Towards The Betterment of Indonesian Water Supply System: a Survey of Sub-National Government’s Actors toward the Implementation of Indonesian PPP Program in the water sector

Abstraksi

Public Private Partnership scheme has been adopted by the Indonesian Government to improve the water supply system. Unfortunately, progress in this context has been arguably stagnant. This situation might be caused by the complexities of the water governance arrangements that involve multiple and multilevel actors. Ensuring similar perceptions between regulators and implementers is important to minimise the gap that potentially lessens the effectiveness of PPP development in this basic infrastructure provision domain. This paper attempts to present the perspective of sub-national governments of Indonesia towards the implementation of the Indonesian water sector PPP program. Particular emphasis is given to the negative aspects that make PPP unattractive to be adopted by sub-national governments and the challenges of PPP adoption in Indonesia. An online survey was conducted to reveal the perception of sub-national government actors toward these aspects. The results indicate that water PPP projects in Indonesia are perceived as relatively unattractive because of negative factors related to lack of knowledge and human capital, risk accountability and political debate, and additional burden for local resources. Moreover, this research also found that institutional arrangements, PPP regulations and leader commitments, local actor’s resistance and political aspects become the prominent obstacles for PPP implementation. By having a common understanding toward these matters, decision making at the initial phase of PPP development is expected to run more smoothly. This in turn will improve the effectiveness of sub-national governments in terms of their contributions to reducing regional disparities and enhancing the wellbeing of citizens in disadvantaged areas.