A delegation from the Office of the Decentralization to Local Government Organization Committee (ODLOC) Thailand, led by the Deputy Permanent Secretary Kamol Suksomboon, visited UCLG ASPAC from April 21-23, 2014. UCLG ASPAC organized a series of sessions on decentralization and local autonomy process of Indonesia for the delegate. ODLOC is the Department under the Office of Permanent Secretary, Prime Minister’s Office of Thailand. It was established in 1999.
The delegation consisted of ten people including Mr. Weerachai Chomsakorn (Director General of ODLOC), Prof. Dr. Charas Suwanmala (Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University), and Assistant Professor Dr. Weerasak Krueathep (Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University).
UCLG ASPAC Secretariat coordinated the visit and mobilized cooperation from members and various agencies, namely the Ministry of Home Affair and the Ministry of National Development Planning of Indonesia, the Jakarta City Government, international agencies working on decentralization in Indonesia (GIZ, USAID, and AUSAID) and APEKSI.
One of the discussions was stressing on the Big Bang Decentralization Reforms in Indonesia, an issue that the ODLOC wanted to learn about. This issue has opened up a very dynamic field for studying changes in local service delivery, governance performance and structures of power. Decentralization is expected to create an efficiency in government system. To this day, most of the Indonesian Governmental affairs are still under the Central Government. Decentralization may lead to shorten the span of bureaucratic process. As seen from sociocultural perspective, people’s interests can be better handled if decentralization applies.
The ODLOC delegation also learned how the implementation of decentralization and regional autonomy could bring the government services closer to the community. The improvement of services can continue to be much better if local government runs in a space open to community participation. The study intends to look at changes in the local government system and how it affects people after the policy of decentralization and regional autonomy is implemented. Through decentralization, local governments are able to monitor and manage their own funds, and their public services. Facts in various regions with a decentralized and regional autonomy have more room for better innovation on their public services.
After the 3-day visit, ODLOC had an excursion to the Bogor Botanical Garden – located a few kms from Jakarta. Based on the evaluation sheet distributed and compiled by UCLG ASPAC, members of the delegates claimed to be satisfied and were able to learn many things regarding decentralization and local autonomy practices in Indonesia. Hopefully, after this short visit, the ODLOC delegation can use as good references in line with the plan of Thailand Government to reform their current decentralization system.
