WB: $45 million for urban development in Indonesia

[Alvin]

WORLD BANK PROVIDES $45 MILLION TO SUPPORT URBAN DEVELOPMENT REFORM IN INDONESIA

Washington, June 7, 2005 -- The World Bank’s Executive Board approved a
project today to support urban sector development reform in Indonesia. The
project aims to improve urban services in key urban areas throughout the
country. This is the first step toward achieving the Government of Indonesia’s
long-term goal to develop self-reliant, competitive cities.

The project will be financed through a soft-loan amounting to US$ 45 million,
with an additional matching fund of US$ 13 million from the Government, and a
US$ 5 million Japanese grant. The unique feature of this program is that it
links the provision of funds (for high priority investments in infrastructure)
to reforms in local governance. Participating cities have committed themselves
to significant reforms, including enhanced civic participation in
decisionmaking and monitoring; adoption of extensive public information
disclosure policies; and reform of procurement and financial management
practices. In exchange of the delivery of the above reforms, the project will
also finance priority urban investments. At the central level, the project will
support the implementation of the Urban Institutional Development Program
(UIDP) for supporting urban reforms and institutional capacity building.

The initiative aims to strengthen municipal institutional capacity to formulate
long-term urban development strategies and plans, including local economic
development and urban poverty reduction strategies. Another important aspect is
building municipal institutional capacity and professionalizing municipal
managers and staff, as well as enhancing fiscal capacity by rationalizing
expenditures and increasing revenues.

The project will support the following urban local governments: Kabupaten Musi
Banyuasin, Kabupaten Manokwari, Kabupaten Parigi Muotong, Kabupaten Sidendreng
Rappang, Kabupaten Sleman, Kota Blitar, Kota Cimahi, Kota Depok, Kota Palu,
Kota Parepare, Kota Palopo, Kota Semarang and Kota Yogyakarta,

Success of the project will be measured both by the extent to which the quality
of infrastructure is improved, and by indicators of the quality, responsiveness
and transparency of participating local governments. The performance of
governance reforms and institutional capacity development will be measured by
the indicators defined in the reform action plans mutually agreed.. The timely
implementation of reforms will be regularly monitored.

The task of helping the Government of Indonesia develop self-reliant cities
under an evolving political and economic environment is expected to be long and
onerous. The World Bank expects to support the Government’s efforts to improve
local infrastructure and governance through a series of such programs that
would deepen reforms, and increase the number of participating urban local
governments.

"Indonesia's future development is in large part dependent on the success of
its urban areas. These cities and towns now have huge responsibilities, yet
little capacity to implement them. This program’s unique contribution is to
link the provision of high quality infrastructure with capacity building and
governance reform", said Andrew Steer, World Bank Country Director for
Indonesia.

[bahar]

Do you guys think Wolfowitz is behind this approval?

Anyway, it's great that World bank is supporting the development of self-reliant cities in Indonesia. We need more than just Jakarta...

[Alvin]

Originally Posted by bahar

Do you guys think Wolfowitz is behind this approval?

Anyway, it's great that World bank is supporting the development of self-reliant cities in Indonesia. We need more than just Jakarta...

if he really is behidn this one, I hope we'll see a lot more assistance from him in the future.