Efforts to strengthen cooperation within the ASEAN region have intensified in the recent years, with more expectedly to follow. In apparent response to the increasingly competitive global regionalization, ASEAN member countries have begun envisioning an ‘ASEAN Community’ by the year 2020. Three main pillars for closer cooperation have been recently developed, namely the Security Community, the Economic Community and the Socio-Cultural Community. Moreover, a ‘roadmap’ for the integration of 11 economic sectors has also been intensively discussed. Despite all of these, however, the issues of housing and possible strengthening of cooperation in achieving housing for all in the ASEAN region have hardly been gotten formal attention.
Often overlooked by public policy makers, housing is actually a critically important aspect in development. The most commonly shared concern in housing is that it is one of the basic needs beside foods and clothes. Other common view of housing is its economic face in the form of property sector, a stimulating sub-sector in the economy that can generate other economic activities such as building material and related service industries. However, housing is more than just property. It also possesses a socio-cultural role in the growth of individuals, families as well as communities. Good housing has been reported to contribute positively to wealth accumulation, health improvement, education enrichment and even strengthening of social cohesion. In other words, those who are lucky enough to live and grow up in decent housing units in good environments tend to have better lives than those who are not. And in the ASEAN region, unfortunately the latter constitutes the majority except in Singapore, Malaysia and Brunei where more people have been able to live in more-than-decent housing units.
Moreover, housing should not only be associated with landed houses because there are many other forms of housing such as apartment units, town-houses, shop-houses and the like. And discussing housing cannot only limit to the physical buildings but should also include the necessary physical as well as economic and socio-cultural environments within which the housing units are situated. This is where the notion of human settlements is often used in lieu of housing. This is also where housing issues become critical aspects in urban planning and environmental management. Some scholars have even gone further to suggest that housing can also be seen as a never-ending process of production and development of humanity.
As indicated, the main problem faced by most ASEAN countries is the inadequacy of housing, both in terms of quantity and quality. This has everything to do with the gap between the rising costs of housing provision and the people’s limited affordability. This also relates to financial mismatch between long-term nature of investments in housing and the mostly short-term sources of money. More than just economic and financial, the problem of housing has also political, social and cultural faces of it. Successful governments have used it as a tool for political supports while others have practically overlooked its importance. While the private sector tends to emphasize houses’ exchange value and ignore their use value – and therefore does not care whether the houses it builds are used or not as long as they are sold – the communities also forget to use their own potentials to work together as was the case in the past. The overall result is a misallocation of scarce resources and a mounting housing backlog.
Indonesia, for example, is facing a housing backlog of more than six million units. Furthermore, many of the existing housing units – both in urban as well as in rural areas – are in unhealthy or unsuitable conditions. And because the number of households needing housing units increases every year, it will take many years of continuous hard works and comprehensive undertaking for even the now-forgotten One-Million Housing Program to achieve the ideal of decent housing for all in Indonesia. The progress of that program was not encouraging with housing industry failing to produce even one-fifth of the target. One of the results has been the proliferation of slums and squatters. To make things more worrying, consistency in housing policy has not been a feature in Indonesin housing development. With the One-Million Housing Program now seems to have been forgotten, the Ministry of Housing has just launched the 1000-tower low-income high-rise housing program.
With backlog reportedly to be in the neighborhood of four million units, the housing situation in the Philippines is not that far different than the one faced by Indonesia. Meanwhile, Thailand has apparently been doing better with some innovative initiatives (the original idea of One-Million Housing Program in Indonesia came about after a visit to Thailand by the then Director General of Human Settlements in mid-2003), although housing problems are certainly not entirely solved. The housing situations in other Mekong River countries – Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar – are generally still less developed with limited supply from the formal private sector, if any. As these latter countries began to develop, industrialize and urbanize, the issues of affordable housing will certainly come into view in the near future.
In the meantime, as also indicated earlier, the housing conditions in Singapore and to some extent Malaysia and Brunei are in much better shapes. Most, if not all, Singaporeans can be considered well-housed, whereas people in Malaysia and Brunei have increasingly been able to afford better housing along with the increase of their economic wealth, the improvement of their public service and progress of their housing industry. For example, Malaysia’s National Mortgage Corporation, the Cagamas Berhad, has been widely reported to function well as a secondary mortgage facility (SMF) and therefore increase the accessibility and affordability of housing to ordinary Malaysians. Indonesia, as a comparison, has so far not been able to develop the same facility, prompting the new Minister of Housing to pledge that the facility’s establishment is his immediate priority.
