Report in English - United Nations Development Programme

The Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice InitiativeIndonesiaCountry Assessment

Author: Ana Patricia GraçaEditor: Andrea DavisDesigner: Keen MediaProject coordination: Pauline Tamesis and Claudia Melim-McLeodUNDP Disclaimer: The views expressed in this publication are theauthors’ and do not necessarily represent those of the United Nations,including UNDP, or its Member States.For further information please contact:United Nations Development ProgrammeRegional Centre BangkokUnited Nations Service Building3rd Floor, Rajdamnern Nok Avenue10200 Bangkok, Thailandregionalcentrebangkok.undp.or.thUnited Nations Development ProgrammeBureau for Development PolicyDemocratic Governance Group304 East 45th Street, 10th Fl.New York, NY 10017Oslo Governance CentreInkognitogata 37, 0256 Oslo, Norwaywww.undp.org/governance/www.undp.org/oslocentreCopyright ©2009 by the United Nations Development Programme. All rights reserved.For any errors or omissions found subsequent to printing, please visit our websites.

Contents4 Abbreviations5 Acknowledgements6 Preface7 Executive summary7 Main findings and lessons learned7 Effectiveness7 Sustainability8 Relevance and strategic positioning8 Efficiency8 Political economy8 Codification of tools and lessons learned9 Introduction9 Purpose, objective and scope of the assessment9 Methodology11 Project background and strategy13 Project expected outcomes13 Project expected outputs15 Findings and lessons learned15 Effectiveness15 Objectives and results17 Innovative ability19 Catalytic capacity19 Cross-cutting issues20 Sustainability21 Ownership21 Capacity development23 Partnerships and synergies26 Relevance and strategic positioning26 Efficiency27 Political economy28 Codification of tools and lessons learned28 Codification of tools29 Lessons learned31 Annex I - List of codified tools32 Annex II - List of persons interviewed

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice InitiativeAbbreviations 1A2JAP-A2JBAPPENASCACDCODGTTFFGDGoIJ4PKPKP-STLBHLEADMDGsM&ENEXNGOOGCPMUPSPK-UGMRAN HAMRCBSOPSRFTRACUNDPWBAccess to JusticeAsia-Pacific Rights and Justice InitiativeNational Development Planning AgencyCapacity AssessmentCapacity DevelopmentCountry OfficeDemocratic Governance Thematic Trust FundFocus Group DiscussionGovernment of IndonesiaJustice for the Poor ProjectKelompok Perjuangan Kesetaraan Perempuan - StruggleGroup on Equality for WomenLegal Aid FoundationLegal Empowerment and Assistance for the DisadvantagedMillennium Development GoalsMonitoring and Evaluationnational executionnon-governmental organizationOslo Governance CentreProject Management UnitCentre for Rural and Regional Development Studies atGadjah Mada UniversityNational Action Plan on Human RightsRegional Centre in BangkokStandard Operating ProcedureStrategic Results FrameworkTarget Resource Allocation from CoreUnited Nations Development ProgrammeWorld Bank1The abbreviations and acronyms relate to those used in the main text, not those that are foundonly in the Annexes.

Indonesia Country AssessmentAcknowledgementsThis report is published by the Regional Centre in Bangkok (RCB), in cooperationwith the UNDP Democratic Governance Group through the Oslo GovernanceCentre (OGC), with funding from the UNDP Democratic Governance ThematicTrust Fund (DGTTF). The RCB and OGC are grateful to the author Ana PatriciaGraça, the editor Andrea Davis, and all those who were interviewed and consultedin the preparation and writing of this assessment report, who are listed here inalphabetical order: Ibu Diani, Dianne van Oosterhout, Rachael Diprose, FrederikFrisell, Risya Kori, Mohammad Doddy Kusadrianto, Agus Loekman, Paulus Lotulung,Mochammad Maksum, Allison Moore, Igor O Neil, Patra M. Zen, Yesua Pellokila,Jhank Regmi, Taufik Rinaldi, Meissy Sabardiah, Mas Achmad Santosa, LeonardSimanjuntak, Ari Suyudi, and Abdul Wahib. The final version of the report hasbenefited from substantive contributions by Samuel De Jaegere, Tom Crick, AllisonMoore, Sudarshan Ramaswamy, and Agung Yudha. Javier Fabra has providedinvaluable support to the coordination of this publication series. The project hasbeen coordinated by Pauline Tamesis and Claudia Melim-McLeod.November 2009

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice InitiativePrefaceThe Millennium Declaration from the Millennium Summit in 2000 emphasizesthe centrality of democratic governance for the achievement of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals (MDGs). World leaders agreed that improving the qualityof democratic institutions and processes, and managing the changing roles ofthe state and civil society in an increasingly globalized world, should underpinnational efforts to reduce poverty, sustain the environment, and promote humandevelopment.The Democratic Governance Thematic Trust Fund (DGTTF) was created in 2001 toenable UNDP Country Offices to explore innovative and catalytic approaches tosupporting democratic governance on the ground. The DGTTF Lessons LearnedSeries represents a collective effort to capture lessons learned and best practicesin a systematic manner, to be shared with all stakeholders, to serve as an inputto organizational learning, and to inform future UNDP policy and programmingprocesses.

work in five substantive areas, each with a sector coordinator:justice and gender; justice, land and natural resources; justiceand legal services; justice and local governance; and legalreform. Except for the last sector, funding goes to civil societyorganizations and universities.ExecutivesummaryThis report presents the assessment findings of the DGTTFsupportedIndonesia project Strengthening Access to Justiceand the Rule of Law (A2J Assessment Project). The teamreviewed documents, annual progress reports and evaluationreports, and conducted interviews with partners, donors,indirect beneficiaries, and UNDP country office staff.With DGTTF funding of $100,000 in 2004, an A2J AssessmentProject to assess A2J for the most disadvantaged populationsin five Indonesian provinces was undertaken jointly with theNational Development Planning Agency (BAPPENAS) and theCentre for Rural and Regional Development Studies at GadjahMada University (PSPK-UGM) to better understand andpromote access to justice in Indonesia. The A2J AssessmentProject was found to yield two immediate results, which inturn led to a third significant result:a The publication of ‘Justice for All?: An Assessment ofAccess to Justice in Five Provinces of Indonesia’;a The development of a new initiative between UNDPIndonesia and BAPPENAS for Legal Empowerment andAssistance for the Disadvantaged (LEAD); anda With LEAD project support, the development andimminent launch at the policy level of a National Accessto Justice Strategy that will be incorporated into theGovernment of Indonesia’s 2010-2014 Mid-TermDevelopment Plan and the action plans of relevantministries and their sub-national counterparts.Note that this assessment will be looking into not only theA2J Assessment Project but also, to the extent possible,its successor: the LEAD project. The LEAD project ispredominantly a grant mechanism for projects undertakenwith civil society organizations (currently 23). It supportsThe country study assessed results based on the criteria ofeffectiveness, sustainability, relevance and strategicpositioning, efficiency, political economy, and codificationof lessons learned and tools. Since the assessed projecthas already ended, the assessment team also looked intothe LEAD project as its most tangible and immediate result.Lessons and recommendations for the remainder of the LEADproject are included here, based on the team’s analysis ofprogress to date rather than an evaluative exercise.Main findings and lessons learnedThe A2J Assessment Project was found successful in applyinginnovative strategies that have led to a major programmeon A2J, supported not only by UNDP core funding but alsoby donors and with strong government commitment. Theproject and its products are a best practice example of humanrights-based programming for A2J. The project was greatlyinfluenced by the regional AP-A2J Initiative and benefited fromclose involvement of key country office staff in the communityof practice (another product of the initiative), as well as fromregional human rights-based approach workshops.Effectivenessa Out of the six expected project results (outputs) theproject clearly achieved three that are critical to asustainable approach to A2J in Indonesia.a The project was innovative in producing the firstcomprehensive A2J assessment piloted in five provincestargeting the poorest and most disadvantaged groupsusing a rights-based approach.a The project was catalytic substantially, financially and instrengthening partnerships for the country office.a The project required much longer than one year to achieveresults because of capacity gaps among local partners inrelation to the ambitious human rights-based strategy.Sustainabilitya The project adopted a sustainable strategy, butunderestimated capacity development challenges.Though it was appropriate to partner with nationalinstitutions, the project would have benefited from aprior capacity assessment and development plan for thenational partners.

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice Initiativea There is a strong project ownership by BAPPENAS, achampion of A2J that has strategically introduced theA2J agenda into central and local planning. The reportJustice for All? has informed the National Strategy on A2J.a The project and its successor LEAD project could havebenefited from broader partnership with the formaljustice sector and with local governments.Relevance and strategic positioninga UNDP became the lead partner in access to justice dueto the credibility gained from basing LEAD projectformulation on prior extensive research on the issue.a The DGTTF A2J Assessment Project proved critical inestablishing a justice portfolio within UNDP COIndonesia.Efficiencya UNDP programme and operations policies andprocedures, as well as the time-consuming governmentapproval process of projects, are constraints for theimplementation of one-year projects supported by theDGTTF.Political economya Indonesia’s expanding decentralization processes andlocal government involvement in planning processesenabled bottom-up participative approaches.Codification of tools and lessons learneda The project did not make the best use of its experiences.Production of a guide/tool kit for A2J assessments inconflict-affected areas and the design of knowledgesharingstrategies and mechanisms were two unachievedoutputs.a In a project like this it is better to stick to the basicsrather than strive for the optimum. Human rights-basedtools should serve as orientation guides to programmingand implementation, not as static normative guidelinesto be rigidly followed. Programme guides are not‘bibles’, but merely orientation tools. A human rightsbasedprogramme must be simple and accessible topractitioners and national partners.a Senior management and staff must be willing to test andapply human rights-based strategies.a The LEAD project should capitalize on the enablingpolicy framework of decentralization and communitybasedconflict reduction programmes to promote legalaccess to rights and use of local justice systems (traditionalor formal) by the most disadvantaged groups. LEADwould benefit from broader partnerships to optimizeresponsiveness to local grievances.a A2J assessments and legal empowerment projects likeLEAD need several years to bear sustainable results.Long-term vision and senior management support arecritical.

