Partnerships for Local Economic Development (PLED/KPEL) (Completed)

It has long been recognised that the more isolated regions of countries fail to develop economically because they are left out of the mainstream. The designers of KPEL postulated that this situation could be rectified through prudent investment in support of the natural motivations and the dynamics of trade. The idea was to identify market opportunities and then link rural producers with those market opportunities - particularly outside markets. KPEL broadened this approach from strict rural-urban linkages to building and linking associations of producers and suppliers through participatory planning and management processes. Project objectives therefore are to capacitate and prepare Indonesian institutions at local/regional levels to form partnerships which promote local economic development, building on the approach developed and tested in the earlier phase, whilst also developing national level partnerships to sustain and connect the local-regional partnerships to the national and international levels.

2003 project support further broadened partnership development at the local/regional-levels, documented additional good practices and further synthesised the lessons learned through an independent evaluation, whilst building the national/international-level support mechanisms. The coffee industry of Lampung was documented, demonstrating that trading groups benefit by sharing their market knowledge with the farmers who, once better informed are able to produce better quality products, which return higher values to the mutual benefit of both farmer and trader. Through a review of such partnerships, an independent evaluation concluded that members of such clusters benefited from the "12-step KPEL" approach, with increased income levels and (often) improved shelter conditions. Meanwhile, a national-level partnership of government institutions, traders and producers associations has been established, but is still exploring appropriate institutional linkages to the local/regional partnerships established under earlier project support. Further documentation of local/regional partnerships are planned for 2004, along with continuing support at the national-level.