rights writ large, so as not to exclude other types of communities, including long-term migrants or become too closely aligned with repressive traditional leaders.39
NGOs face a number of challenges in the era of reformasi. They are battling a proposed NGO law that would give government and parliament more control over the 100,000-plus "foundations" in Indonesia.40 They need to be cautious about being too closely linked to decentralization reforms in case there is a right wing backlash. Expanding the capacity of government without improving government capacity is a mixed blessing. NGOs are increasingly being drawn into doing government's work (e.g., technical analyses) but they are likely to have less time to monitor and pressure government for increased accountability and transparency. With more opportunities available for working with government, NGOs are sometimes accused of co-optation if they cooperate with government but also faulted if they continue to be too confrontational. For advocacy, NGOs now need to lobby more people and rely more on factual arguments rather than personal friendships ("making the song more relevant than the singer").41 Finally, NGOs are burdened by the negative stereotypes held by some donor representatives, communities and bureaucrats. Informants mentioned weak capacity, financial mismanagement, over-dependence upon visionary leaders, arrogant and manipulative behavior with communities, inadequate attention to community training related to local advocacy and over-attention to NGO networking.
During rapid and fluid democratic transitions, it appears to be very difficult to set work priorities because the government playing field is shifting all the time.42 To maximize your chances of success in a pre-democracy or early democratic transition, it makes sense to sow many seed and diversify natural resource sectors, partners, locations and policy agendas. However, at some point in the democratic transition, donor programs need to transition to "reaping the harvest" of the many seeds sown and set policy priorities.43 For Indonesia, informants suggested that government transparency was the appropriate focus for policy and institutional reform efforts.44 More transparency is needed for the spatial planning process so that communities can consistently secure their natural resource rights using quality maps and management plans created by the community. To ensure that communities benefit from new small-scale logging concessions, the procurement procedures must become more transparent. To voice and publicize their complaints about local abuses of their natural resource rights, citizens need more local level procedures and bodies and access to external mechanisms (e.g., NGO networks, the media and the Internet).45
NGO informants also offered advice for donors involved in work related to natural resource management and biodiversity conservation. Some donor funding is shrinking (World Bank forestry activities and Global Environment Facility funding), whereas both British DFID and the European Union have increased their environmental assistance. NGOs are pleased that NGO strengthening will continue under the DFID project, which replicate many elements of the KEMALA project. NGOs appreciated the possibilities of longer term, capacity building support under USAID cooperative agreements with international organizations. However, some of the more developed Indonesian NGOs were interested in receiving their own cooperative agreements with the USAID mission. Some NGOs faulted NRM2 for skimming the best staff from NGOs and suggested that NGO staff be seconded to donor projects. Some smaller NGOs were interested in being involved in NRM2-sponsored participatory planning processes in the regions but simply did not have the staff resources to regularly participate in such a time-consuming process. Some informants thought that donors could make better use of existing ENV NGO networks. While many ENV donors focus on particular ENV sub-sectors in Indonesia, one informant noted that it was futile to "divide the country into sectors if the overall (governance) system is rotten."46
"Under Suharto, the ENV movement was a social movement in disguise."47 There are ENV NGOs focused on science and nature conservation in Indonesia and those working on specific resource issues tend to be new organizations. Many of these NGOs do not yet have staff presence or credibility at the local level. ENV donor projects need to consider tapping into the much larger pool of NGO partners who work on ENV issues but are also concerned with social justice and governance reform. Informants suggested that donors try to at least balance their support to both types of NGOs.
This story focused on the specific results, design and future considerations associated with the NRM2's civil society strengthening activities from 1996-2001. These activities made a fundamental contribution to environmental governance and Indonesia's democratic transition by helping partners to introduce or reinforce democratic checks and balances. In addition to the impressive quantitatively measured results achieved by NRM2, environmental governance has been improved by altering roles, relationships and rules in a more democratic direction. As stated by the former NRM2 project manager, Dave Heesen, "the real measures of progress [for NRM2] are always more qualitative and had to do with far more fundamental issues of governance."48
Civil society capacity building, particularly for advocacy partners, proved to be a relevant and effective NRM program strategy, under both repressive and reformist regimes. Under authoritarian regimes, investments in CSO capacity building allow ENV programs to build alliances with diverse reform-minded partners, take advantage of existing political space and buffer the impacts of frequent turnovers of government staff. When political changes such as democratization and decentralization get underway, ENV programs are better able to seize new opportunities for environmental governance reform if they have created partnerships with diverse CSOs. The best partners for ENV programs are organizations that are accountable to communities and/or members and are interested in advocating for reforms or partnering with advocates. These partners generally have broader access to diverse stakeholders, including communities, local and national government. These CSO strategies enable ENV programs to become less dependent on just a few key contacts in national government that are often replaced in political transitions.
To influence environmental governance and adjust to political transitions, it is important to diversify and seek balance. For example, NRM2 maximized its chances of having governance impacts by working across three NRM sectors, forestry, protected areas and coastal resources. Many NRM2 activities revolved around supporting different types of multi-stakeholder processes that encouraged dialogue and mutual respect. Multiple international and local partners worked on each sector, rather than relying on one government partner. While NRM2 maintained some national government partners from NRM1, they added many more CSO and government partners in the provinces to prepare for decentralization.
USAID was interested in NGOs as a dynamic force for participatory development, environmental governance reform and democratization. Civil society partnerships and capacity building were woven across the activities of the three major partners (BSP-KEMALA, IRG-EPIQ, URI-Proyek Pesisir). However, one partner (BSP) had primary responsibility for CSO capacity building relating to NRM advocacy because of relevant past experience and relationships. NRM2 worked with diverse partners at different scales (e.g., national, provincial, district and/or community) and helped partners work together (e.g., networks of NGOs and NGO-government-university networks). NRM2 supported CSOs and networks that were leaders already and had strong track records, as well as supporting some new networks that emerged to focus on topical or geographic issues. CSO partners had diverse agendas and NRM2 used a variety of financial mechanisms to support them. The value of NRM2 CSO grants were maximized when grants were longer-term and offered in conjunction with peer learning networks and grantee-driven capacity building (e.g., skills, relationships, organizational development and visioning capacities).
For the foreseeable future, Indonesian CSOs will continue to play an important role in institutionalizing the checks and balances associated with better environmental governance. Pressure from citizens and NGOs is necessary to make government institutions and bureaucrats more accountable and democratic and more civic education is needed. Most informants prioritized donor support for civil society over support for government capacity building and suggested that NGOs need to learn how to work more effectively and accountable with communities, government and each other. NRM2 partners, like all CSOs, are concerned about new NGO registration legislation. They are also struggling to redefine their relationship with government and worried about co-optation. In addition, government staff and parliamentarians are likely to benefit from more training in management, operations and civics so that they can help to implement and institutionalize the checks and balances associated with democratic environmental governance.