For this purpose the assessment targeted both the A2JAssessment Project and its successor the LEAD project.IntroductionThe team was comprised of three members: an internationalteam leader, a policy analyst from RCB and a nationalconsultant from Indonesia. The assessment mission wasfielded from 16 April to 6 May 2009. Unfortunately, all threeteam members could not be fielded simultaneously. The firsttwo (the RCB team) spent one week in country, from16 to 22April, and the national consultant joined the exercise on 24April. The RCB team had the opportunity to meet only brieflywith the national consultant and exchange information andpreliminary results prior to their departure.Purpose, objective and scope of theassessmentThis assessment examined the results of the A2J AssessmentProject, a survey of A2J in five provinces. It measured innovationand catalytic ability in supporting breakthroughs in sensitivedemocratic governance issues and in scaling up activities.The country study is an assessment and not a projectevaluation. It provides an overall analytic review of results,rather than an evaluation of progress. It aims mostly tointernalize and collect valuable information, and to analyzeand document country office experiences with a view tostrengthening knowledge management.MethodologyThe assessment analyzed relevant documentation, projectreports, case studies, and conducted interviews with a widerange of stakeholders: donors, government institutions,academics and civil society. The primary beneficiaries couldunfortunately not be visited during this assessment.The main criteria were effectiveness, sustainability, relevanceand strategic positioning, efficiency, political economy andcodification of lessons learned and tools.The assessment examined whether project results hadbeen achieved or advanced. It identified external factorsthat influenced the result, and assessed the contribution ofDGTTF and AP-A2J to national capacity development andparticipatory processes. It looked at the effectiveness of thepartnership strategy, and whether innovative approacheshad been found to key development issues. It examined theperceptions of indirect beneficiaries on DGTTF assistance.Team members seized every opportunity to confer and shareimpressions and conclusions following their meetings withstakeholders.While in-country the RCB team met with UNDP programmestaff and LEAD project staff, former A2J programme staff andcollaborators, the national counterpart Director of BAPPENAS,implementing partners from PSPK at the University of GadjahMada, the Deputy Chief Justice, members of the JudicialReform Commission, civil society organizations, donors andthe World Bank.The RCB team was able to obtain relevant information onimmediate project results, ownership issues and nationalpartnerships and the UNDP role in supporting A2J in thenational agenda.The main assignment of the national consultant was tovalidate and complement this analysis by focusing ongathering critical information from stakeholders that theRCB team could not reach, such as implementing partnersand civil society organizations (related to the ‘Justice for All?’Survey Project and to the LEAD project), community-leveldirect and indirect beneficiaries, local government structuresin LEAD pilot project sites, and traditional and formal justiceproviders who may have participated in or benefited from theproject. The national consultant also interviewed two selectedgrantees of the LEAD project.Time was the main constraint of this assignment. One weekproved insufficient to collectively examine, discuss andanalyze the issues in depth.Team members could not meet with local governmentrepresentatives, who could have offered insights on

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice Initiativesustainability, nor engage adequately with officials and staffof the Ministry of Law and Human Rights. Nor could it formfirm views on the value of complementary, parallel assistancerendered to the justice sector (formally and informally) throughbilateral arrangements of some donors with respectivegovernment counterparts.Team members agreed that the team leader would circulate apreliminary report and guidelines for the work of the nationalconsultant prior to the final report. The national consultantreport was later incorporated into the overall consolidatedassessment and circulated for comments prior to transmissionto the RCB and OGC.Another constraint was the dearth of qualitative andquantitative data, tools and instruments used by the A2JAssessment Project, particularly in English, making it difficultto fully assess strategies and methodologies or capacitydevelopment effects.10

Projectbackgroundand strategyFollowing the economic crisis of 1997-98 and a major politicaltransformation, Indonesia experienced a wave of diversesocial conflicts. At its peak, large-scale conflict broke out inseven of the country’s 33 provinces, internally displacing overtwo million persons. Although the causes of the conflict aremany, most research has shown that violence occurred whenan accumulation of poorly managed small disputes either atthe local level or in the formal justice sector exploded intoviolent responses.More than three decades of political marginalizationhave degraded Indonesia’s formal justice institutions anderoded public trust. Village-level institutions responsiblefor dispute resolution were also undermined by highlycentralized governance and continue to suffer from capacityand legitimacy gaps. In a country where informal justicemechanisms combining elements of negotiation, mediationand arbitration serve as the central source of dispute resolutionfor many, the gaps are a major impediment to accessingjustice, creating rule of law and maintaining the social stabilitynecessary for poverty reduction.Numerous studies have shown that the Indonesian justicesystem has suffered from severe and widespread deficienciesfor decades.These deficiencies have been to a large extent recognized bythe Government of Indonesia (GoI), and following the 1999national parliamentary elections, Indonesia’s political leadersdeclared a commitment to uphold the rule of law, affirmingthe importance of law reform in advancing Indonesia’sbroader national development and democratization efforts.Important steps have already been taken to try to addresspopular demands for improving the legal and judicial systemsuch as the judicial reform programmes (Supreme CourtBlueprints, Commercial Court Blueprints and Anti-CorruptionCourt Blueprints), the National Law Summit, and the RAN HAM(National Action Plan on Human Rights). New institutions havebeen established, including the Judicial Commission and theAnti-Corruption Commission. The Amendment of the Law onJudicial Power stipulates a one-roof judicial system shiftingcontrol of organizational, administrative and financial affairsof the general courts, religious courts, military courts andadministrative courts from the Ministry of Justice and HumanRights to the Supreme Court.Yet despite the passage of law reforms and the establishmentof new institutions, the implementation of the agenda forreform has been mixed and sporadic. 2 The justice sector iswidely perceived as corrupt and beholden to the narrow,private interests of elite groups, rather than serving the entirepopulace, especially the poor, conflict-affected and othervulnerable groups. 3Limited surveys 4 have shown that people prefer informalsolutions to their legal problems. In Indonesia, traditional andadat 5 justice systems remain the cornerstones of accessingjustice for the majority; through them, disputes can bequickly resolved close to the source of the problem. Informaland consensual means of resolution involving conciliation,mediation and negotiation are usually preferred. They canalso prevent incursion by sectarian entrepreneurs who thriveon violence, injustice and divisiveness.2 Asian Development Bank, ‘Country Governance Assessment Report:Republic of Indonesia’, September 2002. Assegaf, Rifqi S., ‘Sistem PengawasanHakim dan Lembaga Peradilan’, Paper presented during a seminar bythe Justice for the Poor Project of the World Bank in Jakarta, 3 July, 2003.Commission on Human Rights, ‘Civil and Political Rights, Including Questionsof Independence of the Judiciary, Administration of Justice: Report of theSpecial Rapporteur on the Independence of Judges and Lawyers, Reporton the Mission to Indonesia’, 13 January 2003. Komnas Perempuan, ‘FailedJustice and Impunity: The Indonesian Judiciary’s Track Record on Violenceagainst Women, Report to the UN Special Rapporteur on Independence ofthe Judiciary’, 22 July 2002. World Bank, ‘Brief for CGI – Indonesia: MaintainingStability, Deepening Reforms’, 2003. World Bank, ‘Legal Reform in Indonesia’,1998.3 Assegaf, Rifqi S., ‘Sistem Pengawasan Hakim dan Lembaga Peradilan’, paperpresented during seminar by the Justice for the Poor Project of the WorldBank in Jakarta, 3 July, 2003.4 Asia Foundation, ‘Citizen’s Perceptions of the Indonesian Justice Sector’,August 2001. World Bank, unpublished paper for Justice for the Poor Projecton the Indonesian Legal System, June 2002.5 Adat is typically a culturally and ethnically specific form of social order anda symbol of local autonomy. It is custom, an un-codified body of rules ofbehaviour, enforced by sanctions, varying from time to time and from placeto place. It consists of living norms, respected and recognized by people, andacts as society’s behaviour code of conduct.11

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice InitiativeThe reform era brought new opportunities for the country todevelop a more equitable and transparent justice system, andmany efforts were and continue to be made to support justicesector reform.Recognizing that wider justice sector reform requirescomprehensive solutions and a great deal of political andinstitutional commitment, the Partnership for GovernanceReform 6 and the GoI have formulated a legal and judicial actionplan. Key institutions recognized that while many efforts hadbeen made to support the GoI justice sector reform, effortsby the GoI and the international community had tended tofocus on the national level, particularly on enhancing thecapacities of the judiciary to deal with civil and commercialmatters. Most such efforts were not bringing justice any closerto the majority of Indonesians. Community-level A2J needsand priorities required greater attention and understanding,but there was inadequate information to design an effectiveprogramme, an absence of baseline data and a lack of clearentry points for interventions that would be sensitive tolocal needs and cultures. Few initiatives aimed for a betterunderstanding of local-level issues and capacities, or focusedon conflict-affected areas.The project Strengthening Access to Justice and the Rule ofLaw developed by BAPPENAS, the national planning agency,and UNDP Indonesia sought to address this gap by devisingstrategies to increase A2J at the local level, and to complementand enhance the national governance reform agenda bydefining a longer-term programme to improve A2J for poorand conflict-affected communities.The main strategy of UNDP Indonesia, in partnership withthe Directorate of Law and Human Rights of BAPPENAS andthe University of Gadjah Mada Pusat Studi Pedesaan danKawasan (PSPK), was to work closely with NGOs working onjustice reform issues and the Ministry of Justice at the nationallevel, provincial university legal departments and provincialNGOs, to undertake an A2J survey assessment to address theinformation gap, identify relevant entry points, build localcapacities and response options and develop a broader A2Jprogramme to be supported by UNDP Indonesia.The strategy envisaged a civil society, with a people-centredfocus with targeted assessment of, and engagement with,state institutions focusing on both formal and informallegal systems through a participatory, action-oriented andcapacity-developing approach.The A2J Assessment Project covered two major activities:an A2J survey assessment, and capacity development ofindividuals and selected civil society organizations to engagein A2J activities through small-scale pilot projects in fiveconflict-affected provinces.The project also sought to enhance the national governancereform agenda by developing a longer-term programmesupported by UNDP to improve A2J for poor, marginalizedand conflict-affected communities.Using the A2J assessment as an entry point, UNDP and itspartners designed a community-driven, rights-based legalempowerment programme, grounded in grassroots needsand comprising activities that can be undertaken at that level.Impact at higher levels resulted from translating communitylevelwork into policy and advocacy towards reform at nationaland sub-national levels, targeting both laws and institutions.The proposed approach aimed to bring together key stakeholdersat national and sub-national levels, help identifysolutions at the community level providing seed resourcesfor small-scale, short-term responses, and develop capacityamong key players and change agents.Partnerships were developed through capacity-developingactivities to enhance knowledge sustainably within theprovinces. Follow-up activities were locally owned, and civilsociety organizations were able to engage in A2J activities.The project placed priority on engaging with civil societyorganizations (NGOs, local universities and NGO networks)at the local level to ensure direct access during follow-upactivities to strengthen the legal capacities of the poor inconflict-affected areas, 7 particularly marginalized groups suchas women and young people.In order to ensure the project did more than simply assess andextract lessons, in participating villages it also helped mobilizecommunities to devise timely and effective solutions to theproblems identified during the assessment.6 Indonesian NGO supporting reform efforts and working closely with the GoI.A project of UNDP Indonesia.7 Building on numerous studies and lessons learned on working with CivilSociety. See for example, See Golub, Stephen, Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace Working Paper, ‘Beyond the Rule of Law Orthodoxy: TheLegal Empowerment Alternative’, Number 41, 2003. UNDP Asia-Pacific Rightsand Justice Initiative, ‘Practice in Action: Workshop Report’. UNDP Asia-PacificRights and Justice Initiative, ‘Lessons Learned from UNDP experience onAccess to Justice in Asia and the Pacific’, 2003. ‘Interfaces between Formal andInformal Justice Systems to Strengthen Access to Justice by DisadvantagedPeople’, 2003. Blair, Harry and Gary Hansen, ‘Weighing in on the Scale of Justice:Strategic Approaches for Donor-Supported Rule of Law Programs, USAIDDevelopment Program Operations and Assessment Report, No.7’. McClymont,Mary and Stephen Golub, ‘Many Roads to Justice: The Law-Related Work ofFord Foundation Grantees around the World’, Ford Foundation, 2000. WorldBank, ‘Sourcebook on Access to Justice’, May 2002.12