Looking at such diverse housing conditions in the ASEAN countries, one cannot avoid considering these two following points. The first point is that it will be difficult to imagine a well functioning ‘ASEAN Community’ in the year 2020 if such a wide gap in housing conditions remains or only slightly decreases. If the envisioned ‘ASEAN Community’ lies in a territory where barriers are limited, if not inexistence, people will have the temptation to move from places where living conditions are poor to the better ones. If this happens, population pressures will be on member countries with better living conditions whereas the other members may also face different kind of problems such as brain drain or under-development. While this may be a simplistic illustration, it indeed provides the basis for an argument that it will be difficult to imagine an ‘ASEAN Community’ without seriously considering a much closer and more systematic cooperation in the housing sector.
The second point is more pragmatic and less visionary. It argues that such diverse housing conditions in ASEAN inevitably provide big opportunities for closer cooperation among the players and decision makers in the housing sector that will benefit all stakeholders, with or without the envisioning of an ‘ASEAN Community’ by the year 2020. Indonesia and others may learn about the peculiarities of establishing a secondary mortgage facility from Malaysia, while on the other hand the Malaysian counterpart may expand its area of services. Similarly, Vietnam and others may learn from Indonesia on the good and bad experience of its award-winning but now discontinued Kampung Improvement Program, while others may learn from the Philippines’ ‘Bayanihan’ micro-financing practices that have helped poor people to develop their welfare and afford better housing. Business enterprises in the region’s housing industry can also develop business cooperation among themselves. In such a way, limited resources in the region can be utilized more efficiently and reinventing-the-wheel kind of efforts can be avoided.
The cooperation can and should go beyond sporadic exchanges of knowledge and experience – something that have actually been conducted by the ASEAN Association for Planning and Housing (AAPH), an ASEAN affiliated non-government organization – in the past 25 years of its existence. Other modes of cooperation should be seriously explored and implemented. This can be in the form of more systematic technical assistance, financial aids or supports, joint programs or actions and business alliances. However, such closer forms of cooperation – except the last one – need more continuous interests and consistent supports from the governments of ASEAN member countries as well as from the ASEAN Secretariat. After all, the main role of the governments in the housing sector is not to build the houses but to create an ‘enabling environment’ for the private sector and the community to make decent housing available and affordable for all.
(Wicaksono Sarosa is a former Secretary General of AAPH. The views expressed here are his own)
Monday, April 9, 2007
Tuesday, April 3, 2007
Banjir dan Paradoks Kota Kapitalis
(Also published on Jurnal Nasional 9 February 2007)
Ketika banjir besar menggenangi berbagai bagian di kawasan perkotaan Jabodetabek, banyak yang bilang “banjir sudah menjadi tradisi.” Memang benar hampir setiap tahun kita selalu kedatangan “tamu yang tidak diundang ini” walau tidak sebesar yang kita alami di tahun 2007. Memang benar banjir besar seperti ini juga terjadi di tahun 2002, tapi tidak di tahun 1997, 1992, 1987...dan seterusnya (walau ada pula yang cukup besar di beberapa tahun yang sudah sangat lampau). Memang benar, menurut para ahli hujan besar mempunyai siklus beberapa tahunan.
Namun banjir seharusnya tidak mempunyai siklus dan, lebih penting lagi, seharusnya bukan menjadi tradisi. Banjir umumnya adalah bencana buatan manusia, atau setidaknya merupakan cermin kegagalan manusia untuk mengantisipasi reaksi alam terhadap apa yang dilakukan manusia terhadap permukaan bumi—padahal (tidak seperti tsunami atau gunung meletus) kita dikaruniai pengetahuan teknologi untuk mencegahnya. Namun pengetahuan dan teknologi tersebut serta kemauan untuk menggunakannya dikalahkan oleh apa yang dinamakan sebagai “Paradoks Kota Kapitalis.”
