Organizational Change for Participatory Irrigation Management

6. INDONESIA
INTRODUCTION
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Ahmad Muslim
Head
Asia-Pacific and
United States Sub Division
Bureau of Planning and
International Cooperation
Ministry of Agriculture
Jakarta
The new paradigm in agricultural development in Indonesia envisages that it can be
carried out by farmers for their own benefit. The role of the government is facilitation, i.e.,
supporting, easing, and enabling farmers to undertake their business efficiently. The type of
business is to be decided by farmers, and the government role is helping them in analyzing
opportunities and risks, so they will be able to make their own choices rationally. This
participatory approach, which implies that bottom-up planning will be the main characteristics
of future planning mechanisms of agricultural development included irrigation development.
In this regard, various measures that have been undertaken in the past and will be continued
in the future are:
a. Planning and management authority of agricultural development and irrigation
development is delegated to provincial and district government, whereas the ministry at
the central level is responsible only for the macro plan.
b. Annual plan is a combination of bottom-up and top-down, with greater weight for the
bottom-up portion, to ensure the conformity with local specific resources and aspirations.
c. Enhancing regional institution and human resource capabilities to formulate
participatory agriculture planning, irrigation planning and services.
The new paradigm in agricultural development brings about changes in water values,
from public goods to economic goods which has a social function. It may create a shortage of
water availability on national level and competition in water use between irrigation and other
sectors. Therefore, it is required to make a new policy on water management, so that the
continuation of irrigation systems and the water rights for all water users are secured. In the
past, development and management of irrigation had drawbacks, which were shown by low
society participation, low efficiency and effectivity, and early damaged of irrigation network.
In the future, with the presence of law Nos. 22 and 25 of 1999, the role of regional
authorities (especially districts) become very important, since they are given a wide range of
authority to manage all development activities in their region including irrigation management.