Indonesia Country AssessmentThe expected outcome and outputs of the A2J Assessmentwere as follows:Project expected outcomesDevelopment of a programme framework to enhance A2Jby empowering local communities to overcome barriers,strengthening local institutions and systems to resolvedisputes, and supporting academic institutions, NGOs, andthe judicial sector to build legitimate and synergistic linksbetween formal and informal institutions.This outcome is related to the following goals included inUNDP’s Strategic Results Framework (SRF):SRF Goal 1: GovernanceG1-SGN1-SASN1: Increased capacity to pursue IndonesianReform Agenda to support and sustain an equitable andsocial economic recovery.G1-SGN3-SASN1: Strategic framework in support of goodgovernance practices at the sub-national level, together withcoordinated oversight mechanisms, is agreed upon by donorsand national and sub-national stake-holders.SRF Goal 5: Special Development SituationsG5-SGN2-SASN4: Conflict Prevention and Peace BuildingIncreased capacity of political, social and economic structuresin affected areas to sustain processes of recovery andreconciliation, and to prevent the outbreak, or ameliorate theescalation, of conflict.Project expected outputsOutput One:Enhanced understanding of the impact of horizontal conflicton formal and informal justice systems and communityperceptions and priorities on how to overcome those barriers,increase A2J and empower themselves to seek remedies.Output Two:A guide/tool kit to undertake A2J assessments in conflictaffected areas in English and Indonesian produced andknowledge sharing strategies and mechanisms designed.Output Three:Partnerships, structures and co-ordination mechanisms forimplementation of the A2J assessment fully set up.Output Four:Capacity of civil society organizations (university departments,NGOs, and media) built in order to enhance their ability toengage in A2J activities.Output Five:Pilot programmatic responses funded by a CommunityInitiatives Fund, responsive to immediate communityneeds, are designed, implemented and evaluated.Output Six:Design of an A2J project document for UNDP Indonesia.Output Seven:Production of policy briefings relating to the national legalreform programme at national and provincial levels.13

a The development of a new initiative between UNDPIndonesia and BAPPENAS for Legal Empowerment andAssistance for the Disadvantaged (LEAD) (Output 6)Findingsand lessonslearnedEffectivenessThe assessment targeted the following sets of questions: Towhat extent has the DGTTF project achieved its objectives?What are the main results achieved?In what ways is the project innovative? Which innovativeapproaches have proved to be most effective? Whatdifference/impact has the project made in terms of democraticgovernance in the country concerned? Is there any evidencethat the DGTTF has contributed to enhancing issues, such asgender integration, human rights based approaches, anticorruptionmainstreaming and South-South cooperation?What type of internal and external problems has the projectfaced and how has it coped with them?Is there evidence that the results extend beyond the individualproject? To what extent have they had a catalytic effect,substantially, financially and in terms of development and/orstrengthening of partnerships? To what extent has the DGTTFfunctioned as a vehicle for the country offices to jumpstartfollow-up projects in new areas and to mobilize additionalnon-core resources, i.e., to manage more strategic initiatives?These questions can be grouped in the following categories:overall objectives and results; innovative ability; catalyticcapacity; and cross-cutting issues.Objectives and resultsThe project clearly achieved three of the seven expectedresults, mostly related to Outputs 1, 6 and 7.The most immediate results were:a The extensive A2J assessment leading to the publicationof ‘Justice for All?: An Assessment of Access to Justice inFive Provinces of Indonesia’ (Output 1)a The subsequent development at policy level of a NationalAccess to Justice Strategy that will be incorporated intothe Government’s 2010-2014 Mid-Term DevelopmentPlan and the action plans of relevant ministries and theirsub-national counterparts (connected with the goals ofOutput 7)The first result is the bulk of the project and critical to launchingUNDP justice interventions in Indonesia and to deepeningA2J targeting in the country by the national authorities.The A2J assessment report and the approaches used wereinstrumental to the success of A2J at the national level. Thisresult was considered a best practice and illustrates thatprogramming should be preceded by adequate research.The ‘Justice For All?’ report is the result of a survey assessmentof A2J undertaken between January and September 2005 infive predominantly conflict-affected provinces of Indonesia– West Kalimantan, Maluku, North Maluku, Central Sulawesiand Southeast Sulawesi. With a focus primarily on theperspectives of the poor and disadvantaged rather than theformal institutions of justice, the report contributed to fillingthe knowledge gap that currently exists in relation to A2J atthe local level. This is of particular importance in conflict-proneregions, where greater access to justice affords the potentialto peacefully resolve disputes that may otherwise degenerateinto violence.This A2J assessment report approaches the issue of A2Jfrom the perspectives of the poor and disadvantaged –those most vulnerable to injustice yet least able to advocatefor change on their own behalf. Based on the results ofqualitative and quantitative research undertaken in the fiveprovinces mentioned above, the report focuses on identifyingthe key justice-related issues affecting citizens at the villagelevel, the steps they have taken to resolve those issues,and why. The performance of formal and informal justicemechanisms is also considered, as are recent legislative andinstitutional developments with the potential to impact A2Jin broader terms.The assessment strategy and the A2J assessment reportclearly enhanced understanding of the impact of horizontalconflict on formal and informal justice systems andcommunity perceptions and priorities on how to overcomethose barriers, increase A2J and seek remedies. Furthermore,as stated by some of the interviewees, the assessment15

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice Initiativecontributed to raising many issues that were unknown or notwell perceived by the state at the central level.PSPK, the university partner, stated that, ‘in the end, throughthe bottom-up approach, BAPPENAS realized that they knewlittle about the justice issues on the ground, beyond the issuesexposed by the media. The field research uncovered a lot ofhuman rights violations, unknown to the national authorities,notably serious problems in terms of security and land issuesrelated to transmigration. These were reported in the final‘Justice for All?’ assessment.’‘Justice’ is an inherently subjective and value-laden concept.For example, many of the poor in Indonesia show anunderstandable tendency to place greater emphasis on theeconomic dimension of justice, while minority ethnic groupsmay highlight non-discriminatory treatment at the handsof the majority as key to obtaining what they consider justremedies for their grievances.Survey results emphasized economic-oriented conceptionsof justice, issues related to the social and economic welfare.Respondents’ main concerns were clustered in the followingcategories:a Access to government services and assistancea Ownership and management of land and naturalresourcesa Gender violence and discriminationa Employment and labour rightsa Criminality and inadequate law enforcementa Post-conflict security, property rights and other issuesAs a result of this A2J assessment, subsequent interventionsby UNDP and the GoI (LEAD project and Aceh Justice Project,as well as the National Strategy on Access to Justice) wereframed around strategies to target the identified issues anddisadvantaged groups. As such, outputs 6 and 7 of the projectwere clearly achieved.Results under outputs 3, 4 and 5 concerned the methodologyand strategy adopted to ensure wide participation in theassessment process along with a bottom-up capacitydevelopment approach. A publication on the project from2007 provides insight into the project design process andmethodology. 8“The assessment was conducted in partnership with thegovernment, a national research institute and university legaldepartments in each province. Multi-disciplinary teams of localresearchers with either academic or NGO backgrounds who, tothe extent possible, reflected ethnic, religious and gender diversitywere recruited in each province to carry out the assessmentsand help shape the subsequent projects. The researchers were alltrained in access to justice concepts, research methods, conflictsensitivity and the human rights-based approach. Through suchtraining and new research experiences, it was expected thatmany would gain the analytical skills to serve them in futureendeavours. As such, capacity development of local researcherswas an explicit output of the projects. 9While conducting a general socio-economic mapping exercise ineach village, the research teams endeavoured to identify particulargroups in the community who were poor or disadvantaged byvirtue of:a The non-fulfilment of basic rights to food, healthcare,education and other government services;a Discriminatory treatment by government or othercommunity members; ora The inability to participate in decision-making affectingtheir futures.Villagers were grouped by geography, type or mode ofemployment, gender or ethnicity. Focus group discussions wereconducted with members of these groups in which they sharedtheir opinions about the most pressing justice-related issues theyface on an everyday basis, and their experiences of resolvinggrievances through both the formal and informal justice systems.The focus group discussions were supplemented by in-depthinterviews, primarily with ordinary villagers, but also with villagelevelcommunity and religious leaders, sub-district officials, police,prosecutors, lawyers, judges and other duty bearers. The researchteams also made use of secondary sources such as administrativedata held by government and justice institutions. After theresearch was completed, two villages in each province wererevisited by a separate team who met with villagers to verify theintegrity of the data. Further verification at a more general level8 Case Study, Indonesia Access to Justice Assessment, November 20079 The team was not able to reach these researchers but interviews with PSPKand the project manager provided insights to the capacity developmentlimited results. As commented during these interviews “…CD efforts werenot sufficient and the partners ended up by being more contractors thanpartners. Initially the project intended to do a CA, then a CD plan, thenresearch but this was unrealistic.”16

