COMPLETION REPORT

Role of Tonarigumi in the Implementation of Decentralization in Indonesia
Dr. Sutiyo
Senior Policy Analyst
District Government of Purbalingga, Indonesia
Tonarigumi or Neighborhood Group (Rukun Tetangga/RT in Indonesian language), an association of fifties
households living in the same areas, is expected to promote participatory development in Indonesiandecentralization. This study aims to analyze whether it could promote participatory development. To do so, a casestudy was conducted in three villages, namely Kedarpan, Serang and Sumilir, in Purbalingga district of Central Java
province. Totally 240 household heads in 24 tonarigumies were randomly selected to be the respondents. Data wereanalyzed through qualitative and quantitative techniques.
Three main findings emerge from this study. Firstly, community involvement was pseudo participation emphasizing
more on resource mobilization but less in generating idea and controlling the government. Although periodic
meeting exists in most tonarigumies, the essence of participation is not real. Secondly, capacity of tonarigumi heads
was good enough in term of informativeness, encouragement, fairness, creativity, responsiveness and submission toconsensus, but slightly poor in term of accountability. Although it is still far from being clear, this phenomenon
indicates that tonarigumi heads are not able to transform themselves to practice the principle of modern organization.
Thirdly, tonarigumi was not able to empower community, so community understanding to decentralization terms,development programs and village governance was generally poor. Community does not experience an upgrade ofcapacity on issues related to decentralization and development programs in their village. On the other words,
community may be not aware about the change happening in the decentralization system.
Yet, some potentialities are identified. For example, most tonarigumies hold scheduled meetings, and substantial
number of respondent perceived that participation is increased in the last ten years. Although some potentialities
were found, it can be generally concluded that tonarigumi is not completely successful in promoting participatory
development. Complexities of institutional problems, which include weak capacity, trouble in technical regulations
and lack of support from government, are among the factors hampering tonarigumi to play its role.
What the government should do is to optimize the potentialities of tonarigumi. Looking at the current conditions oftonarigumi, there are two options can be done for improving the success of decentralization. The first is to develop
the capacity of tonarigumi head, so that they can practice accountability, improve creativity and transfer theirknowledge on decentralization to community. As far as capacity development was delivered to them, andaccountability is shared to them, it will be very probably that they will share to community. The second, hand inhand with capacity development to tonarigumi heads, the government should not limit the bottom-up proposal andparticipatory development only through tonarigumi. The other institutions in rural areas should be involved to help
playing the roles that cannot be played by tonarigumi.
Theoretically, this study also suggests that preparing the technical regulations, improving the capacity of local
institutions and restructuring rural institutional setting should be an important step before decentralization islaunched. To be successful in promoting participatory rural development, decentralization requires strongcommitment and continuous support from the government to overcome the problems of implementation atgrassroots level.

Publication of the Results of Research Project:
Verbal Presentation (Date, Venue, Name of Conference, Title of Presentation, Presenter, etc.)
Sutiyo, Roles of Tonarigumi to Promote Participatory Development in Indonesia, a paper presented in the Tokyo
International Conference on Social Science held by Higher Education Forum in Toshi Center Hotel, Tokyo, Japan,
19 Desember 2014

Thesis (Name of Journal and its Date, Title and Author of Thesis, etc.)
Sutiyo (2015), Role of Neighborhood Group to Promote Participatory Development in Indonesia, Journal of
Government and Politics, Vol. 6 (1), February 1st, pp. 125-135

Book (Publisher and Date of the Book, Title and Author of the Book, etc.)
Sutiyo (2014), Role of Tonarigumi to Promote Participatory Development in Indonesia, Conference
Proceeding of Tokyo International Conference on Social Science, pp. 439-449, ISBN 978-986-5654-06-1