WRI Annual Programs Report (2004)

In January 2005, WRI had finalized the editing of the three publications that planned to be published in March 2005.

As consequence of WRI’s research findings, WRI received many invitations to present its research experience and thought particularly in the impact of regional autonomy towards women’s participation. WRI’s people also being asked to facilitate how to mainstream gender perspective in activities such as poverty reduction, capacity development in the context of regional autonomy.

 

Currently, WRI is preparing the National Forum of Gender Budgeting in Jakarta and with WRI’s good relationship with the government both in the local level and Jakarta, it is hoped that the Forum may contribute to the process of strengthening women’s participation in the local context.

 

Background

In 2004, Women Research Institute (WRI) still continue its work to put forward the dynamic of Regional Autonomy in women public participation in the local politic. During this year, WRI was more on the writing stage of its research, as well as doing all preparation of WRI’s publication and announcing its research report to the public.

 

In December 2004, also became a special time for WRI, since all of us in WRI got news from our research partners in Banda Aceh that all of them are survived from the Tsunami disaster. This news is relieving for us. We also learned from the news in the media that many organizations/institutions, including the governments (Indonesia and International) had done many support activities for Aceh. Yet, only a few who really supporting the women and try to include women in the plan to reconstruct Aceh. In relation to this situation, WRI then decided to use the opportunity of launching WRI’s research to bring up the issue of women’s representation strategies in the process of social reconstruction in Aceh.

 

After exist for more than two years, WRI also became known to other stakeholders. As the consequence WRI had been invited to give talks to seminars and discussions of other organizations and institutions.

 

Activities

Research

After completing the first phase of data analysis and write-up for research report on women in local politics during 1999-2004, WRI invited a number of experts who are involved in social policy research to comment on the written draft. The objective of this discussion was to raise the issue of methodological problems during field research, analysis and write-up and acquiring inputs regarding useful recommendations to stakeholders involved in local governance.

 

There are 12 people who provided inputs for WRI’s research report, they are:

1. Hans Antlöv (Ford Foundation)
2. Alexander Irwan (TIFA Foundation)
3. Andi Achdian (TIFA Foundation)
4. Amiruddin (ELSAM)
5. Meutia Ganie-Rochman (Lab. Sosiologi FISIP-UI)
6. Evelyn Suleeman (IHS)
7. Rizal Malik (UNSFIR)
8. Yanti Mochtar (KAPAL Perempuan)
9. Ade Kusumaningtyas (RAHIMA)
10. Abubakar Eby Hara (ICIP)
11. Lili Pulungan (KAPAL Perempuan)
12. Alex Supartono (Researcher)

 

Below are the summary of issues that was raised during the discussion and useful input which were recommended by participants of round-table discussion:

1. Elaboration of information from WRI’s first research on regional autonomy. Readers found that the summary of findings from the first phase of WRI’s research needs to be explained further to establish the condition for second phase research.
2. List of informants needs to be presented in clear categories and with gender division to be able to learn about composition of interviewees involved in WRI’s research.
3. Emphasis on the importance to use middle-theory instead of leaping straight from grand theory to practice/case analysis. Data which were gathered during the research need to be analyzed in a way that will not make it case studies or illustration to theoretical review. It is possible that a ground theory also emerge from the facts.
4. Questions about public/private division in women’s political participation in Gender Empowerment Measure needs to continue to the phase of proposing alternative indicators/principles to measure women’s political participation. If the indicator is considered as too masculine and formal, WRI need to develop alternatives towards creating more feminine and less formal indicators of women’s political participation.
5. Suggestion that perception of interviewees captured during this research is analyzed in terms of “ideas of prosperity” among different categories of stakeholders. Interviewees’ aspiration can help formulating useful input for policy reform within local governance.
6. Careful examinations on the possibility of emerging ethno nationalism during regional autonomy period may need to be addressed in the report.
7. Suggestions for coalition of interests between stakeholders need to be further elaborated based on the findings about the creation of Local Regulation against Human Trafficking Especially Women and Children. A more detailed description and analysis about experiences of stakeholders in Manado will be a good base to develop a possible alternative of coalition between stakeholders in local governance.

 

The inputs and suggestions raised during the round table discussion will be incorporated to the second review of WRI’s result of data analysis. The discussion provided many possibilities to look at facts with different perspective and dimensions of the problem which were not being discussed in WRI’s written draft.

 

Campaign & Publication

In January 2005, WRI has finished its three publications and ready to be printed. Those books are as follow:

1. “Women’s Representation in Public Policy within the Decentralization Era” (“Representasi Perempuan dalam Kebijakan Publik dalam Era Otonomi Daerah”) by Edriana Noerdin, Lisabona Rahman, Ratna Laelasari Y and Sita Aripurnami.
2. “Feminist Methods in Social Research” (“Metode-Metode Feminis dalam Penelitian Sosial”) by Shulamith Reinhart.
3. “The Identity Politics of Acehnesse Women” (“Politik Identitas Perempuan Aceh”) by Edriana Noerdin.

 

Gender Budgeting

In January 2005, continuing from last year WRI conducted its gender budgeting training and advocacy activity. This time WRI conducted its training in Menado, North Sulawesi. The Gender Budgeting activity get support from the Tifa Foundation. Starting from this month, WRI preparing the National Forum on Gender Budgeting which is planned to be conducted in May 2005. The participants of the Forum are representative from the executive, the legislative and civil society in the eight districts/cities that WRI has been working and resource persons from the government and NGO in Jakarta.

 

References

As of end January 2005, WRI add its documentation collection with the following materials as follows:

1. The Directory of Women’s Organization in Indonesia, LIPI
2. The Working Paper of WRI’s Second Phase Research, “Perempuan sebagai Agen Perubah dalam Politik Lokal di Masa Otonomi Daerah (1999 – 2004)”

 

Conclusion

The support from the Ford Foundation is very significant to the work of WRI, since its help sustain WRI to run all activities, particularly the core activity which is research. The data collection of the second phase research had completed and the report had also completed at the end of January 2005.

 

WRI view that all planned activities had met the objectives. All research activities had completed, thus WRI has a research result in the form of working paper as well as some manuscript to be published as books of this organization which planned to be printed end of January 2005. The data collected through WRI’s research and its analyses may be useful to raise the importance of using gender perspective in understanding women’s positions and participation in local politics in the regional autonomy era.

 

At the end, it is hoped that WRI’s work may contribute to process of implementation of regional autonomy that can provide benefit for both women and men in Indonesia. ***

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