This project looked at the political obstacles to pro-poor basic service delivery in Indonesia to see what might be done to help improve service provision for poor communities. The researchers also compared the findings in Indonesia with studies from other parts of the world and identified implications for the wider study of politics and service delivery in developing countries.
BackgroundThere is a real need for improved basic services in Indonesia. While the country has made significant progress in recent decades in reducing income poverty, it has made much less progress with respect to some non-income dimensions of poverty. Of particular concern are Indonesia’s maternal and infant mortality rates, transition rates from primary education to secondary education, and the number of people who lack access to safe water and sanitation. These problems will not be overcome unless the country’s basic services do more to serve the poor. At present, water supply and sanitation services do not reach many poor communities and despite a massive expansion in the health system since the 1970s, many poor people still lack access to basic health services. The country has done better in terms of providing poor children with access to primary school education–the share of poor students who complete primary school is 89 percent. But it has been much less successful in providing them with secondary education.
Recent comparative research has suggested that political factors are a key determinant of the quality of basic service delivery in developing countries in terms of the extent to which it benefits the poor. In particular it has suggested that the pro-poorness of basic service delivery needs to be understood in terms of contests between poor people, on the one hand, and competing political and social groups, on the other. As such, it has suggested that the key to improving basic service delivery lies in understanding better the conditions under which poor people are able to access and influence policy-making and implementation processes. There has been very little research so far on the politics of basic service delivery in Indonesia and this project aimed to fill a significant gap in our understanding of the determinants of basic service outcomes and their associated effects on poverty in the country.
MethodologyThe project focused on the issue of illegal fees which are charged by many schools in exchange for granting children places in those schools and by many local health centres in exchange for providing health services. These fees are widely believed to be one of the main impediments to poor people accessing basic services. While campaigns in other parts of the world have achieved some success in moving towards universal and fee-free access to many basic services, such efforts have been unsuccessful in Indonesia to date.
A qualitative case study approach was used to focus on dynamics within the specific contexts of the health and education sectors and identify the political obstacles to eliminating user fees. With respect to the theoretical framework, the researchers used a ‘polity-centred’ approach which emphasises the interests of political and social actors, these actors’ capacity to organise for collective action, the way in which institutional factors shape who has access to policy-making and implementation processes, and the capacity of the state to respond to the demands of the poor and other groups. Following this framework, the key concerns were to (i) identify the competing interests in relation to the issue of illegal fees for basic services; (ii) assess the capacity of different actors to engage in collective action; (iii) examine how institutional factors shape who has access to policy-making and implementation processes related to illegal fees for basic service delivery; and (iv) examine the character of the state and how this shapes its responsiveness to the poor.
FindingsIn the Indonesian education sector, the research found that important coalitions of interest have limited efforts to attain universal access through their influence over education funding, school governance and the system of enforcement. To effectively challenge these powerful interests a combination of factors need to come together. The researchers noted the role ‘political entrepreneurs’ can play in facilitating collective action and, importantly, galvanising the less powerful into a stronger force for change. Such actors in Indonesia may be able to enhance the capacity of parents to organise and to use structures such as school committees to voice their opinions. A further contributing factor in the Indonesian context is the inadequate system of redress that is failing to enforce policies around access to education. More appropriately resourced and structured provision in this area would further strengthen the wider campaign for fee-free education.
Similarly in the health sector, the project identified a dominant coalition between major businesses and politico-economic bureaucratic elements within state structures that has successfully perpetuated the use of illegal fees to serve their own interests. This has resulted in reduced government spending on health and in particular on programmes to provide health care for poor people. As with education, recourse to justice to exercise rights to health care for poor people is inadequate. Further, there are fewer channels in the health context for individuals or groups to express their views about illegal fees or other aspects of health services. To tackle these issues, it is suggested that initiatives should be directed at facilitating collective action, seeking to create the institutional space for the unrepresented voices to be heard. As in education, political entrepreneurs can play an important role in the health sector to bring together the different groups whose needs are not currently being met.
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