Kota Kapitalis
Terinspirasi oleh bagaimana Frederick Engels mengamati berbagai fenomena sosial-ekonomi-politik yang terjadi di kota-kota di Inggris pada pertengahan abad 19 (ketika kaum pedagang-kapitalis mulai menguasai dan mempengaruhi tata-kelola kota), seorang ahli geografi perkotaan bernama John Rennie Short menguakkan sebuah fenomena kota-kota moderen yang dinamakan “the Paradox of the Capitalist City.” Intinya, istilah ini menunjukkan adanya koeksistensi dua hal yang secara natural bertentangan atau paradoksal: “kota” pada dasarnya adalah sebuah “shared space” atau ruang untuk ditinggali bersama, sedangkan “kapitalisme” merupakan konsep yang mendasari tingkah-laku sosial-ekonomi guna mendapatkan keuntungan individual sebanyak-banyaknya (“individual profits”).
Koeksistensi sebagaimana disebutkan di atas menimbulkan konsekuensi yang tidak kecil. Pertama, akan selalu timbul berbagai ketegangan antara kepentingan-kepentingan individu dan kepentingan-kepentingan umum. Kepentingan individu tersebut bisa berupa kepentingan korporasi pengembang untuk mendapatkan untung sebesar-besarnya (misalnya ruang hijau untuk resapan air yang diubah menjadi kumpulan villa dan dapat dijual kepada pribadi-pribadi), namun bisa juga merupakan kepentingan kaum miskin untuk tetap bisa bertahan tinggal di tengah-tengah kota, walau harus tinggal di sepanjang bantaran sungai.
Kedua, jika pemerintah—sebagai satu-satunya yang dapat membuat regulasi publik—berpangku tangan, tidak membuat regulasi yang mengatur berbagai kepentingan atau tidak menegakkan regulasi yang sudah dibuat, entah karena apapun alasannya, maka akan ada pihak-pihak yang terpinggirkan. Mereka yang tidak mampu bersaing dalam membeli rumah atau unit apartemen di tengah kota yang semakin mahal terpaksa harus membeli rumah di kawasan pinggiran. Akibatnya mereka harus menghabiskan banyak waktu, tenaga dan biaya untuk transportasi. Kesempatan untuk berkembang secara sosial-ekonomi lebih jauh pun menjadi berkurang.
Ketiga, jika situasi yang sama terjadi, maka ruang publik atau barang-barang yang bersifat publik—seperti ruang terbuka hijau, daerah resapan air, tempat pembuangan sampah atau bahkan drainase—pun akan terabaikan. Ruang terbuka tempat bertemunya anggota komunitas banyak yang kemudian digantikan oleh shopping malls di mana keuntungan yang diambil dari toko-toko yang ada bisa “mensubsidi” ruang terbuka yang tidak sepenuhnya bersifat publik. Daerah resapan air pun “terpaksa” tergusur menjadi kawasan hunian atau komersial yang bisa dijual. Infrastruktur yang seharusnya menjadi tanggong jawab pemerintah kota pun ikut-ikutan terabaikan (walau sebenarnya tidak harus demikian).
Keempat, akibat yang lebih makro adalah pertumbuhan kota yang cenderung sprawling atau melebar ke mana-mana karena memang membeli lahan perdesaan dan mengubahnya untuk fungsi perkotaan jauh yang lebih murah (atau menguntungkan, kalau dilihat dari kacamata korporasi) dibanding membangun ruang kota secara vertikal ke atas yang hemat lahan. Di sini, yang menjadi korban adalah lingkungan alam di sekitar kawasan perkotaan. Kalaupun ada pembangunan vertikal, ini hanya terjadi untuk perkantoran, hotel atau apartemen mahal namun sulit mengharapkan adanya rumah susun murah jika tidak ada subsidi pemerintah.
Kelima, akibat yang juga kurang terlihat adalah terjadinya alokasi yang salah terhadap sumberdaya yang terbatas (misallocation of scarce resources). Dana maupun bahan untuk pembangunan yang secara umum bisa dikatakan terbatas malah digunakan untuk membangun sesuatu yang tidak dihuni (walau ada yang memiliki) sementara ada banyak pihak lain yang sulit mendapatkan bahkan sejengkal ruang kota. Hal ini bisa kita lihat pada banyaknya apartemen-apartemen atau ruang perkantoran yang kosong.
