Investing on CLA in strengthening local governance in Indonesia

Since 2001 Indonesia has decentralized most of its public service provision authorities to the subnational governments. While most of the development and public service outcomes show convergence among the provinces and districts, disparity among them is still high. Institutional and financial capacity of the subnational governments, as well as local political economy dynamics, also varies widely. With this backdrop, USAID ERAT (Effective, Efficient, and Strong Governance) was designed to be implemented based on the CLA approach, particularly the Adaptive Management and External Collaboration subcomponents. The main feature of ERAT’s CLA is a dedicated Refine component implemented in Year 1 to detail the implementation plans for the following four years. It includes political economy analyses on governance and public service delivery and co-design with the government and other stakeholders at central and subnational levels. In addition, the Activity also promotes continuous reflection, learning, and adjustment through collaborative efforts with the Government of Indonesia throughout the Implement component in Years 2 to 5. 
 
The CLA has resulted in strong government ownership of the Activity at all levels, as well as improving the government’s orientation to higher-level results rather than activity-level completion and collaboration among themselves and with other stakeholders. These positive results are enabled by the strong commitment of USAID Indonesia and capacity of the Implementing Partner to implement CLA. The main challenge is the Indonesian Government’s unfamiliarity with the approach. ERAT will continue advocating for the implementation of the CLA approach to maximize its outcomes and increase its likelihood of sustainability.