Centrally located on the campus of Gadjah Mada University (UGM) in Yogyakarta, you will find the Norwegian House. The address is Sekip K-3, close to Jl. Kaliurang. If you go there during working hours on an ordinary day, researchers will be working on their computers, or maybe some senior faculty members will be debating by the round table in the meeting room, discussing transparency and good governance. The housekeepers will be eager to welcome you and serve you a cup of tea or coffee. Quite often, you will also find someone living there, most probably from the University of Agder in Kristiansand, Norway. The house has been a centre for Indonesian-Norwegian academic collaboration over the past ten years. Many Indonesian visitors complain, but we accept it as a compliment, that the house is more like a Rumah Jawa, with humorous Semar and the other clown-figures of punakawan on the floor, powerful Krishna and the pandawa brothers on the walls, and the singing perkutut birds around the joglo-style gazebo in the garden.
Rumah Norwegia, Yogyakarta
The collaboration between the two universities started in 1992, firstly informally but before long framed by a Memorandum of Understanding signed by the two rectors. After the fall of Suharto, the joint activities in research and student exchange gained momentum by the first funding from the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Some form of financial support from the Norwegian government has continued until now.
During the first years, the house was mainly used for accommodation by Norwegian exchange students at UGM’s Master of Management Program, and for social and cultural preparations for UGM students on their way to Kristiansand. Over the years, hundreds of Norwegian students have lived for a while or come for lectures in Rumah Norwegia, and close to 100 students and faculty members from UGM have gained their first real knowledge of Norway and Scandinavia in that house. Currently there are five students from UGM in Kristiansand, one at the doctoral level and four studying for their master degrees. In the coming spring semester, ten Agder University students will study natural resource management at UGM. Click here for a report from a previous study tour by Norwegian students. Recently, however, the House has mainly been used as a centre for research on decentralization, transparency, and good governance in Indonesia.
Rumah Norwegia Interior
A number of scientific articles have appeared and stimulated debates in international journals, based on the research in Rumah Norwegia. The most recent one, to be published by ISEAS in Singapore in April 2009, deals with public sector reforms and financial transparency at local level in Indonesia. A main conclusion is that leading district bureaucrats have increased their discretionary power recently, also facilitating enhanced local corruption. According to one district head, a bupati, there is a leakage of at least 30 percent of his district budget (APBD). External accountability is practically absent, and district accounts remain unpublished and inaccessible to the public, even to the elected representatives in local parliaments.
Another recent article focusing on procedures for public procurement at local level after decentralization concludes that national laws on open bidding are systematically omitted, and that corruption therefore flourishes. According to one interviewed businessman, ‘if we don’t give kickback then we will not have any project in the coming years’. A leading bureaucrat in one district states that ‘if public procurement should be based on Keppres 80 [the national regulation], local contractors would have no chance here’.
If you drop in at Sekip K-3 during the coming weeks, you will probably hear something about the lack of transparency in Indonesian forest management. An interdisciplinary team, including researchers from UGM’s faculties of Forestry, Law, Economics, and Social and Political Science, has been working on preconditions for implementing systems for carbon quota sales by conserving primary tropical forests. Summing up findings from recent fieldworks in the Maluku, Flores, and West-Papua, the team concludes that lots of preparations are still needed to get ‘Ready for REDDI’ (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation in Indonesia). Ownership structures and border lines need to be changed and made clear to all; knowledge, competence and transparency on alternative utilization of forest resources need to be enhanced; and forest monitoring and control of logging must be improved. These are issues that certainly will be dealt with on the campus of UGM also in the coming months and years.
On a daily basis, findings from the research in Rumah Norwegia are communicated directly to bureaucrats and students in UGM’s Program Magister Administrasi Publik, just around the corner on the campus in Sekip. Emphasis is also put on disseminating results from joint research projects through participation in seminars and workshops. One recent example is the international workshop in Jakarta on governance and corruption in July this year, organized by University of Indonesia and the Washington-based CSIS. For more information click here A paper with the title ‘Recovering the costs of power’ was presented and discussed. It later triggered a debate in Indonesian newspapers on how the high costs of being democratically elected, especially as a bupati, force power holders to regain investments by illicit means and to hide their actions by maintaining transparency at very low levels.
In Rumah Norwegia, a Norwegian, or maybe rather a Scandinavian, political perspective often contributes to making discussions lively, throwing some light on the many challenges related to good governance in the Indonesian context. Experiences from established mixed economies and united social democracies join with those from an emerging economy and socio-cultural heterogeneity to create a fertile soil for creative thoughts. How to implement the Freedom of Information Act at national and local levels is one issue regularly debated in the house, and typically gaining from the mixed perspectives on politics, economics, and public administration. The role of media and educational institutions in reducing information asymmetry in society is another topic regularly up for discussion. Relevant governance issues are abundant, and new viewpoints are always wanted.
Again, welcome for a cup of tea, a blend of Indonesian and Scandinavian cultures, and a fruitful discussion in our Javanese Norway House.