“Capable stakeholder, community monitoring, revenue stream and budget analysis, multistakeholder dialogues, and open data can pave ways for improvement in the governance of land and forest, especially those were utilized for extractive sector.” – Agung Budiono, Program Manager of Setapak-PWYP Indonesia-
Lack of governance of extractive sector in forest and land has created problems which caused loss of national revenue, deforestation and environmental degradation, and severe socio economic impact across the region. Lack of capacity of responsible authorities, low level of public participation, scarcity of medium for public involvement, and absence of adequate regulation that secure participation hinder efforts to solve these problems. In addition, low level of transparency and limited public access to information has led to lack of trust and coordination between stakeholder, overlapped use in forest and land, as well as abuse of regulation especially those related to licensing and good mining practices.
Publish What You Pay Indonesia collaborate with SETAPAK-The Asia Foundation, initiate efforts to improve governance of forest and land based extractive sector through 3 focuses: (1) strengthening capacity of stakeholders, (2) building trust, participation and multi-stakeholders dialogues, (3) promoting use of open data. This program is conducted in 5 provinces: Nangroe Aceh Darussalam, South Sumatera, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, and Central Sulawesi. We collaborate with Setapak partners in the national and regional level.
In capacity building focus, revenue issue relatively is not much used as tools for advocacy by civil society which focus on extractive industry particularly in mining (mineral and coal) and forestry. The advocacy is not relate with state loss. That’s why the capacity building about revenue issue is important, in order to enrich and to strenghten the argument and bargaining position based on advocation finding in mining and forestry sectors.
PWYP Indonesia facilitates trainings which relate with land governance and forestry for extractive industry based on forest and land. The main agenda in training are: understanding revenue stream, and technical calculation in state and local revenue in mining and forestry sector. This trainings involve facilitators and experts who understand the issues. The participants consist of local civil society organization and imacted mining community.
At the implementation of the activity in five provinces that are in Aceh, South Sumatera, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, and Central Sulawesi, there are 75 anthusiast people learning the anatomy and revenue stream mechanism in extractive sector from the upstream until allocation in community. Participants are also helped to do innovation in advocation. Next the participant are hoped they can advocate in mining area based on that tools, so the impact from extractive industry will give advantage for the community. Thus, PWYP Indonesia publishes several publication on governance and revenue stream for forestry and mining industry.
In the multistakeholder dialogues and multi stakeholder involvement, PWYP Indonesia with our local CSO partners conduct series of dialogues in five areas such as Aceh South Sumatera, West Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, and Central Sulawesi about 14 times. This dialogues mapping the gaps and problems in the extractive sector, especially related to spatial management, land and forest use. Also explored in the dialogues is transparency of national and regional revenue from the sector and the environmental aspect (i.e. rehabilitation and post mining). This forum was attended by various background participant from government, member of parliament, academician, NGOs and delegation from community.
Generally, the qualitative achievement from this multi stakeholder forum is the emerging of awareness from participants to look problem solving. Similar perception about the problem is needed as a first step to build dialogues in looking for solution. From this forum civil society are also challanged, not only they have to understand the context of problem and critize, but also they have to offer solution as recommendation.
Lastly, in the open data focus, PWYP Indonesia facilitates development of information portal that provides data and information in the open data format of mining licenses, spatial information, as well as economic aspect (i.e. potential revenue, post mining, etc.).
This program also became an important partner for the coordination and supervision program for mineral and coal sector. An innovation program led by Anti-Corruption Commission collaborates with Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Local Government, which focus on reviewing mineral coal sector.
In the last two years, Corruption Eradication Commission has been aggressively took an action to prevent corruption in natural resource sector, particularly mining, forestry, and plantation by initiating “Coordination and Supervision”. The initiative seem effective to improve the governance as well as protect natural resources from the legitimate crime, excessive exploitation.
Looking at the advocacy opportunity, PWYP Indonesia consolidated civil society organization in Indonesia that concern on extractive and also environmental issue to monitor the implementation of Corruption Eradication Commission’s initiative, Coordination and Supervision, in some regions in Indonesia. Civil society composed and delivered the position paper regarding fundamental problems in mining, forestry and also plantation sector that’s still ignored by the government. Comprehensive advocacy strategy for civil society organization to protect natural resources in Indonesia also has been formulated.
Numerous achievements have been shown. The most significant one was the huge increase in non-tax revenue from coal sector reaching IDR 10 trillion, though at the same time its price decreased 30% compared to the previous year and ore export was banned. Around 1000 mining permits in 31 provinces has been revoked because of several factors, such as expired, overlapped with other concession, and other administrative issues.
PWYP Indonesia plays role in consolidating CSOs, such as aggregating data and information, developing CSOs policy papers which presented in the regional coordination and supervision gathering in 31 provinces, as well as building public awareness.
PWYP Indonesia also initiates project to map actors in the extractive sector. We focus on researching PEPs (Political Exposed Persons), those who have access to state account and budget, as well as political exposure. PEPs have a higher risk of corruption and potential target for bribes. In this 1st phase, we focus on mapping coal industry.