Book Launch of KSI Partners on Villages

Share

Tweet

Share

Share

Eko Prasetyanto Purnomo Putra, the Director for Evaluation of Village Progress of Kemendagri (left) and Dina Mariana (right), a researcher from IRE, during a discussion on village democratisation at the seminar and book launch of Local Political and Economy Portrait in Indonesia, Yogyakarta, 15 May 2017.

As interaction strengthened among KSI’s PRIs, as well as between PRIs and policy makers in the KSI-supported Knowledge Community on village development issues, eight PRIs organised themselves into the ‘Village Study Forum’ or Forum Kajian Desa (April Monthly Update). This is an avenue for knowledge exchange and sharing research and analysis as evidence to inform policy-making processes. It is coordinated by AKATIGA for local economic development, IRE for village democratisation, and the Sajogyo Institute (SAINS) for socio-ecological impacts of rural development. The Forum Kajian Desa is a consolidated effort to jointly publish their critical thoughts.

Through a series of discussions with various stakeholders, including academicians, civil society organisations and policy makers, the IRE/Forum Kajian Desa publication on ‘Local Political and Economy Portrait in Indonesia’ was launched on 15 May 2017 in Yogyakarta. The book draws upon the advocacy and research experience of KSI partners in political aspects of democratisation, local economic development and the socio-ecological impact of village and rural development in Indonesia. At the discussion were representatives from the Coordinating Ministry for Human Development and Culture (Kemenko PMK), the Ministry of Home Affairs (Kemendagri) and the Ministry of Villages and Disadvantaged Regions (Kemendesa PDTT). Also present were civil society organisations and academicians. 

The Forum Kajian Desa was successful in bringing actors together to address village issues. This can create connections that sustain cooperation on other relevant issues in village development through networks of change leaders. It provided a platform for knowledge producers to engage with policy makers, thereby helping to make relevant knowledge more accessible and useful to policy makers. This was demonstrated through the experience of PRIs, with ministries such as Kemendesa, Bappenas and Kemenko PMK being increasingly involved in requesting and using research. The working groups expanded within the broader Indonesian knowledge community: a recent social network mapping exercise found that actors working on the issue of village development had grown from an initial core group of seven in mid-2015 to a broader network with connections to more than 50 organisations by 2017. KSI and the Forum Kajian Desa have provided other development partners with important insights into how the knowledge-to-policy cycle works in the Indonesian context.