Pemerintah Harus Memimpin
Proses-proses di atas—walau menimbulkan kerugian pada mereka yang terpinggirkan, ruang publik dan lingkungan alam—adalah sangat "wajar" terjadi karena pada dasarnya manusia adalah makhluk ekonomi yang banyak berhitung untung rugi untuk diri sendiri. Namun, jangan lupa, manusia juga adalah makhluk sosial yang harus dan mampu berbuat untuk kepentingan bersama. Toh kalau kepentingan bersama diabaikan, yang rugi juga individu-individu anggota masyarakat (selain kerugian pemerintah). Contoh yang paling nyata adalah banjir besar yang baru kita alami.
Adalah peran pemerintah (pusat maupun kota) untuk secara pro-aktif mengajak masyarakat untuk memikirikan bagaimana melindungi ruang-ruang publik, lingkungan alam di sekitar kita dan bahkan mereka yang terpaksa terpinggirkan oleh proses-proses pertumbuhan kota yang kapitalistik. Di era yang demokratik dan semakin liberal, peran pemerintah memang sudah banyak berkurang. Namun ketika masyarakat madani—yang benar-benar madani dalam arti memiliki modal sosial yang besar sehingga anggotanya tidak hanya memikirkan diri sendiri—belum terwujud, maka kepemimpinan pemerintah yang kuat tetapi berorientasi kepada kepentingan publik (bukan berorientasi kepada kantong pribadi) sangat ditunggu-tunggu. Akan datangkah, seperti yang dijanjikan oleh Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono?
Ketika banjir besar menggenangi berbagai bagian di kawasan perkotaan Jabodetabek, banyak yang bilang “banjir sudah menjadi tradisi.” Memang benar hampir setiap tahun kita selalu kedatangan “tamu yang tidak diundang ini” walau tidak sebesar yang kita alami di tahun 2007. Memang benar banjir besar seperti ini juga terjadi di tahun 2002, tapi tidak di tahun 1997, 1992, 1987...dan seterusnya (walau ada pula yang cukup besar di beberapa tahun yang sudah sangat lampau). Memang benar, menurut para ahli hujan besar mempunyai siklus beberapa tahunan.
Namun banjir seharusnya tidak mempunyai siklus dan, lebih penting lagi, seharusnya bukan menjadi tradisi. Banjir umumnya adalah bencana buatan manusia, atau setidaknya merupakan cermin kegagalan manusia untuk mengantisipasi reaksi alam terhadap apa yang dilakukan manusia terhadap permukaan bumi—padahal (tidak seperti tsunami atau gunung meletus) kita dikaruniai pengetahuan teknologi untuk mencegahnya. Namun pengetahuan dan teknologi tersebut serta kemauan untuk menggunakannya dikalahkan oleh apa yang dinamakan sebagai “Paradoks Kota Kapitalis.”
Kota Kapitalis
Terinspirasi oleh bagaimana Frederick Engels mengamati berbagai fenomena sosial-ekonomi-politik yang terjadi di kota-kota di Inggris pada pertengahan abad 19 (ketika kaum pedagang-kapitalis mulai menguasai dan mempengaruhi tata-kelola kota), seorang ahli geografi perkotaan bernama John Rennie Short menguakkan sebuah fenomena kota-kota moderen yang dinamakan “the Paradox of the Capitalist City.” Intinya, istilah ini menunjukkan adanya koeksistensi dua hal yang secara natural bertentangan atau paradoksal: “kota” pada dasarnya adalah sebuah “shared space” atau ruang untuk ditinggali bersama, sedangkan “kapitalisme” merupakan konsep yang mendasari tingkah-laku sosial-ekonomi guna mendapatkan keuntungan individual sebanyak-banyaknya (“individual profits”).
Koeksistensi sebagaimana disebutkan di atas menimbulkan konsekuensi yang tidak kecil. Pertama, akan selalu timbul berbagai ketegangan antara kepentingan-kepentingan individu dan kepentingan-kepentingan umum. Kepentingan individu tersebut bisa berupa kepentingan korporasi pengembang untuk mendapatkan untung sebesar-besarnya (misalnya ruang hijau untuk resapan air yang diubah menjadi kumpulan villa dan dapat dijual kepada pribadi-pribadi), namun bisa juga merupakan kepentingan kaum miskin untuk tetap bisa bertahan tinggal di tengah-tengah kota, walau harus tinggal di sepanjang bantaran sungai.
