Evaluating GESI interventions in improving basic services delivery at local level

KOMPAK (Kolaborasi Masyarakat dan Pelayanan untuk Kesejahteraan) was a governance facility funded by the Government of Australia through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) to support the Government of Indonesia (GoI) in achieving its target of reducing poverty and addressing inequality. To do so, Gender Equality and Social Inclusion (GESI) has been at the forefront of KOMPAK delivery. KOMPAK encouraged GESI framework to be embedded in all of their technical assistance and support, including in creating inclusive planning and budgeting process from the village to district level. Approaching the end of the investment, we delivered the evaluation for KOMPAK GESI strategy, aimed to document both GESI mainstreaming and targeted interventions to improve program performance and inform the design of the next phase of the program.

Challenges

The GoI has been actively implementing various efforts in improving the participation of vulnerable groups in the development process. The Indonesia’s Law No.25/2004 on national development planning system lays the foundation for participatory planning and budgeting, mandating community participation as an objective of development planning and emphasising the involvement of all stakeholders, including community members. Furthermore, the Village Law No.6/2014 reinforces participatory planning and budgeting principles through article 54, stating that the implementation of planning and budgeting needs to involve many types of community elements, including traditional, religious, education figures, and the representatives of farmer, fisherman, craftsman, women’s group, and poor community members.

KOMPAK committed to support the GOI’s two key poverty reduction objectives of improved access to and quality of frontline services, and increased opportunities to job and livelihood for Indonesia’s poorest and most vulnerable groups.

With its commitment to improve governance at the local level, KOMPAK also supported GoI’s efforts to improve planning and budgeting by designing and implementing various intervention models using a GESI twin-track approach, including creating a special forum (called Musyawarah Khusus/Muskus) as part of planning process to allow vulnerable groups participation in the process. The implementation of this special forum helped ensure that the GESI principle was implemented throughout the process.  At the end of the implementation of KOMPAK program, an evaluation of the GESI strategy for inclusive planning and budgeting was needed. The evaluation was to document lessons learned and to assess the extent to which the GESI strategy has contributed to promoting a more inclusive process and output of village planning and budgeting for improving basic services. The findings would be used to inform the design of the next programme.

Our approach

The evaluation commenced with a comprehensive literature review of various interventions/models supported by KOMPAK. Following that, we conducted a process evaluation to map and understand the existing core processes of GESI strategy during program implementation and its outcomes after implementation. We mainly drew from the qualitative data obtained through primary and secondary data collection.

For primary data collection, we gathered data via key informant interviews (KIIs) and focus group discussions (FGDs) at national, district, subdistrict, and village levels. The primary data collection was conducted in three districts in three selected provinces: East Lombok (NTB Province), Trenggalek (East Java Province), and Brebes (Central Java Province).

Outcomes

This evaluation has provided some key lessons drawn from the various models implemented in KOMPAK and identified shortcomings and gaps that still need to be addressed for the implementation of a similar program in the future.  Our recommendations also provided some key aspects that need to be considered by relevant stakeholders, both by donors, the central government and government at the regional level, as well as NGO involved in improving vulnerable groups situation at local level. These findings and recommendations have been discussed with KOMPAK team and DFAT for future strengthening and design of the new program.