IN JAKARTA , INDONESIA Mayor Lloren tackles participatory governance

While some of the local government units (LGUs) come to observe and learn Jagna's success stories these days, Mayor Exuperio Lloren shared his experiences on participatory governance and leadership based on his stint as public servant to the national workshop attended by a number of Indonesian Head of Regencies and leaders of civil society organizations upon their cordial invitation at Ibis Tamarin Hotel at Jalan Wahid Hasyim in Central Jakarta, Indonesia on February 15 and 16.

As principal speaker of the workshop on “Participatory Local Governance: Road to Build Transformative Participation”, Mayor Lloren exemplified his learning experiences as a progressive mayor of Jagna for the last six years, on participatory governance, mechanisms and strategies. “ Indonesia has been undergoing decentralization and the direct local executive election which was held in June 2005 brought a new awareness among non-government organizations (NGOs) and people's organizations (POs) to push initiatives led by pro-democratic movement in the field of local government”, Mayor Lloren explained.

The Mayor added that some of the NGOs and POs realized that the said direct election was an opportunity to create participatory governance which hopes to bring much prosperity and social justice for the Indonesian people thereby moving forward from their “traditional” role as poll watchers and voters educators into electoral politics. The two-fold objectives of the workshop was to provide the participants with initiatives of participatory governance related to democracy and well-delivered public service and to re-conceptualize democratization inroads such as participation, good governance and anti-corruption to the political core of the local government agenda.

“Participants in the workshop were actually Bupatis, a Bahasa Indonesian term for mayors, who won in the direct election in 2005 through the support of the POs and social movements in their respective areas, as well as civil society leaders coming from the selected provinces of Sumatera Utara, East Nusa Tenggara, South East Sulawesi, Bengkulu and Central Java”, Mayor Lloren said.

He added that “the Bupatis and leaders expected to build upon success stories, a balance relation between players in local governance and the poor and the marginalized in their respective regencies or municipalities.” During the two-day workshop, Mayor Lloren also worked with two of Indonesia 's active participatory governance advocates, West Sumatra Governor Gamawan Fauzi and the mayor of Sragen, Central Java , Untung Sarono Wiyono. The Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD) of the Philippines in partnership with the Indonesia Corruption Watch (ICW) facilitated the said speaking engagement of Mayor Lloren.

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