Aid in Action

Engaging Communities in Village Development

Increasing gender sensitivity and integrating marginalized groups

Sawang, Aceh | Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Since the late 1990s, decentralization and regional autonomy in Indonesia have consequently increased the roles and  responsibilities of regional government in supporting community needs and policies. The Government of Indonesia has instituted annual development planning sessions undertaken at every level of government and serve as a forum for public  consultation.  At the village level this planning process is called Musrenbang or Musrenbangdes. Musrenbangdes aims to engage stakeholders and promote grassroots participation onvillage development programs. These meetings, however, are often not well-attended due to lack of knowledge and understanding about their significance in impacting communities’ lives. This results in few accomplishments that address communities’ needs along with insufficient government money to fund identified priorities.

USAID is working to help improve the Musrenbang process in Aceh through the PEUDAP program, launched in October 2008. The Participatory Peaceful Development (PDP), or PEUDAP in the Acehnese language (meaning “to make or roof”) program, works with communities to prepare them for optimal participation in the Muserembang process; and concurrently enhances community capacity to manage and mitigate future conflict. The program uses village development planning as an avenue to foster grassroots participation and decision-making to empower marginalized groups. Bina Rakyat Sejahtera or BYTRA, is a  local civil society organization under the PEUDAP activity that facilitates a cluster of eight villages in the conflict-affected      Sawang sub-district in North Aceh.

In Gunci village, BYTRA organized advocacy and village plan-ning meetings introducing the PEUDAP to stakeholders. As a result, the Gunci community was able to present their priority development projects during the Musrenbangdes that was held on 5 February. The community is now poised to receive SERASI funding for a few small projects on their list of priorities to initiate additional community participation and contribution. Furthermore, the success of this program prompted other local governments to adopt the PEUDAP mechanism to explore more development ideas from community members and speed up the integration process at the village level.

Six local partners were identified to implement PEUDAP in 50 villages throughout three targeted districts of Aceh; North Aceh, East Aceh and Bener Meriah.

SERASI is a three-year USAID funded project focusing on con-flict mitigation and supporting peacebuilding activities. It is im-plemented by International Relief and Development (IRD).