Indonesia Country Assessmentwas carried out through a seminar in each province, where theresearch findings were discussed with an audience that includedrepresentatives of claim holders and duty bearers. To complementthe qualitative research, a survey was also conducted, whichattempted to quantify community attitudes towards the formaland informal justice systems, and priority access to justice issues.Analysis, project design and write-up of findings completed theassessment process.”Under outputs 3, 4 and 5, the project document envisagedthe formal establishment of a series of partnerships, structuresand coordination mechanisms with the capacity to implementinterventions identified by the A2J survey assessment. Italso sought to develop the capacity of partners, civil societyorganizations (university departments, NGOs, and media) toengage in A2J activities. More ambitiously, it aimed to designand implement pilot programmes funded by a CommunityInitiatives Fund to respond to immediate community needs.This last intervention was not pursued as it proved tooambitious and demanding. The coordination mechanismswere mostly pursued on an informal ad hoc basis, and thecapacity development efforts fell short of expectations(elaborated below in the section on sustainability). TheProvincial Advisory Committees intended as coordinationmechanisms never went into operation, in part because of alack of coordination and monitoring capacity on the ground.In this regard, the assessment team considered theachievements under outputs 3, 4 and 5 disappointing.However, despite these shortcomings of methodology, theassessment team strongly believes that the strategy used forthe research was adequate, widely participative and ultimatelyeffective, although time consuming and administrativelyburdensome. A single partnership with a leading NGO anda more simplified strategy might have yielded similar resultswith greater efficiency, but would have sacrificed grassrootsparticipation and representation. The team also concludedthat failure to achieve the expected capacity developmentresults derived more from the demanding and overambitiousproject design than from its implementation strategy.Innovative abilityThe project was clearly innovative, resulting in the firstcomprehensive A2J assessment piloted in five provincestargeting the most poor and disadvantaged groups usinga rights-based approach. The survey project addressed acritical governance issue targeting the most disadvantaged inconflict areas, contributed to the enhancement of the humanrights-based approach, gender and A2J at the national andlocal levels and was instrumental in solidifying A2J on thenational agenda.This A2J assessment was undertaken mostly using nationalresources, academics and civil society (two international staffand over 45 national staff ) and provided the foundation andbaseline for a National A2J Strategy to be launched by thePresident of Indonesia and incorporated into the Mid-TermNational Development Plan 2010-2014.This National Strategy represents the culmination of almosttwo years of consultations with government and civilsociety actors across Indonesia, resulting in a strategic policydocument that:a Advocates the centrality of incorporating A2J for poor andvulnerable people alongside strategies and programmesto fight poverty;a Focuses on society’s most disadvantaged groups, andinsists that government policies across all sectorsexplicitly consider their ability to reach Indonesia’s poorand marginalized persons and communities and bringthem within law’s protection so that they are empoweredto improve their lives and livelihoods;a Integrates the strategic recommendations on A2J intoIndonesia’s Mid Term Development Plan 2010-2014 andinto concrete action plans of line ministries and justicesector institutions to coordinate with and improve theresults of ongoing development initiatives; anda Has been developed through an inclusive, bottom-upprocess incorporating the perspectives and concernsof civil society and local government actors who havebeen involved in pilot implementation of grassroots legalempowerment initiatives through the LEAD project.The National Strategy aims to produce a paradigm shift inIndonesia and, to our knowledge, is unique in the region.The approach of conducting an extensive assessment priorto any programming was new for UNDP. Large-scale researchprior to programming is unusual in UNDP, which oftenresponds to donor and partner pressure for quick wins andimmediate results and is unused to investing considerablefunds to conduct thorough research. The A2J assessmentwas also innovative for Indonesia, because - together withinitiatives by the World Bank – it placed A2J firmly on theagenda of donors and government. UNDP could not haveinfluenced policy-makers to this extent without the depth ofanalysis and empirical evidence produced by the research.Moreover, the A2J assessment results contributed to creatingtrue ownership of the LEAD project by both BAPPENAS17

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice Initiativeand UNDP, and to establishing the legitimacy of LEAD withlocal government stakeholders by persuading them that itsinterventions are firmly grounded in localized empirical data.The A2J assessment was in fact the first comprehensiveresearch that provided groundwork for the National Strategyon A2J. Thanks to the assessment and to the core funding fromDGTTF the country office was subsequently able to address anissue in a politically sensitive area and fill a critical gap, sincemost interventions had targeted the formal justice sector. Thecountry office approach surpassed business as usual, and isbeing regarded as an example of good A2J programming. 10Innovations were also made in partnering with government,academics from different universities and faculties, and civilsociety organizations. The partnerships with civil societyorganizations and bottom-up methodology that wereintegral to project strategy were a pioneering approach tosurvey research in Indonesia, as evidenced by the followingstatement by a representative of PSPK interviewed during theassessment mission:“…PSPK had to convince the faculty of law and the sociologicaldepartment of the university, as they did not agree withthe bottom-up approach. They were very orthodox in theirmethodologies (very top-down). They assumed they couldwrite a lot without leaving their office. The other partners in theproject – the civil society organizations - were okay with the newmethodology, but the university, especially the faculty of law,disagreed with the bottom-up approach…PSPK succeeded inconvincing all university colleagues to ‘talk to the people’ andthey constituted 8 provincial teams in collaboration with selectedNGOs. Training was organized in Yogyakarta to train all the teammembers in the human rights-based approach and peoplecentredsurvey methodologies. This training was considered veryimportant by PSPK. The team was very diverse, multi-disciplinary,with civil society organizations, other faculties and the Islamicuniversity…”The innovation also led to a major programme in justice. TheIndonesia country office built its justice portfolio on the A2Jexperience as documented in the section below. UNDP is nowa key player in the sector and its approach has helped solidifyA2J on the national governance agenda.The project also served as the breakthrough for a larger A2Jand legal empowerment intervention from UNDP – the LEADproject. LEAD uses an innovative approach to implementation,centred on making grants to civil society organizations for legalempowerment projects. This requires a careful participatoryapproach to reviewing proposals and monitoring, to counterthe risk of reversing the bottom-up approach during thegrant review process at the national level. The question ofwhether LEAD should have designed this grant-making workat the grassroots level is examined below in the section onsustainability and capacity development.It is likely that the participatory and consultative approachesthat were later embedded in the LEAD project and the NationalA2J Strategy were inspired by the A2J assessment approach,as the A2J Assessment Project Director at BAPPENAS becamethe National Project Director of the LEAD project and theprincipal champion of development of the National Strategyon A2J. The National Strategy was written by a working groupcomprised of government officials, NGOs, academics, UNDPand the WB, through a long-term, bottom-up consultativeprocess with stakeholders. The working group extensivelydebated the contents of the A2J assessment report. Theassessment’s five-step framework and the thematic issuesidentified by the A2J assessment research then formed thepillars of the National Strategy, namely:a Legal aid and judicial reforma Land and natural resourcesa Local governance (public services at local level)a Rights of the poor and marginalized (property rights,post conflict security)a Laboura WomenA first draft of the National Strategy was developed bythe working group in January 2008, and the consultationprocess started the following February in Jakarta, involvingmore than 100 experts from across Indonesia. Their inputsand recommendations were used to develop a second,significantly revised, draft paper, which was then presented atthree regional consultations held between April and August2008 in Bali, Medan and Makassar involving participants fromgovernment and civil society from all 33 Indonesian provinces.Through these regional consultations two additionalthemes– child rights and migrant workers – were added to10 In fact the former A2J project manager is currently in Laos on a missionto assess the possibility of launching an assessment on A2J building on theIndonesian experience.18

Indonesia Country Assessmentthe original sectors highlighted in the A2J assessment report,resulting in a substantially enriched draft policy paper. Furtherrefinements were made by the working group followinga high-level consultation meeting in February 2009 andsubsequent interviews with officials in justice institutions andline ministries at the national level.Catalytic capacityThe project was catalytic substantially, financially and instrengthening partnerships for the country office. DGTTFwas instrumental in starting the design process for a longterm $7.7million programme to improve A2J in the assessedprovinces, as well as contributing to the framework design ofa similar $6.8 million project on A2J in Aceh, which togetherform the bulk of the country office’s democratic governancecurrent total programming of $23.1 million. LEAD is nowsupported by multiple donors and the project currentlysupports 23 civil society organizations and universities in itsthree target provinces, with plans well under way to scaleup grant-making. LEAD is one of the main projects currentlysupporting A2J at the national and provincial level in Indonesia,as most donor interventions supporting justice sector reformin the country are based at the national level and target stateinstitutions. UNDP, having had no justice portfolio prior to thisintervention, is now one of the main partners working withA2J in the country.The A2J Assessment Project could not have been initiatedwithout the financial support of DGTTF. This proved critical tosecuring government and senior management support. Thesatisfactory implementation of the project, regular one-toonebriefings with donors, and the well-drafted LEAD projectdocument all allowed for successful resource mobilization forthe LEAD project that followed.SIDA, the current major donor for LEAD, commissioned aninternal assessment to the LEAD programme in August 2006before deciding to fund the programme. The feedback wasvery positive and the A2J assessment provided a solid basisfor the agency’s funding decision.The A2J Assessment Project also influenced country officeinitiatives in Aceh, which were designed specifically for thespecial needs of the conflict- and tsunami-affected province.The Aceh Justice Project is working to strengthen bothformal and informal justice delivery systems, increase legalawareness and empowerment of communities, help addresscommon grievances of poor people related to post-tsunamiand post-conflict recovery and reconstruction, and promotethe crucial role of civil society organizations in this regard. TheAceh Justice Initiative, like LEAD, developed out of a UNDP-BAPPENAS survey assessment of A2J in Aceh, which drewconsiderably on the same methodology, framework, and toolsused for the DGTTF-funded A2J Assessment Project.The extensive assessment also paved the way at the policylevel for the National Access to Justice Strategy, to beincorporated into the Government of Indonesia’s 2010-2014Mid-Term Development Plan, and the action plans of relevantministries and their sub-national counterparts. It is alsoexpected to impact on the new judiciary reform strategy, thesecond blueprint 2010-2025.Cross-cutting issuesThere is clear evidence that the project has contributed toadvancing issues such as gender integration, human rightsbasedapproaches and anti-corruption mainstreaming.The project design was notably influenced by the AP-A2JInitiative and the UNDP human rights-based A2J ProgrammingGuide.In the words of the Project Manager, “…The DGTTF A2J projectwas hugely influenced by the Regional Initiative on Access toJustice steered by the Regional Centre. I personally participatedin a regional workshop, which inspired me to conduct thisassessment. The programme guide gave good orientation tothe design of the project but it revealed that it could not befollowed line by line. It was also not easy to convince nationalpartners of the human rights-based approach that was trulyvery innovative.”However, given the complexity in applying a humanrights-based approach, it was difficult to work throughthe implementing partner who did not share the sameunderstanding of the methodology and key principles. Assuch, the human rights-based approach was essentiallyimposed on the implementing partner, who was given littleleeway on basic assessment methodology and direction.Gender equality and non-discrimination against indigenouspeople were also targeted throughout the A2J assessmentand are currently being addressed by the LEAD project.Women were targeted as one of the disadvantaged groups,and violence and discrimination against women is an issuesimmering beneath the surface in most, if not all, assessmentlocations. Although many women prefer not to discussthe issue in public, far less with people from outside theirvillage, incidents of domestic violence were either openlyacknowledged or more discretely hinted at by women infocus groups and interviews. Indigenous people’s rightsstrongly influenced the LEAD project interventions both in19