Kedua, jika pemerintah—sebagai satu-satunya yang dapat membuat regulasi publik—berpangku tangan, tidak membuat regulasi yang mengatur berbagai kepentingan atau tidak menegakkan regulasi yang sudah dibuat, entah karena apapun alasannya, maka akan ada pihak-pihak yang terpinggirkan. Mereka yang tidak mampu bersaing dalam membeli rumah atau unit apartemen di tengah kota yang semakin mahal terpaksa harus membeli rumah di kawasan pinggiran. Akibatnya mereka harus menghabiskan banyak waktu, tenaga dan biaya untuk transportasi. Kesempatan untuk berkembang secara sosial-ekonomi lebih jauh pun menjadi berkurang.
Ketiga, jika situasi yang sama terjadi, maka ruang publik atau barang-barang yang bersifat publik—seperti ruang terbuka hijau, daerah resapan air, tempat pembuangan sampah atau bahkan drainase—pun akan terabaikan. Ruang terbuka tempat bertemunya anggota komunitas banyak yang kemudian digantikan oleh shopping malls di mana keuntungan yang diambil dari toko-toko yang ada bisa “mensubsidi” ruang terbuka yang tidak sepenuhnya bersifat publik. Daerah resapan air pun “terpaksa” tergusur menjadi kawasan hunian atau komersial yang bisa dijual. Infrastruktur yang seharusnya menjadi tanggong jawab pemerintah kota pun ikut-ikutan terabaikan (walau sebenarnya tidak harus demikian).
Keempat, akibat yang lebih makro adalah pertumbuhan kota yang cenderung sprawling atau melebar ke mana-mana karena memang membeli lahan perdesaan dan mengubahnya untuk fungsi perkotaan jauh yang lebih murah (atau menguntungkan, kalau dilihat dari kacamata korporasi) dibanding membangun ruang kota secara vertikal ke atas yang hemat lahan. Di sini, yang menjadi korban adalah lingkungan alam di sekitar kawasan perkotaan. Kalaupun ada pembangunan vertikal, ini hanya terjadi untuk perkantoran, hotel atau apartemen mahal namun sulit mengharapkan adanya rumah susun murah jika tidak ada subsidi pemerintah.
Kelima, akibat yang juga kurang terlihat adalah terjadinya alokasi yang salah terhadap sumberdaya yang terbatas (misallocation of scarce resources). Dana maupun bahan untuk pembangunan yang secara umum bisa dikatakan terbatas malah digunakan untuk membangun sesuatu yang tidak dihuni (walau ada yang memiliki) sementara ada banyak pihak lain yang sulit mendapatkan bahkan sejengkal ruang kota. Hal ini bisa kita lihat pada banyaknya apartemen-apartemen atau ruang perkantoran yang kosong.
Pemerintah Harus Memimpin
Proses-proses di atas—walau menimbulkan kerugian pada mereka yang terpinggirkan, ruang publik dan lingkungan alam—adalah sangat "wajar" terjadi karena pada dasarnya manusia adalah makhluk ekonomi yang banyak berhitung untung rugi untuk diri sendiri. Namun, jangan lupa, manusia juga adalah makhluk sosial yang harus dan mampu berbuat untuk kepentingan bersama. Toh kalau kepentingan bersama diabaikan, yang rugi juga individu-individu anggota masyarakat (selain kerugian pemerintah). Contoh yang paling nyata adalah banjir besar yang baru kita alami.
Adalah peran pemerintah (pusat maupun kota) untuk secara pro-aktif mengajak masyarakat untuk memikirikan bagaimana melindungi ruang-ruang publik, lingkungan alam di sekitar kita dan bahkan mereka yang terpaksa terpinggirkan oleh proses-proses pertumbuhan kota yang kapitalistik. Di era yang demokratik dan semakin liberal, peran pemerintah memang sudah banyak berkurang. Namun ketika masyarakat madani—yang benar-benar madani dalam arti memiliki modal sosial yang besar sehingga anggotanya tidak hanya memikirkan diri sendiri—belum terwujud, maka kepemimpinan pemerintah yang kuat tetapi berorientasi kepada kepentingan publik (bukan berorientasi kepada kantong pribadi) sangat ditunggu-tunggu. Akan datangkah, seperti yang dijanjikan oleh Presiden Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono?
