Community Empowerment for Rural Development (CERD) is an ADB funded project in South Kalimantan- Indonesia. The project was implemented with the US$170.2 million budget.  The ADB loan based Loan 1765-INO (OCR) and 1766-INO (SF) is US$ 115 million (68%) and the Indonesian government US$ 55,2 million (32%).

This project held effectively on 15 March 2001 and would be implemented for six years in six provinces of Indonesia, namely Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, and North Sulawesi.

CERD Project covers four components, namely:

• component for Community Improvement in Community Development

• component for Finance Institution Development and Village Economy

• component for Village Infrastructure Improvement

• component for Management and Monitoring.

The project became controversial because of bad construction. Communities complain that they cannot use the road. Then the complaint was referred to the Office of the Special Project Facilitator.

 

CONSULTATION PROCESS
This consultation process is the first successful process held by the ADB OSPF mechanism. This process is facilitated by Office Special Project Facilitator (OSPF). The consultation process was preceded by sending a consultation submission letter by complainants to OSPF-ADB (18/2/2005), then followed by consultation submission registration (09/3/2005), Eligibility check (16-17/3/2005), Eligible announcement (23/3/2005), Review and Assessment (01-15/4/2005), Presentation of Review and Assessment Result (17-20/5/2005). The course of action, which consisted of JFF (13-14/9/2005) and MSC (26-28/9/2005).

 

Endang Sri Masliha (a staff of YCHI Banjarbaru) and Zainuri Hasyim (a staff of YDA Solo), together with Erna Kasypiah (a staff of LK3 Banjarmasin), are NGO intermediaries in consultation submission which was planned by the community to OSPF-ADB in Manila. This consultation submission has been undertaken since January 2005 which was held by five persons from five villages which received CERD project in 2002 in South Kalimantan and was facilitated by Yayasan Cakrawala Hijau Indonesia (YCHI) Banjarbaru, Lembaga Kajian Keislaman and Kemasyarakatan (LK3) Banjarmasin, and Yayasan Duta Awam (YDA) Solo.

 

The People in the area signed the agreement achieved through the OSPF process in September 2005.

For more information

Zainuri Hasyim: zen@dutaawam.org;
Endang SM: ychi@cakrawalahijau.org;
Erna Kasypiah: lk3@indo.net.id
 

PRESS RELEASE- BY YAYASAN DUTA AWAM

By Endang Sri
The Fulfillment of Community’s Rights-The Agreement Achieved during the Consultation Process of the Implementation of CERD Project - 2005 South Kalimantan - INDONESIA– September 2005 Masliha and Zainuri Hasyim

 

Who can guess, the lane in our village can be repaired, even in many meetings, Pimpro (Project Director) still stated that there was nothing wrong with the lane. But the lane which costs Rp 402.500.000 clearly cannot be used since it was built in the late of 2002,” said Ridwan. Ridwan is a complainant from Handil Baru village. He stated his opinion in the evaluation, which was held a day after the agreement was signed. The same opinion also came from other complainants who attended the meeting, “In general all of the community’s demands have been fulfilled.” Abdul Sidik, a complainant from Handil Negara village, felt that there was no one responsible for the problems of the village.

That is a piece of the last opinion of the complainants after the agreement of the problem solving was signed together on 26-28 September 2005 in each village. The problem-solving process stated above did not come at sudden. A long journey for three years resulted in the problem-solving agreement at last.

 

The people from 5 villages as the beneficiary of the CERD Project3 2002 in South Kalimantan Indonesia decided to use the consultation process through OSPF-ADB. It had the purpose of solving the problems of the implementation of CERD Project 2002 in South Kalimantan. The community as the victim of the project together with YDA Solo, YCHI Banjarbaru, and LK3 Banjarmasin carried out this advocacy. The choice of carrying out this consultation was based on the community’s decision after undertaking advocacy process, which had been done for two years ( early 2003 until late 2004), did not get the concrete and comprehensive solution, either from the Indonesia government or from ADB Indonesia Residence Mission (ADB-IRM).