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice Initiativethe land and natural resources sector as well as in the localgovernment services sector. The National Strategy on A2Jis also addressing these issues with a section dedicated towomen’s rights.SEXUAL ASSAULT BY THE SECURITY FORCES –‘NOT UNCOMMON’In 2004, an Indonesian Military (TNI) soldier from Palusexually assaulted a 14-year-old girl in Tokorondo. In early2005, she gave birth to a baby, however as of mid-June, theperpetrator had provided no support. With the support of anNGO, the family contacted the battalion, demanding thatthe soldier take responsibility. In a letter, central headquartersresponded that it was handling the case, but at the time ofthe assessment the perpetrator was still stationed in Palu,with full benefits and duties. The soldier and his commanderapproached the family, offering Rp 2 million (around USD200) to drop the case, but the family rejected the offer. Oneresident said: “It is not uncommon for soldiers at the end oftheir posting to take advantage of the situation, approachfemales without going through their parents, forcing orthreatening them if they don’t engage in sexual relations.”Sources: Interview with KPKP-ST NGO representative, Poso Pesisir, CentralSulawesi, January, 2005; FGDs in Tokorondo, Central Sulawesi, Februaryand June 2005The A2J Assessment Project identified access to governmentservices and assistance as a main concern for respondents.This category encompasses both access to and inefficiencyor corruption in the provision of government servicesand assistance, and accounts for approximately half of allexamples of injustice cited by respondents throughout theA2J Assessment. The government services and assistance inquestion include health care, education, subsidy schemesof general application and aid packages targeting victims ofconflict, particularly internally displaced persons. These issuesreflect the respondents’ view that poverty, education andhealth care are the three most frequently occurring issues.It may come as little surprise that complaints of pooradministration and corruption of government subsidy schemeswere near the top of the list of respondents’ complaints. Forexample, in some villages, the illegal imposition of additionalcharges on subsidized rice (beras miskin or raskin) by villageofficials renders it no cheaper than the market price. In others,subsidized rice is simply distributed evenly throughout thevillage, thereby reducing the amount received by the pooresthouseholds whom the scheme is designed to benefit.Likewise, holders of health care cards (kartu asuransikesehatan or askes) who are entitled to subsidized medicalcare and medicine are sometimes forced to pay market pricesby community health care workers, or are given what theyperceive to be ‘second-class’ treatment.Meanwhile, there is a long list of examples of discriminationand abusive practices from the local government.Again, such issues are being tackled both by the LEADproject, for example through the establishment of local publiccomplaint mechanisms, and by the National Strategy on A2J,which contains response strategies.According to the Director of BAPPENAS “…A2J is not a new issueand should be considered a normal mandate of the duty bearers,but in Indonesia this has been distorted by corruption. It has notbeen easy to increase awareness of duty bearers due to theircorrupt nature. How can we reasonably expect these duty bearersto protect poor people? For this reason the NA2JS also adoptsprevention strategies for combating corruption by focusing onimproving public service in rural areas.”Indonesia has already adopted the UN ConventionAgainst Corruption, and a National Strategy AgainstCorruption is being developed. There is an interest ingrounding both strategies in the national context ofpromoting rights for the poor based on Indonesianconstitutional and human rights.SustainabilityUnder the heading of sustainability the assessment tried torespond to the following sets of questions:What measures have been taken to ensure the sustainabilityof the achievements of the project? Is there any evidence thatthe capacities at the individual, organizational and/or systemslevel have been strengthened through the project?How have issues of ownership and participation of targetgroups/clients been addressed both in the formulation andimplementation of the project? To what extent is the projectembedded in a larger coherent strategy directed at enhancingdemocratic governance?These questions can be grouped in the following categories:Ownership, capacity development, partnerships and synergies.20

Indonesia Country AssessmentOwnershipFrom inception, target groups and clients were fully involvedin the design and implementation of the A2J AssessmentProject, as they have continued to be in the LEAD project. Itis clear that the A2J Assessment Project contributed to thecreation of A2J champions who are currently the driving forcebehind the National Strategy on A2J. A field trip for BAPPENASofficials to the provinces with a research team generatedinterest and triggered BAPPENAS’s further commitment toand engagement in the process, and the Director of Law andHuman Rights at BAPPENAS became more interested in A2Jissues over the course of the project. Naturally the leadershipand vision of senior management in the country office andthe steady will of dedicated staff committed to A2J and arights-based approach were also essential to jump-start theprocess of ownership by the national counterpart.The LEAD project is now fully owned by BAPPENAS, whichcontinues to reference the ‘Justice for All?’ survey assessmentresults in strategically bringing the A2J agenda into theplanning process at the national and local levels. Long-termsustainability will depend on how A2J strategies continue tobe implemented after the LEAD project, but so far there aregood indications that the A2J strategy may be well acceptedand implemented at the local level. For example, in at leasttwo of the pilot provinces, Central and Southeast Sulawesi,local governments have committed to establishing publiccomplaint system mechanisms. Other local governmentshave committed to supporting NGO-run legal informationcentres, women’s shelters and other initiatives whose activitieswere seeded with LEAD project grant funding. The nationalgovernment is seeking to secure a public declaration from allgovernors at the presidential launch of the National Strategyas a token of their commitment to support A2J at local level.However, this commitment varies from province to provinceand is still quite dependent on the local administration inplace. The LEAD project team stated that as a constraint,relationships of trust with the local administration have takentime to develop and that some civil society organizations areoperating in very remote areas marked by recent conflictsand difficult relations with government. The LEAD projectis now focusing more on working with local governmentbodies to encourage legal aid funding, budget allocations toLEAD-supported initiatives and ensure project continuity. It iscritical to improve constructive relations between civil societyorganizations and local government. All proposals of LEADgrantees have a section dedicated to sustainability, and mustdetail how the proposed project supports the local Mid-TermDevelopment Plan. With the development of the NationalStrategy and its incorporation into the National Mid-TermDevelopment Plan, A2J activities have been and will continueto be integrated at the local level.The LEAD team also conveyed that in terms of governmentbuy-in it was important to have the empirical research of theA2J Assessment Project, which functioned as an incentive forthe government and contributed much to BAPPENAS’ uptakeof the LEAD project approach. Linking projects with policy atthe national level has proven critical. The planning agenciesin the provinces are the main focal points, and for this to beeffective the prior work with BAPPENAS was very important.The LEAD project is very good in terms of knowledgeenhancement and awareness-raising on the demand side, butis regarded as limited in terms of accompanying measures tostrengthen the duty bearers (in particular state duty bearers)to deal with increased demands. As an example, because of itsgrant mechanism nature, the LEAD project has not set up orstrengthened any institutional structure. This may compromisesustainability, although in some cases the local governmentshave taken up the legal empowerment/A2J agenda. One localgovernment, for instance, has decided to fund the communitylegal service centre, while another is funding a safe house forvictims of domestic violence. Still, a foundation or endowmentmodel could bring more sustainability to the project.Capacity developmentIn the first place, the DGTTF project and the AP-A2J initiativehave largely strengthened the CO project staff capacity to dealwith its justice portfolio. There is evidence that the team learneda lot from its experiences and actively tried to documentlessons learned. This result has without a doubt impacted onthe national staff since the assessment project was mostlyimplemented by Indonesians (staff and researchers) and thecurrent LEAD project is running with the support of only twointernational staff and fifteen national staff. The same can besaid for the main national counterpart, BAPPENAS, which hasmastered the issue and become capable of driving forwardthe National Strategy.Less impressive has been the progress among nationalpartners implementing the A2J Assessment Projects (i.e.,university researchers and civil society organizations). Theirchallenges have been documented in some of the lessonslearned from the project manager of the A2J AssessmentProject.Although much funding went into capacity of PSPK at theUniversity of Gadja Mada, more monitoring and evaluationcapacity of UNDP itself would have been required to followup adequately with the team of researchers in each province.21