Sunday, April 1, 2007
Who's Wicak? An Introduction
Wicaksono Sarosa sees himself as a committed professional knowledge-worker—facilitating processes of knowledge transfer—in the area planning and management for sustainable urban and community development, including in their relationships with the critical issues of dealing with the informal economy, strengthening social capital and managing environmental sustainability.
Upon finishing his five-year term as the executive director of the Urban and Regional Development Institute (URDI), a not-for-profit research/training organization, in January 2007, Wicak worked for almost three years as an independent consultant/researcher/training facilitator/writer on urban/environmental/local planning/governance issues. He was also one of the founding-partners at Rona Kota Selaras, a Jakarta-based urban design and planning consulting firm (established in 1997). From 1997 through 2009, he taught various classes (urban ecology, urban management and planning methods/processes) at the Trisakti University's School of Architecture's bachelor program, and later its post-graduate program. Beginning October 2009, Wicak has been assigned as the Executive Director of the Partnership for Governance Reform, a multi-stakeholder organization aimed at promoting governance reforms in Indonesia.
Wicak earned his doctorate degree in urban and regional planning from the University of California at Berkeley (2001) with a dissertation titled: “Infrastructure-based Community Development: Theories and Practices of Sustainable Development at the Local Level with a Participant-Observation of Three Pilot-Projects in Rural Villages of Java, Indonesia”. His master degree also came from the same university (1993) with a thesis titled: “The Dual Formal-Informal Growth of Jakarta: A Study of the Morphological Impacts of Economic Growth in Metropolis of the Developing World”. His bachelor degree in Architecture was earned in 1984 at the Bandung Institute of Technology. From 1990-1992, he received a Fulbright scholarship that enabled him to study in the United States of America.
Wicak has written quite a number of articles and presentation papers. One of his published writings is a working paper, titled “A Framework for the Analysis of Urban Sustainability: Linking Theory and Practice” (Urban and Regional Development Paper Series 2002/2). He has also contributed a chapter in a number of books edited by others, such as "Mengetengahkan yang Terpinggirkan: Ekonomi Informal Perkotaan" (in Soegijoko, Napitupulu and Mulyana, eds, 2005, "Pembangunan Kota Indonesia dalam Abad 21," URDI – YSS), "Indonesia" (in Roberts and Kanaley, eds., 2006, "Urbanization and Sustainability in Asia: Good Practice Approaches in Urban Region Development," Asian Development Bank – Cities Alliance) and "Globalisasi dan Metropolitan di Indonesia" (in Winarso, ed, 2006, "Metropolitan di Indonesia: Kenyataan dan Tantangan dalam Penataan Ruang," Direktorat Jenderal Penataan Ruang, Departemen Pekerjaan Umum). He also co-wrote (with Mulya Amri) a chapter on Human Settlements in the "Status Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia 2006" (State of the Environment Report in Indonesia 2006) published recently by the Ministry of Environment. Also with Mulya Amri, Wicak co-wrote "CSR untuk Penguatan Modal Sosial" (published in 2008 by the Indonesia Business Link as one of five-volume series on CSR). He is currently working on a book of his own, expected to be published in mid 2010. [some of the afore-mentioned publications are available on-line with the addresses below]
In most of his professional endeavors, Wicak tries to combine his theoretical knowledge and his practical experiences. He has been involved in various urban design, planning and development projects since 1984, including a number of newtown development projects (such as Bumi Serpong damai, Bintaro Jaya among others). Wicak has also worked in participatory projects at the community level. In recent years, Wicak has also been active as a training facilitator in various local capacity building exercises not only in various places in Indonesia but also in Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia, and Bhutan, from every of which he always also tries to gather relevant insights about the places, people and cultures.
Wicak also has led a number of collaborative works involving various other organizations such as in the Local Governance Forum (2002-2003)—which was supported by associations of local governments, related NGOs and a number of international donor agencies. He also initiated and coordinated a civil-society collaboration for community-based village reconstruction processes in tsunami-affected Banda Aceh (2005-2006). In addition to his more substantive works as outlined above, he also has held various positions in a number of related national as well as international organizations.
