Legal Empowerment and Assistance to the Disadvantaged (LEAD) Project

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In 2005-2006 the UNDP and BAPPENAS (the Indonesian Government’s main planning board) undertook an evaluation of Access to Justice in the 5 provinces of West Kalimantan, North Maluku, Central Sulawesi, South East Sulawesi and Maluku. The results of their research showed some stark justice realities in the country. In most circumstances, the poor and marginalized communities in those provinces had a higher respect and trust in informal justice mechanisms (village heads, village councils, religious authorities) than they did in the state system (police, judges, even lawyers). In turn, most communities reported a higher incidence of seeking justice informally rather than formally. At the same time, there were some noticeable disparities in human rights recognition in the judgements of informal actors, and enforcement was often a problem.

This all leads to tensions in light of the fact that there is a broad definition of justice at the grassroots level. Justice among the poor and marginalized is not just confined to the spaces of tribunals or courtrooms; it involves everyday access to government programs, recognition of land ownership, the ability to make a living, and the necessary information for protecting rights and registering meaningful complaints. This last aspect is particularly important; of all the places surveyed, a lack of knowledge or resources for protection rights was very apparent.

And that’s where LEAD’s story begins. As a result of the surveys and research, the UNDP and BAPPENAS launched the Legal Empowerment and Assistance for the Disadvantaged Project to provide support for grassroots civil society capacity building, governmental advocacy and personnel training, and national-level justice reform. In 2007, the Project launched providing significant Swedish, Norwegian and Dutch grants to 6 NGOs in North Maluku. The next year, the project expanded into Central Sulawesi and Southeast Sulawesi. The grantees chosen come from a variety of fields, but typically can be classified in one of LEAD’s four grantee sectors: Justice and Gender, Justice and Legal Services, Local Governance, and Natural Resources. On the ground, these NGOs are active in such activities as spreading rights awareness, training rights advocates (including paralegals), training local communities to assess the environmental impacts of local mining and forestry so that domestic and international companies can be held accountable, and in providing support for victims of violence against women. Each grantee received a year’s worth of funding, and the second rounds are set to start this July.

Now, LEAD is a pilot for the UNDP being watched around Southeast Asia and by New York, and as such there have been some obvious growing pains. Handing out the sums of money to grassroots organizations here in Indonesia is a tricky business, requiring extensive accountability mechanisms to ensure donors that their money is being well spent, and to protect the name and reputation of UNDP programming. In this situation, where both the UNDP and BAPPENAS are technically in-charge of the project, there are often two sets of administrative expectations as well, which means everything must be bilingual, and that new directives can come from any side. If there’s one thing I’ve noticed since I have arrived, these directives typically introduce tighter and tighter oversight, which means ever-increasing administration.

This all being said, in LEAD there is a dearth of professional-level English writing skills. Where every new direction needs to be given the green light by the UNDP, this is a significant problem. As a result, most of the work of the staff here needs to be extensively edited, which has been the main focus of my work here thus far. Part of my work involved massive edits to new policy guidelines for LEAD oversight mechanisms - the most extensive (and in some cases first of their kind) in the UNDP. It may not be the legal research I was expected when I arrived, but it has allowed me to gain some interesting perspectives into law in Indonesia, and some of the amazing work going on right now through LEAD.

As a result of limited English language resources, the Project has not really been able to maintain a publications profile in terms of project brochures and website content, which I have also now started to tackle, pulling from the extensive research and initiatives LEAD has undertaken.

This next month promises to be fairly action packed, as the next round of grants come online, and LEAD’s fifth sector - Justice Reform - will finally launch the BAPPENAS national justice reform initiative, with the help of the Indonesian President. This strategy, pushed for through BAPPENAS, will serve to coordinate all the justice duty bearers in the national government, and it is hoped, in the decentralized provincial governments. This means one coordinated minimum standards strategy not just for the courts and legal aid, but for health, education, and all governmental services providers. New service minimums, complaints mechanisms, and community outreach are all in the government’s targeted objectives. It should be interesting as I become more involved leading up to the launch.

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LEAD Project Website
www.lead-project.org