Indonesian civil society has held national workshop as a preparation towards Busan, on June 8-9, 2011. The main theme of this workshop is Roadmap towards Busan: The Role of Civil Society on Development Effectiveness. Workshop attended by about 57 persons who come from several cities in Indonesia and Jakarta, and work on several issues such as environment, human rights, women, etc.
Especially, workshop discusses about four main topics, which are (1) sharing experiences from each organization about civil society organization sustainability on development effectiveness context, (2) identifying achievement and challenge on enabling environment for civil society, (3) formulating agenda of Indonesian civil society on High Level Forum in Busan, and (4) building mechanism and role of CSOs on A4DES (Aid for Development Effectiveness Secretariat). Besides, there is also a discussion about global CSOs Key Messages and Proposals.
Indonesian status as a middle income country, G20 member, and a country that has experienced good democracy process makes its own challenge for civil society in Indonesia. The biggest challenge faced by almost all civil society in Indonesia is aid decreasing for Indonesia, especially for civil society.
The relation between civil society and other development actors has changed because there is a paradigm shift in looking at development actors. Before, development actor was dominated by government and private. But, the emerging paradigm today gives a bigger space for civil society. This situation creates a better environment for civil society to increase its role on development. However, this shift still faces some obstacle and challenge to build a balance relation between development actors, for example is development planning process that looks more formalistic than substantive. Civil society participation is more about their attendance than how to accommodate suggestions from civil society.
Imbalance relation also felt on civil society and donor agency context. For instance is on predictable aid. There are many CSOs that could get fund and information access rather because of individual proximity between CSOs and donor agency than open information for all CSOs. Another case is cooperation termination from only one side, which is donor agency side, when there is a different opinion between civil society and donor. And there are many other issues.
Related to agenda towards Busan, workshop also discussed global CSOs Key Messages and Proposals. Generally, Indonesian civil society agrees with messages on this key messages and document. In addition to agenda brought by global civil society, Indonesian civil society would especially bring some best practices about cooperation between civil society and other development actors.
Workshop conducted by INFID and A4DES cooperation. A4DES established in 2009 as a country ownership of Indonesia with mandate to put Jakarta Commitment into effect. One of A4DES’ mandates is facilitating multi-stakeholder dialogue, including CSOs, to encourage development effectiveness in Indonesia.