In the last three years, Wicak was involved in join efforts to develop and apply a Report Card on the Implementation of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) at the local level in Indonesian cities/districts (2007). Adapted from various Citizen Report Card models (most prominently from the UNDP/TUGI's Report Card), the "Kartu Penilaian Bersama" involves not only members of the civil society but also representatives of the local governments, allowing dialogues between them. Lessons on how such an approach can be best implemented are still being learnt from these on-going activities. Likewise, the format and contents of the MDG Citizen Report Card are still continuously updated while at the same time being applied.
Another major work that Wicak recently concluded (2008) is an analytical study of district planning and budgeting processes, working with two other colleagues and commissioned by the Decentralization Support Facility (DSF) and the National Planning Agency (BAPPENAS). The study concludes, among others, that more integrated planning and budgeting processes at the district level is critically needed if we are to ensure that people's voices are heard in the processes. The weak planning - budgeting integration is due, among others, to some historical - idealogical differences between the law regulating development planning and the one that regulates budgeting. In addition, more time and supports also need to be allocated for better participatory processes at the community level. (Titled "Making People' Voices Matter", the study can be downloaded from http://www.dsfindonesia.org/, among the publications of DSF's Focal Area-2).
Throughout 2009, Wicak was tasked to lead a team in developing the National Urban Policy and Strategy, commisioned by the BAPPENAS, Directorate General of Human Settlements of the Ministry of Public Works and the World Bank. It is indeed an important, and actually a very strategic, endeavor. Wicak and his team have been trying to introduce a new approach in dealing with the urbanization phenomenon in Indonesia. The rough draft of NUSP was presented and shared internationally at a conference in Damascus in September 2009 and received good feedbacks. However the overall project circumstances have been far from ideal. Although originally planned to result in the Final Draft before October 2009, the NUSP process has been delayed for various reasons and the draft is currently still being formulated while at the same time he already has to assume his new position at the Partnership for Governance Reform. He wish to conclude his part in the NUSP development no later than the first quarter of 2010 (while the NUSP process will continue with local pilots of developing Local Urban Strategy and Policy).
Wicak lives in Jakarta with his wife and their daughter (while their son now lives in the US, studying at the University of Washington in Seattle). When time allows, Wicak likes to do painting, photography, easy readings, easy music listening, swimming or traveling with the family. He also always enjoys walking around neighborhoods and talking to people on the streets in Jakarta or wherever he is.
Upon finishing his five-year term as the executive director of the Urban and Regional Development Institute (URDI), a not-for-profit research/training organization, in January 2007, Wicak worked for almost three years as an independent consultant/researcher/training facilitator/writer on urban/environmental/local planning/governance issues. He was also one of the founding-partners at Rona Kota Selaras, a Jakarta-based urban design and planning consulting firm (established in 1997). From 1997 through 2009, he taught various classes (urban ecology, urban management and planning methods/processes) at the Trisakti University's School of Architecture's bachelor program, and later its post-graduate program. Beginning October 2009, Wicak has been assigned as the Executive Director of the Partnership for Governance Reform, a multi-stakeholder organization aimed at promoting governance reforms in Indonesia.
Wicak earned his doctorate degree in urban and regional planning from the University of California at Berkeley (2001) with a dissertation titled: “Infrastructure-based Community Development: Theories and Practices of Sustainable Development at the Local Level with a Participant-Observation of Three Pilot-Projects in Rural Villages of Java, Indonesia”. His master degree also came from the same university (1993) with a thesis titled: “The Dual Formal-Informal Growth of Jakarta: A Study of the Morphological Impacts of Economic Growth in Metropolis of the Developing World”. His bachelor degree in Architecture was earned in 1984 at the Bandung Institute of Technology. From 1990-1992, he received a Fulbright scholarship that enabled him to study in the United States of America.