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice InitiativePSPK’s understanding of the human rights-based approachwas not fully aligned with that of UNDP. It was difficult toconvince PSPK to go beyond the representatives of thecommunity (community leaders) for the research and actuallyfocus on the poor and speak with the most disadvantaged.At the provincial level, many organizations and researchershad never heard of the human rights-based approach beforethe project. In retrospect, the approach was largely imposedon them and they were not convinced that this was the wayto go.As such capacity development efforts were not sufficientand the partners ended up being more contractors thanpartners. The project did not do a capacity assessment nor acapacity development plan, and in the end too much of theresearcher training was spent in the classroom with minimalpractical hands-on training in interviewing and workingwith disadvantaged groups. The quality of the research andcommitment of the researchers varied widely, and the largegeographic scope of the research hindered the resourceintensivetasks of monitoring and capacity development.Building on these experiences, the LEAD project seems to haveincorporated strategies to ensure that capacity developmentis better sustained. LEAD is targeting grantees from remoteareas that require strong capacity development at manydifferent levels. Many of them, small civil society organizations,lack a strong institutional foundation. There is a risk that somemay collapse once the project ends, though this concern maybe premature as the project is still ongoing.LEAD has recently (between October 2008 and January 2009)set up provincial offices with one provincial project officerand one grants associate to facilitate capacity development,reporting and monitoring and evaluation through on-the-jobtraining and coaching.It remains to be seen whether LEAD, in its function as grantsmechanism, can move beyond the disbursement of funds, tocontribute to authentic learning, consciousness-raising and‘reflective practitionership’ (Schön, 1987).The more limited scope of work with duty bearers at the locallevel, and with judicial authorities at the national level, mayhamper sustainability and undermine capacity developmentfor those primarily responsible for dispensing justiceremedies.It is important to reinforce that perspectives from claimholders and duty bearers are both valuable and should bebalanced in any A2J project. Understanding problems fromthe users’ perspective offers guidance on which aspects ofthe justice system need strengthening to reach the poor anddisadvantaged and how their capacities can be developedto access justice mechanisms. Similarly, understanding thechallenges facing duty bearers, and any innovative strategiesthey have developed to deal with such challenges, is importantto ensure such efforts are supported and strengthened.As the A2J Assessment Project had a bottom-up orientation,so too did the LEAD project. Although both projectsincorporated elements focusing directly on duty bearers inthe justice system – including duty bearers at the local levelto whom poor people most often seek recourse, based onseveral interviews, the assessment team concluded that workwith the supply side has been limited during both projects.Advisory committees were never established during theA2J assessment, and there were difficulties bringing localadministration together with local civil society organizationsduring LEAD implementation.The LEAD project is a legal empowerment capacitydevelopment initiative. UNDP Indonesia opted to enter intoproject contract relationships with promising civil societyorganizations that had submitted technically feasible projectproposals. The approach allows project contracts to serveas spaces for learning through action and discovery. Actionand discovery learning processes are deeply experiential, andprovide the cornerstone for transformational learning, skillsdevelopment and consciousness-raising.Capacity development and learning specialists confirmthe value of experiential and discovery learning. They alsoargue, however, that optimal discovery learning requiresthe continuous availability of coaches capable of facilitatingreflection and on-the-job feedback. Although still soon toassess if LEAD has been able to produce a transformationalimpact by serving as spaces for action-reflection-action,skills development and raising social consciousness,some conclusions can be drawn from its project proposalformulation process, reassessment of frames and budgets,avenues for joint analysis of its successes and challenges,feedback mechanisms, and other elements.Given the well-designed monitoring and evaluationframework, and the fact that the project establishedprovincial offices for closer contact with partners, it appearsthat capacity development efforts of the LEAD civil societyorganizations have been adequate at least on procedural,reporting and management issues. The project developedseveral tools to support the managerial task of civil societyorganizations, such as guidelines for project formulation,22

Indonesia Country Assessmentquestionnaires and reporting formats that providedopportunities for critical reflection and experiential learning.In Central Sulawesi, local people reportedly have gainedself-confidence in dealing with legal issues, and complaintsand communications are now channelled effectively togovernment officials. A survey on grantee progress conductedat the end of 2008 found that ‘grantees have managed toimprove local awareness of and trust in their legal services tothe poor, which resulted in increasing numbers of people thatfind their way to their offices and legal aid providers’. However,the same survey emphasized that ‘the actual functioning oflegal service points could not be assessed. It is advisable [that]LEAD staff monitors these posts more closely to learn if theyneed to be strengthened and how.’Partnerships and synergiesUniversity, PSPK and local researchersHaving the University Center PSPK as the main researchimplementation partner in charge of training and coordinatingresearch teams proved difficult, time-consuming andinefficient. However, given the volume of community-levelresearch of sensitive issues and perceptions, linking thewell-established university research centre with nationalresearchers from NGOs was the right choice, and provedeffective in terms of final results.The A2J Assessment Project manager observed that UNDPwould have liked to deal directly with one institution in eachprovince that would have been responsible for recruitingand managing a local research team. Provincial law facultiesseemed to be the logical choice for this role; however, itbecame apparent that the institutions were not up to the taskof managing a team of researchers, and that furthermore, theresearchers would more likely be recruited based on personalrelationships rather than on merit.Later, PSPK assumed the role of coordinating the exercise.Capacity constraints were recognized by the project teamregarding PSPK, leading the team to conclude that it mayhave been better to work with a well-established NGO (suchas LBH or other legal aid providers with proven track records)with a firmer grasp of the human rights-based approach andA2J. PSPK required a lot of attention and technical input interms of coaching and follow-up with national researchers ineach province.It is worth noting that PSPK described the partnership withUNDP as excellent, administratively transparent and verycollaborative. The advantages of choosing PSPK as the mainimplementation partner related to its local-level network, itsresearchers’ personal connections with formal sector actors,knowledge of the communities, and past experience withUNDP, among other factors. PSPK was also successful inbringing in other academic partners such as the faculty ofpolitical science, faculty of law and the Islamic university.The research methodologies that PSPK, UNDP and localresearchers developed differed by locality. Local NGOs werecontracted to conduct surveys and then came to the PSPK basein Yogyakarta to collaborate on developing questionnaires. ForPSPK, this was an exciting capacity development opportunity,as they found the NGO recruitment process enlightening interms of transparency, gender sensitivity, diversity of faith,and so on. As the researchers themselves lived in the targetcommunities, it was expected that they could establish trusteasily. However, teams found that they often expendedconsiderable energy building trust with village respondents inorder to solicit accurate information. Despite best efforts, thereremained highly sensitive political issues that communitymembers were sometimes reluctant to discuss.State institutionsWhy did the project elect to partner with BAPPENAS rather thanthe sector line ministry or judicial institutions? This questionimmediately came to the attention of the assessment team.UNDP’s counterpart for the A2J Assessment Project, theBAPPENAS Directorate of Law and Human Rights, has amandate to coordinate all government planning in this sector.Although the team agrees with the choice of BAPPENAS asthe main partner, given its specific role in the Indonesiancontext, it would have been beneficial to associate also withthe Supreme Court, the Ministry of Law and Human Rights,and the Attorney General in a more coordinated and balancedframework. This could expand ownership of the subsequentprocess and enhance sustainability of strategies, since A2J is along-term endeavour in Indonesia.The choice of BAPPENAS has been strategic for developing anational A2J strategy, but at the sub-national level BAPPENASdoes not wield much power. For this purpose, and followingthe example of the Aceh project on A2J, more groundworkwas necessary with the Ministry of Justice and Human Rights,Supreme Court and the Attorney General. This is even morerelevant now, under the ‘one roof’ system where the SupremeCourt has assumed full responsibility for administration of thecourts and judiciary.It was left to the successor LEAD project to try andestablish a broader partnership. UNDP will have to continue23

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice Initiativeits relationship-building efforts to ensure that these dutybearers own the A2J interventions on the demand side ofjustice. Indeed, at the judicial level there are good indicationsof openness to A2J. The Supreme Court is also implementinga broad judicial reform programme. A new judicial reformblueprint is being developed for 2010-2025, and the ‘one roof’system has been established ‘in the interest of independence’to bring full responsibility for administration of the courtsand judiciary under the Supreme Court. The Supreme Courthas taken on a series of projects to bring the courts closerto the people, facilitate access to information and improvetransparency. These include mobile religious courts to reachremote areas, with increased budgets; a survey on thedifficulties of reaching the general courts; and programmesproviding free identity and land registration services bywaiving fees for the poor.State-provided legal aid remains a challenge, requiringbudget discussions with the Parliament and planningagencies. The state obligation to provide legal aid should nowfall under the Supreme Court, but as the law remains unclearabout this allocation and accompanying funds within thecourt budget, this is still not being implemented. As a result,state-sponsored legal aid schemes are limited in scope,chronically under-funded and little known to prospectivebeneficiaries. Courts may appoint lawyers for indigentdefendants only in more serious criminal matters, while thosecharged with less serious crimes may be unable to accesseven general legal advice. A basic allowance for these lawyerswas previously channelled through regional offices of theDepartment of Law and Human Rights, but this has ceasedsince the ‘one roof’ amendments in 2004. The result is thatlawyers rather than the state now bear the financial burdenfor providing legal aid in many cases, with limited exceptionswhere some provincial and district governments have madesmall allocations for legal aid out of their own budgets.Unfortunately, the working group that is preparing the newjudicial reform blueprint does not have a sub-group dedicatedto legal aid and A2J. There are six working groups, each withits own responsibility: case management, supervision (codeof conduct), human resources development, education andtraining, budget, information of technology (transparency).The Deputy Chief Justice was amenable to ensuring thatUNDP could support the establishment of another workinggroup on A2J. A2J is still perceived primarily in terms of accessto information and to the courts, and as a means of buildingpublic trust in the judicial system. Still, this is a worthwhileentry point for working with the judiciary.Local governmentThis is where the bulk of the LEAD efforts now focus regardinglong-term sustainability. Building on the achievement ofhaving a National Strategy on A2J, BAPPENAS now aims toensure that the mid-term development plan coming fromcentral BAPPENAS is carried through to provincial plansand district plans with adequate budgetary resources. This,however, also depends on a complex legislative processthat encompasses several levels of legislative powers. Muchdepends on the receptiveness of local government, giventhat administration of justice was not devolved to localgovernment and remains in the exclusivity of centralgovernment. There seems to be a common perception thatA2J is not on the radar of local government, and that thelegislative process fails to foster A2J at the local level.The adoption of a law on legal aid or an amendment tothe Ministerial Decree on Provincial Budgeting legalizingthe inclusion of legal empowerment/legal aid in provincialbudgets would contribute to local-level support for the currentactivities funded by the LEAD project. But in the meantime,based on the mid-term development plan, local governmentswill be able to take a proactive stance by supporting probono judicial assistance, legal aid programmes and legalempowerment NGOs.The mid-term development plan will be adopted bypresidential decree, which is not the strongest source oflaw. If the Government wants to pursue A2J in the full spiritof the plan, it will have to take it to the provincial legislativecouncils or though district-level regulations. This processmay take many years, as it involves funding allocations.Committed local leaders with strong political clout can speedthe process. A lot will depend on the ability of BAPPENASand UNDP to generate sufficient interest through successfulpilot experiences at the local level.Once the National Strategy has been launched, it will becritical to have a strong monitoring mechanism with adequateindicators to measure achievement levels per sectoralministry. This monitoring can be undertaken in cooperationwith NGOs working on A2J and through public participationmechanisms.For instance, LEAD partners are promoting the establishmentof local and regional public complaints mechanisms andpublic dialogues, through which citizens can channel grievancesrelated to service provision, conduct and accountabilityof public officials, natural resource management andenvironmental problems. Such mechanisms can also functionas monitoring systems at the local level.24

