Breakthrough Urban Initiatives for Local Development (BUILD) (Completed)

The Government of Indonesia has a vision - to institute the principles and modalities of good local governance throughout the land. It has used the facility called BUILD (Breakthrough Urban Initiatives for Local Development) to help conceptualise, operationalise (i.e. develop modalities, operational methods, skills and techniques), and test modalities to strengthen urban governance and introduce innovative urban management practices. The project was completed mid-2003, having achieved it's core objectives of developing participatory urban management practices, introducing changes in the institutional framework and operating procedures of pilot cities, documenting and disseminating examples of successful urban management initiatives, and thus supporting the coordination and management of "positive change" following the introduction of new laws to strengthen local autonomy and fiscal decentralisation.

Introducing new governance initiatives has been successful in nine cities, benefiting more than three million inhabitants, in addition to city officials and municipal staff. The City Forums are operating routinely in all cities, with established city budgets supporting their operational activities. Model guidelines and regulations based on city experiences and recommendations on public participation, information sharing and transparency, and accountability have been prepared; different cities have enacted selected regulations, depending on what they see as priority areas to introduce and strengthen good local governance; supporting institutions financed from city budgets, have been established in different cities, such as One-stop Shops and Media Talk-shows; city experiences and lessons learned have been documented in a Handbook and supporting Catalogue of Good Practices. Project support for 2003 concentrated on the transfer of knowledge and capacity to national-level institutions, delivering a draft report recommending "institutional homes" for the National "good local governance movement"- to be supported through a follow-up project under preparation: "decentralised democratic governance".