Wicak has written quite a number of articles and presentation papers. One of his published writings is a working paper, titled “A Framework for the Analysis of Urban Sustainability: Linking Theory and Practice” (Urban and Regional Development Paper Series 2002/2). He has also contributed a chapter in a number of books edited by others, such as "Mengetengahkan yang Terpinggirkan: Ekonomi Informal Perkotaan" (in Soegijoko, Napitupulu and Mulyana, eds, 2005, "Pembangunan Kota Indonesia dalam Abad 21," URDI – YSS), "Indonesia" (in Roberts and Kanaley, eds., 2006, "Urbanization and Sustainability in Asia: Good Practice Approaches in Urban Region Development," Asian Development Bank – Cities Alliance) and "Globalisasi dan Metropolitan di Indonesia" (in Winarso, ed, 2006, "Metropolitan di Indonesia: Kenyataan dan Tantangan dalam Penataan Ruang," Direktorat Jenderal Penataan Ruang, Departemen Pekerjaan Umum). He also co-wrote (with Mulya Amri) a chapter on Human Settlements in the "Status Lingkungan Hidup Indonesia 2006" (State of the Environment Report in Indonesia 2006) published recently by the Ministry of Environment. Also with Mulya Amri, Wicak co-wrote "CSR untuk Penguatan Modal Sosial" (published in 2008 by the Indonesia Business Link as one of five-volume series on CSR). He is currently working on a book of his own, expected to be published in mid 2010. [some of the afore-mentioned publications are available on-line with the addresses below]
In most of his professional endeavors, Wicak tries to combine his theoretical knowledge and his practical experiences. He has been involved in various urban design, planning and development projects since 1984, including a number of newtown development projects (such as Bumi Serpong damai, Bintaro Jaya among others). Wicak has also worked in participatory projects at the community level. In recent years, Wicak has also been active as a training facilitator in various local capacity building exercises not only in various places in Indonesia but also in Cambodia, Vietnam, Australia, and Bhutan, from every of which he always also tries to gather relevant insights about the places, people and cultures.
Wicak also has led a number of collaborative works involving various other organizations such as in the Local Governance Forum (2002-2003)—which was supported by associations of local governments, related NGOs and a number of international donor agencies. He also initiated and coordinated a civil-society collaboration for community-based village reconstruction processes in tsunami-affected Banda Aceh (2005-2006). In addition to his more substantive works as outlined above, he also has held various positions in a number of related national as well as international organizations.
In the last three years, Wicak was involved in join efforts to develop and apply a Report Card on the Implementation of the Millenium Development Goals (MDGs) at the local level in Indonesian cities/districts (2007). Adapted from various Citizen Report Card models (most prominently from the UNDP/TUGI's Report Card), the "Kartu Penilaian Bersama" involves not only members of the civil society but also representatives of the local governments, allowing dialogues between them. Lessons on how such an approach can be best implemented are still being learnt from these on-going activities. Likewise, the format and contents of the MDG Citizen Report Card are still continuously updated while at the same time being applied.
Another major work that Wicak recently concluded (2008) is an analytical study of district planning and budgeting processes, working with two other colleagues and commissioned by the Decentralization Support Facility (DSF) and the National Planning Agency (BAPPENAS). The study concludes, among others, that more integrated planning and budgeting processes at the district level is critically needed if we are to ensure that people's voices are heard in the processes. The weak planning - budgeting integration is due, among others, to some historical - idealogical differences between the law regulating development planning and the one that regulates budgeting. In addition, more time and supports also need to be allocated for better participatory processes at the community level. (Titled "Making People' Voices Matter", the study can be downloaded from http://www.dsfindonesia.org/, among the publications of DSF's Focal Area-2).
Throughout 2009, Wicak was tasked to lead a team in developing the National Urban Policy and Strategy, commisioned by the BAPPENAS, Directorate General of Human Settlements of the Ministry of Public Works and the World Bank. It is indeed an important, and actually a very strategic, endeavor. Wicak and his team have been trying to introduce a new approach in dealing with the urbanization phenomenon in Indonesia. The rough draft of NUSP was presented and shared internationally at a conference in Damascus in September 2009 and received good feedbacks. However the overall project circumstances have been far from ideal. Although originally planned to result in the Final Draft before October 2009, the NUSP process has been delayed for various reasons and the draft is currently still being formulated while at the same time he already has to assume his new position at the Partnership for Governance Reform. He wish to conclude his part in the NUSP development no later than the first quarter of 2010 (while the NUSP process will continue with local pilots of developing Local Urban Strategy and Policy).
Wicak lives in Jakarta with his wife and their daughter (while their son now lives in the US, studying at the University of Washington in Seattle). When time allows, Wicak likes to do painting, photography, easy readings, easy music listening, swimming or traveling with the family. He also always enjoys walking around neighborhoods and talking to people on the streets in Jakarta or wherever he is.
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