Indonesia Country AssessmentComplaints made have included illegal charges for issuingID cards, illegal levies on students, double taxes for smallbusinesses, pollution, illegal logging, land disputes and poorelectricity services. On receiving a complaint, staff examinesthe issue, sometimes collecting additional data throughinvestigations. Each complaint is categorized by issue, urgencyand responsible institution. The grantee then channels thecomplaint to the relevant institution and monitors progress.Among the local-level adherents to this system, the stateenvironmental agency in Kendari offered to open a publiccomplaint mechanism in collaboration with LEAD partners toincrease community trust and to manage complaints moreeffectively.The most challenging partnership has been with the Ministryof Home Affairs, responsible for decentralization and localgovernment services. Without the buy-in of this ministry itwill be difficult to sustain A2J efforts at the local level. TheLEAD project could perhaps be assisted in widening the setof committed A2J partners by linking more closely with thedecentralization programme at UNDP, already working closelywith the Government for deepening devolution of power.Many promises of support have been made, and in some districts(such as Banggai in Central Sulawesi and Ternate in North Maluku)actual contributions to grantee projects have been committed,and allocations made in local budgets for joint monitoringmissions with LEAD. At the provincial level, LEAD coordinateswith focal points assigned within the Regional DevelopmentPlanning Agency (BAPPEDA), and a number of district-levelBAPPEDAs are proposing a similar arrangement. Granteeshave also reported increasing contact and coordination withdistrict authorities, and in many cases have been invited tosupport BAPPEDA with its development planning.Some positive advances have therefore been made in buildingstronger coordination with local government, and proactivesupport from BAPPENAS has been instrumental in helpingthis come about. Still, several challenges remain: managinglocal government expectations for support from LEAD;encouraging regular meetings and substantial cooperationbetween grantees and local government; and navigatingthrough the poorly coordinated local government itself.In the future, LEAD should consider developing a more activerole in cooperating with provincial and district governmentsto mainstream A2J within these local government bodies, andto enable pilot projects to serve as laboratories producinganswers to the question, “Can legal empowerment lead toreduction of poverty?”Donors and aid coordinationDonor interest has been growing with the momentum of theNational Strategy on A2J. The National Strategy will providea framework for coordinating donor support in the legal andjustice sector. LEAD is mapping donor support in this sector,and will assist BAPPENAS in launching a donor coordinationmechanism aligned with GoI priorities.LEAD and the World Bank Justice for the Poor Project (J4P) willshortly start collaborating on a national initiative to promotethe use of paralegals in Indonesia. This focus is crucial:experience in many countries indicates that such non-lawyerscan be vital sources of legal information and assistance todisadvantaged populations.The fledgling civil society legal empowerment activitiessupported by LEAD will continue to require donor supportbeyond its current phase, which ends in 2010. The teamagrees with voices in civil society and with Steve Golubthat it would be useful to seek further support from donorsto enable the project to demonstrate its full potential.In this regard, the recommendations as made by Steve Golubin his Strategic Review of the LEAD project in August 2008are still relevant:The LEAD project should focus on an entry strategy that convertsLEAD from a relatively short-term project to an ongoingprogramme. There would be at least three dimensions to this:a Document progress toward the end of seeking follow-upfunding. First, LEAD should estimate what progress (howeverpartial and tentative) it can reasonably hope to demonstrateto current and potential donors a year from now as it beginsto gear up for a follow-up three-year funding phase. As partof the studies that its research/M&E unit is planning toundertake, it should seek to gather qualitative and quantitativedata that can help make the case for additional funding.a Learn lessons for use down the line. LEAD’s research shouldinclude an explicit effort to learn lessons from both progressand problems experienced by LEAD and its partners, and toadapt strategies and activities accordingly.a Think like an NGO: start to cultivate contacts that canprove useful in seeking ongoing funding. Most contactswith donors and other sources should be pursued fortheir substantive merit. Nevertheless, the ProjectManagement Unit (PMU) should not simply rely on UNDPto secure funds. The project should be entrepreneurialin the same ways that NGOs are in paving the way forseeking funding down the line.25

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice Initiativea In pushing a long-term perspective, it is not suggested thatthe project commit to extend support to all grantees in asecond phase of LEAD, or even beyond their current grants.It can and should learn which ones are performing best,which can improve their work as they learn lessons, and whichmay not merit further support. Such learning will flow partlyfrom the project’s M&E efforts, but also from the moresubjective but still valid impressions that the sectorcoordinators and provincial field personnel form over time.Relevance and strategic positioningThe assessment addressed the following issues: Does theDGTTF respond to a governmental request or documentedneed? Would the implementation of the selected project havebeen possible without the DGTTF? Has the DGTTF projectenabled the country office to position itself strategically withinthe concerned democratic governance service area?Most of these issues have been addressed in previous sections,but it is important to reiterate the valued contribution ofDGTTF to the UNDP Indonesia governance portfolio.As documented in the 2007 case study prepared by the A2JAssessment Project manager:“[DGTTF] funds were instrumental in starting the design processfor the project, and led to the design of a much broader andcomprehensive assessment (complemented by other resources),which provided a basis for developing a longer-term programmeto improve access to justice. These seed funds resulted in themobilization of significant resources (approximately USD 15 million).”DGTTF is considered a flexible and rapid source of fundingcritical for seizing opportunities to promote breakthroughsin advancing democratic governance. This has been thecase in Indonesia, with the A2J jump-start for the countryoffice justice portfolio. Naturally, it comes with administrativeburdens (largely attributable to normal UNDP operationsmanagement, as reflected in the experience of the non-DGTTF-supported LEAD project), but these have beenoutweighed by the positive effects. The one-year time framefor disbursement of funds was a problem, as the Project startedlater than envisaged due to delays in setting up partnershipsand securing government approval.Nonetheless, the DGTTF funds were critical for launching theA2J Assessment Project and securing trust and cooperation. Asnoted above, the project proved instrumental in establishinga justice portfolio within UNDP Indonesia. Currently, UNDPand the World Bank are the leading agencies working on A2Jin Indonesia.The Indonesia A2J Assessment Project is unique in the regionfor the depth of its research and focus on developing localcapacity in the human rights-based framework. The projectpositioned UNDP as a credible partner in A2J. Donors hadpositive feedback for both the A2J Assessment Project and theLEAD project. LEAD is currently the main project supportingthe National Strategy for A2J that will be part of the mid-termdevelopment plan. UNDP, for which A2J was the first majorjustice intervention with the Government, is now the leadingpartner for the national strategy launched by the President inMay 2009.EfficiencyTime constraints prevented the current assessment fromanalyzing this criteria in detail, the strategic decision havingbeen taken to prioritize effectiveness, sustainability andcapacity development to better serve the dual purposeof analyzing the DGTTF mechanism and the substantiveimportance and influence of the AP-A2J initiative.As such, the comments below derive more from empiricalevidence gathered from the oversight and reportingmechanisms (themselves also a product of the efficiency ofthe mechanisms) and interviews with the project team thanfrom an analysis of the ratio of outputs to inputs.Against that backdrop, the assessment addressed thefollowing concerns:To what extent does the institutional setting of the fundmechanism facilitate the achievement of the objectives? Towhat extent have there been adequate human, technical andphysical resources to manage the project efficiently? To whatextent has the support of the different partners in the projectand within UNDP been instrumental in the achievement ofthe reported results?The A2J Assessment Project suffered from a late start andwas unable to complete its work plan on time. DGTTF fundswere critical to launch it, but final expenditures exceeded $1.5million. Fortunately, the project was additionally funded byTRAC (although, regrettably, not by donors). Because of thelate approval and start of the project, DGTTF funds had to bespent in just a few months to fit the one-year time frame.Early delays also affected the selection of project sites basedon physical accessibility. The administrative complexity ofdealing with large-scale geographical and human resources(over 40 researchers) overburdened the project.26

