Local Governance in Timor-Leste - Secretaria de Estado da Arte e ...

affiliation with political parties. These various factors, together with the impact oflocal leaders as they operate within this governance environment to pursue theirpolitical agendas, has a direct flow-on effect as to whether a suku can be consideredsegmented but nonetheless reasonably cohesive, or internally fractured. These issueshave direct implications for project coordination, considered in the next section.Implications for Project CoordinationThe segmented and potentially fractured nature of each suku has a direct impact onproject implementation within a suku—the second important area of activity forkonsellu de suku members. Aldeia are very small units in terms of the land andpopulation and even very small development projects, if they enter a community, tendto be too large to coordinate with these smaller units. As a rule, the smallest unit thatexternal actors will focus on is the suku and the point-person for most activities withinthe suku is the xefe suku.Many of the xefe suku's coordination functions can be described as 'internal' wherethey manage relations with, and provide assistance to, the subdistrict administrator,and other officials including the police, health service and the school in fairly stable,ongoing relationships. At other times, the xefe suku may act as the 'bridge' to externalactors seeking to implement projects within the suku. In late 2008 during myfieldwork in Venilale and Ainaro, the projects from external actors that I observedtended to be one-off infrastructural or community-building projects sourced throughNGOs or the government's pilot program for decentralisation, rather than moreongoing relationships. As Grenfell (2008: 87-88) notes, there is still little investmentin the rural areas of Timor-Leste and the projects that I observed were often irregularand relatively small. However, their impact on communal relations was noticeable,prompting competition for resources and indicating the relative weakness of localinstitutional structures to deal with this competition. While McGregor (2007) rightlyargues that Timorese communities should not be viewed as passive victims ofdevelopment, wherein NGO projects are simply imposed onto them, there arenonetheless important issues to consider in terms of who in the community hasdecision-making power—and who does not.162