 

The people from 5 villages as the beneficiary of the CERD Project3 2002 in South Kalimantan Indonesia decided to use the consultation process through OSPF-ADB. It had the purpose of solving the problems of the implementation of CERD Project 2002 in South Kalimantan. The community as the victim of the project together with YDA Solo, YCHI Banjarbaru, and LK3 Banjarmasin carried out this advocacy. The choice of carrying out this consultation was based on the community’s decision after undertaking advocacy process, which had been done for two years ( early 2003 until late 2004), did not get the concrete and comprehensive solution, either from the Indonesia government or from ADB Indonesia Residence Mission (ADB-IRM).

 

Since January 2005, the people from the 5 villages had prepared and sent letters of complaints, which in last September OSPF-ADB facilitated the implementation of the course of action that was divided into joint fact-finding/JFF (13-14 September) and multi-stakeholder consultation/MSC (26-28 September). Through MSC the problems were discussed to find and agree on solutions. The decision made by complainants in accepting this agreement was considered as the proper choice because almost all of the demands stated in the consultation letter had been included in the agreement.

 

DEMANDS
The main demand of the complainant community was the fulfillment of the project component – only C component was received by the community – (A and B components should have been their rights since 2 years ago) was agreed and would certainly be carried out in October 2005.4 Besides that, they also wanted the commitment of the project management and ADB itself to improve the implementation of the project in the future especially in the 5 villages which submitted consultation.

 

The commitment to improve the aspect of transparency, participatory, and accountability of the project was poured out in the agreement. The village community would be involved and would become the decision-maker in every step of the project implementation (planning, implementing, and supervising). While related to the information of the project development, the improvement of the village facilitators’ work performance and the installing of the information board would be carried out in every village. The improvement of the village facilitators- All parties agreed that the village facilitators was one of the
success factors of this project, one of them is to require the facilitators to live in the village and help the village community toward the village empowerment as the goal of the project. The project management also committed to making sure that there would not be any budget deviation in the form of illegal pickings, which were done by some particular project managers. The community was guaranteed that they would receive what they had to receive without any unclear reduction so that it could be used to develop the village as maximum as possible.

​

AGREEMENT

This agreement also clearly regulated the infrastructure repair which got the assurance to be repaired. In Handil baru village, the demand for infrastructure repair was agreed to be repaired by the contractor who had built the infrastructure before. The community noted not less than Rp 100 million had to be spent by the contractor based on this agreement, starting from the supplying of the mound, the supplying of the wood for “siring”, the wage to the furnishing mower.

 

Different from Handil Baru, in Handil Negara there were not any parties who dared to make sure that they would be responsible for the closing of the water channel during the infrastructure processing, whereas this water channel existence was very important. ADB itself stated indirectly that it could afford it, but there was not the initiative from the project management to declare the submission. ADB stated that the construction of the water channel was not in the planning, but because there had not been any expanding for this work before, ADB would consider it when there were any submissions. Because the solution was not achieved, the community was made sure by the Head of the sub-district and the Head of the village that the cost to reopen the water channel would be taken partly from the fund of village development, which has not been carried out this year.

 

Abdul Sidik still looked disappointed; his wish on the opening of the water channel in his village as the responsibility of the project management could not be fulfilled. However, he still held courage in his heart; the component fulfillment would be undertaken soon. The right should be received by each village of CERD project would be fulfilled. “It is not too much if we hope that the village empowerment starts to appear, “he said. Yes, but do not forget to involve the community, to be transparent and to
Based on the solution agreed upon, the problems submitted by the community from 5 villages as the beneficiary of the CERD Project 2002, could be considered finished. All parties involved agreed to carry out and checking together on the result of this agreement until January 2006.

Related to the infrastructure maintenance in the future, the project management promised to train the people who joined on the Operational and Maintenance Group in order to have knowledge of maintaining the available infrastructure. The training planned to be undertaken at the end of the year 2005, it was hoped to provide understanding and skill on maintaining the infrastructure available in the village.

 

For more information, please contact:
M. Zainuri Hasyim at zen@dutaawam.org
 

NGO Contacts:
YAYASAN DUTA AWAM (YDA) Solo
Jl. Adisucipto 184 I Karangasem, Surakarta
Jawa Tengah, INDONESIA – 57145
Phone: +62-271-710816, Fax: +62-271-729176
email: dutaawam@dutaawam.org
Website: http://www.dutaawam.org