Period:
    2005-2007

Place:
    Jakarta, Medan (North Sumatra), Makassar (South Sulawesi)

Outline:
With the start of the Asian economic crisis in 1997, followed by the fall of the Soeharto regime and succeeded by President Habibie in May 1998, the demand for the realization of democracy and protest against the concentration of power on the Central Government continued to rise. Following which, policies supporting decentralization started to be developed, then realized in 1999 with the enactment of Law No. 22 (on the Regional Autonomy) and Law No. 25 (on the Financial Balance between Central and Regional Government). Based on these two laws, which were put into effect in 2001, the major changes on the governance that took place were: (1) the delegation of some of Central Government’s authority to the local governments in the regency and municipality levels (not the provincial levels), (2) the integration between the Central Government’s institutions in the regions with the local government institutions (including the status change from civil servant of the Central Government to civil servant of an autonomous region), (3) the delegation of various sources of revenue to the regions, and (4) implementation of local executive elections by the local parliaments. Since the two laws still posed several problems, including the inclarity of the division of the task and responsibility between the Central and local governments, both laws were revised in October 2004 through Law No.32 and Law No.33 respectively.

With the implementation of decentralization, needs have arisen for improving the management capacities of the education and training institutions in the region as one means to build the administrative capacity of the local governments. Moreover, the rules that regulate the decentralization of power in Indonesia are not yet stable and still on a trial-base, considering the two laws (No. 22 and 25 Year 1999) have just been revised in 2004. Therefore, there is an increasing need to socialize the revised laws and to guide the implementation.

In response to such needs, this project was implemented as a continuation of the Phase I project to tackle various urgent issues in relations with decentralization policies: (1) technical cooperation focused on the improvement of the management capacity of training institutions (mid-term target), which will in turn contribute to the capacity building of the local government personnel, and (2) technical cooperation focused on training for the dissemination of government administration methods and techniques based on the new laws on decentralization (short-term target).