Indonesia Country AssessmentAltogether the process took more than three years. Aftersecuring DGTTF approval in early 2004, the Indonesiangovernment approval process took over six months – untilNovember 2004. DGTTF then disbursed $100,000 to startimplementation. The research ran from January 2005 untilSeptember 2005, whereafter it took almost 16 months toproduce a report, published in early 2007.As senior management in the country office shifted, and withit the institutional memory acquired through trust and closeinvolvement with project staff and national counterparts, theteam became harder pressed to deliver a tangible productfrom the A2J assessment. Senior management felt that aftertwo years of implementation it was time to produce results.Fortunately results were positive to compensate for the delays.It should be noted, however, that the administrative burdendid not appear to emerge from DGTTF but mostly from theoperational complexity of managing a large team scattered infive provinces of a large country.Substantively, the A2J Assessment Project benefited largelyfrom the expertise and policy support from RCB, whichprovided steady guidance in the design stage and throughoutimplementation.In terms of efficiency (costs, time, and managerial aspects, asopposed to results) there are lessons to be captured from theexperience. LEAD also experienced delays in its governmentapproval and start of implementation, as well as the ordinaryhuman resource constraints of recruitment. Managerial andadministrative burdens have emerged from the LEAD project’sgrant mechanism structure and the lack of standard UNDPpolicy and procedures to deal with such fund disbursementmechanisms.One of the main constraints seemed to be UNDP’s lackof clear grant implementation guidelines for civil societyorganization partners. The project needed more clear anddetailed practical guidelines and SOPs. The modality was alsowidely debated – it was supposed to be NEX, but both UNDPand the government partner preferred it to be DEX to avoidadministrative burdens and perceptions of impropriety, andensure high management and accountability standards ingrant-making. In future, an information package for the grantscheme would be useful.However, LEAD’s grant-making facility is now well established,and after working on a complete funding cycle the projectstaff have gained experience with UNDP operating proceduresas applied to grant making. In addition, the three provincialoffices are fully staffed and management arrangementsbetween the provinces and PMU are clear and are workingwell. Cooperation with BAPPENAS continues to be closeand effective, while BAPPEDA at provincial and district levelshas responded well to LEAD’s proposals to get involved inmonitoring and supporting grantees’ projects. PMU is still veryaware that managing four separate grant making processes (inrounds), as well as supporting 35 or more grantees, is going tobe very challenging. The most difficult aspect is in obtainingtimely and accurate reports from grantees, and processingthese for prompt disbursement of funds. As responsibilityfor monitoring and evaluating grantees is shared by manystaff, there is significant potential for confusion and tensions.This has been improved by the development of a detailedmonitoring and evaluation framework setting forth roles andresponsibilities. Most efficiency issues within LEAD – somesimilar to those experienced by the A2J Assessment Project– have thus improved substantially.Political economyThis section attempts to address ‘whys’ of the success orfailure of a project by providing some insight into the externalfactors that have boosted the promising achievements of A2Jin Indonesia.The following questions are addressed: What was the politicalcontext? Who were the key national/international stakeholdersand what were their interests? What was their ability topromote these interests through formal or informal channels?How did this affect the performance of the project?With the reformasi in the post-Suharto era, Indonesia hasundergone an enormous change by moving from one ofthe most centralized states to one of the most decentralized.The political landscape is now very different from what itwas 10 years ago with respect to devolution of authorityfrom the central government. This has led to the need tomake planning processes more participatory, consensusbasedand bottom-up. As such, the GoI was relatively opento the proposed A2J assessments at the local, communitylevel. There seems to be wide consensus within BAPPENASand UNDP that the central government will not succeed if anational A2J strategy it is imposed on the local administrationwithout participation and consensus. For this reason, therehave been extensive consultations on national policy to fosterbuy-in of local administration – a reflection of the changingpolitical environment.The post-Suharto reformasi has also included comprehensiveand ongoing reform of the legal architecture governingIndonesia’s formal institutions of justice. Perhaps the singlemost significant achievement to date has been the bolstering27

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice Initiativeof judicial independence through the ‘one roof’ reforms of2004, under which administrative and financial authority overthe courts was transferred from the then Ministry of Justiceto the Supreme Court. Other important developmentshave been the separation of the police from the armedforces and their placement under direct civilian control,together with the creation of a constitutionally-mandatedJudicial Commission empowered to monitor, investigate andrecommend punishment for inappropriate judicial behaviour.Continuing community disillusionment with the performanceof the justice system and other government institutions hasalso led to the establishment of new bodies such as thePolice Commission, Prosecutorial Commission and NationalOmbudsman Commission.In addition to the overhaul of the legislative frameworkregulating Indonesia’s formal institutions of justice, a numberof important advances have been made in relation to thenormative protection of human rights since the fall of theNew Order. Indonesia’s recent accession to the InternationalCovenant on Civil and Political Rights and the InternationalCovenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights means thatthe country has now ratified most of the major internationalhuman rights instruments, while Indonesia’s national lawsnow guarantee a greater range of human rights than atany other time in Indonesian history. However, with theexception of the six absolute rights enshrined in Article28I(1) of the Constitution that cannot be limited under anycircumstances, the protections offered to human rights aresomewhat illusory, as they remain vulnerable to abrogationby future legislation.This change process and the enabling openness and policyframework do not fully account for the choice to target A2J.Other factors have contributed to the strong ownership of theproject. As one partner stated:“The legal aid bill is being requested to the government since1998 but the Indonesian government never paid due attentionto legal aid. Only thanks to the exposure of internationalcommunity discourse the government was influenced and isnow more open to legal aid, in particular after the 2007High-Level Commission on Legal Empowerment for the Poormeeting in New York where Indonesian government officialsattended and participated.”Supportive leadership was another enabling factor. Inparticular, the support of the former Country Director and theformer Project Manager were critical to a project that showedresults only after nearly three years. Thanks to their trust andpatience, UNDP is now one of the leaders of the A2J agenda.Strong national leadership was also indispensable, and it isnow widely recognized that the Director of Law and HumanRights of BAPPENAS is the champion of A2J from whoseleadership the project benefited tremendously.Codification of tools and lessons learnedThis section documents lessons learned from the A2JAssessment Project in terms of effectiveness in innovation andcatalytic nature, sustainability, relevance, strategic positioning,and efficiency, and offers conclusions on project successesand failures. It also aims to analyse and codify the tools andinstruments used (training manuals, laws, regulations, etc) forpotential further use or adaptation by other UNDP countryoffices and counterparts.Codification of toolsThe production of a guide/tool kit to undertake A2Jassessments in conflict-affected areas and the design ofknowledge-sharing strategies and mechanisms was anexplicit output of the project (output 2). The project diddevelop various tools and guidelines that were piloted andused for the training of PSPK and local research teams. Theseincluded an A2J assessment framework, training materialson A2J concepts, conflict sensitivity and human rights-basedapproach, interview and case studies guidelines and surveysfor disadvantaged groups, data-collection guides, reportingguidelines and research-validation guidelines. 12 However,because of time constraints and the project team’s heavyworkload, these tools have never been formally refined, revisedand integrated into a toolkit. Given the potential of such toolsas knowledge-management products that can be replicatedand extensively used, RCB is currently working throughoutthe region to refine these tools to support dissemination ofexperiences and knowledge sharing.Some of the tools considered most valuable by the assessmentteam, both from the A2J Assessment Project as well as fromthe LEAD project, are listed in an Annex to this report.Unfortunately, PSPK, which continues to do equity andconflict-related research, did not have any materials to sharewith RCB team members. This came as a surprise to themission, since PSPK was the main implementing partnerof the survey process, responsible for supporting trainingof the local researchers. It is strongly recommended thatprojects as innovative as this one make a point of saving anddocumenting the tools used to serve as knowledge productsto be replicated in other countries.12 As detailed in Wojkowska, Ewa, ‘Indonesia Access to Justice Assessment’,cases study, p. 2.28

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice InitiativeOn the overall DGTTF support and project results1. Capacity development is expensive and time consuming,and cannot be underestimated. The A2J AssessmentProject would have benefited from a capacity assessmentand development plan for national partners prior toimplementation, but time constraints made this difficult.In the end, capacity-development efforts were notsufficient; partners ended up being more contractorsthan partners, and the human rights-based approachmore imposed than owned.2. The leadership of senior management and commitmentof project staff willing to test and apply human rightsbasedstrategies is fundamental for success.3. Quality advice from the regional policy staff wasavailable and critical both for projects’ results and forcapacity development of country office and project staff.4. Involvement of the government counterpart frominception-catalyzed ownership and national leadership.5. The LEAD project should seek synergies withdecentralization and other relevant programmes tocapitalize on power devolution to local levels and ensurethe promotion of access to rights and use of localjustice systems (traditional and formal) by the mostdisadvantaged groups.6. The A2J Assessment Project and LEAD would benefitfrom a broader coalition of partners from the justicesector to ensure continued project implementation. Aproject with LEAD’s broad scope should not rely solelyon one champion, but cultivate many partners who canpromote A2J nationally. The National Strategy on A2Jprovides a good platform for coalition building, andLEAD is already following up by supporting BAPPENASin launching a donor coordination mechanism.7. Proactive collection, analysis and dissemination ofthe DGTTF project experience among donors, nationalcounterparts and local stakeholders raises catalyticpotential and strengthens knowledge management.8. For the LEAD project, it is critical to document case studiesemerging from the pilot projects and to use communityimpactresearch methods to track improvements amongspecific disadvantaged communities or sub-groups.This is the best way of documenting the impact andresults of the legal-empowerment approach, and mayprove essential to securing support for continuation ofthe project. Documentation should also be linked toevidence of tools for poverty alleviation and to the impactof policy and regulatory interventions.30

Indonesia Country AssessmentAnnex I – List ofcodified toolsa Mapping Framework and Methodology for Access to Justice Assessmenta Access to Justice Mapping Frameworka Guide for FGDs with the Most Disadvantaged Groupa Guide for In-depth Interviews with Justice Actorsa Guide for In-depth Interviews with Most Disadvantaged Group Membersa Guidelines for Desk Review Nov 2004a Indonesian Formal Justice System Overviewa Indonesian Informal Law Systema Interview Guidelinesa Training and Field Guidea Human Rights Tools:• Examples of human rights from the Universal Declaration of HumanRights• Examples of human rights from the Convention on Economic, Socialand Cultural Rights• Examples of human rights from the Convention on Elimination ofDiscrimination Against Women• HR Tool for the Convention Against Torture• HR Tool for the Convention against Racism• HR Tool for the Convention on the Rights of the Child31

Asia-Pacific Rights and Justice InitiativeAnnex II – List ofpersons interviewedIbu Diani, Director of Law and Human Rights, BAPPENASDianne van Oosterhout, Research and M&E Coordinator, LEADRachael Diprose, Researcher, University of OxfordFrederik Frisell, First Secretary/Development Cooperation, Embassy of Sweden/SidaRisya Kori, Sector Coordinator of Justice & Gender, LEADMohammad Doddy Kusadrianto, Programme Officer, Human Rights, Legal andJustice Reform, UNDPAgus Loekman, Sector Coordinator of Justice & Legal Service, LEADPaulus Lotulung, Deputy Chief Justice of the Supreme CourtMochammad Maksum, PSPK University of Gadjah MadaAllison Moore, Programme Manager, Human Rights, Legal and Justice Reform,UNDPIgor O Neil, World Bank Justice for the Poor ProgrammePatra M. Zen, YLBHYesua Pellokila, Sector Coordinator of Justice & Local Governance, LEADJhank Regmi, Grants Administrator, LEADTaufik Rinaldi, World Bank Justice for the Poor ProgrammeMeissy Sabardiah, Secretariat, Judicial Reform Team, Supreme Court of IndonesiaMas Achmad Santosa, Senior Advisor, Human Rights, Legal and Justice Reform,UNDPLeonard Simanjuntak, Programme Manager, Decentralization, UNDPAri Suyudi, Director, PSPK University of Gadjah MadaAbdul Wahib, Sector Coordinator of Justice & Natural Resources, LEAD32