Governance reform in infrastructure policy for poverty reduction

government institution capacity through improved accountability and performance reveals the state’s responsiveness to public needs.

Second direction of the reform is from the bottom, called innovative participation. This is to ensure that infrastructure is substantially designed to answer the community’s needs as the main beneficiary of the policy. Involving people in planning and decision making enables the government to contextualize their infrastructure policy with social, political, and cultural circumstances of society. This can avoid the infrastructure projects from the problem of mistargeted spending and beneficiaries. For this purpose, spaces for public deliberation, where people can freely speak their mind with respecting the others’, resolve deep conflict and engaged in political system, through discussion and dialogue, is deeply needed. Despite enclosing infrastructure policy to the users’ needs, further, public deliberation can contribute to the strengthening of democracy (Carpini, et. al., 2004, p. 318 & 336).

Another form of the poor’s engagement is through improving capacity of expenditure tracking. This is crucially needed because infrastructure services involve multiple levels of government institutions (Kenny, 2007, p. 19). The multiple level of government in delivering infrastructure services thus creates more complex challenges. Monitoring from community is needed to provide a database of information on budget allocation that is useful as inputs for government planning. Lesson from other countries, such as Australia, tells us that public access to information of contracts and amendment in infrastructure policy is good for government openness (p. 20) and thus reduces the higher cost caused by corruption.

Citizen’s engagement can also be designed in the form of participatory budgeting. By participatory budgeting, as Wampler (2000) means, is that citizens are directly involved within the policy making process, enabling them to allocate resources, prioritize infrastructure for broad social policy, and monitor public spending in infrastructure programs. Besides enabling the government to satisfy the users’ needs, participatory budgeting in infrastructure policy also has a multiplier effect on promoting public deliberation, public learning, active citizenship, improved social justice and administrative reform (Avritzer, 1999, p. 34).

The combination of these two aspects is expected to lead infrastructure development effective for poverty reduction. First, it directs the infrastructure policy to answer the real needs of community. Second, it takes into account social, political and cultural circumstances of the community as the main beneficiary, thus infrastructure policy becomes more contextual. Third, it asserts not only the aspect of efficiency but also effectiveness, thus it encloses the outcome achievement. Finally, it enables public learning, active citizenship and public servants’ ethic to operate. From these arguments, it is clear that empowering state is as important as empowering civil society in governance reform.

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