Nyssa Nastasia

20120510395

Review on :
Indonesia ; Flexible NGOs vs Inconsistent State Control
(by Yumiko Sakai)
The main purpose of the article is to provide us with the history of NGO in Indonesia, starting
from pre independence era, the era of President Soekarno (1945 1966 ), the era of
President Soeharto (1966 1998) and the reformation era (post-Soehato regime). Not only
does this article provide with the development of NGO through all these times, but it also
tells us about the types of NGO that is most dominant in Indonesia. The article also tells us
about the laws that needs to be fulfilled by the NGOs in Indonesia in order to get the
recognition of the government. These recognition are also sometimes use by the government
in order to control NGOs in Indonesia itself. NGO which is a non-governmental organization
tends to be more flexible in what they do, however, it can be seen from the article that the
State has somewhat controlled their movement especially in the foreign aid sector.
Most of the NGO in Indonesia gets the funds from the foreign aid. The government in
Indonesia therefore has to make a very careful move when trying to control the NGOs in
Indonesia because this can somehow effect the bilateral relationship between Indonesia and
other states In the pre-independence era, Indonesia had their NGO movement coming from
western-educated elite and middle class leaders. Muhammadiyah (1912) and Nahdlatul
Ulama (1926) are some of the examples of NGOs back in the pre-indpendence era.
During the Soekarno era, NGOs establishment were greatly encouraged by the government as
they were used to mobilize and develop the local communities. In Soeharto era, NGOs were
more constricted as their presence threatens the government. However, the NGOs biggest
funds comes from foreign aid and this was the source of foreign exchange. This is where the
inconsistency comes as the government would also have to cooperate with them, if not then
the funds from foreign aid would be stop altogether. The reformation era/present situation
NGOs in Indonesia has develop in number ever since the downfall of President Soeharto.
There are three categories of field in Indonesia that NGO has a pivotal role. The first is the
NGO that deals with the poverty issues. An example is the Dian Desa which is base in
Yogyakarta and has their programmes implemented in rural villages mostly in Central Java
and in East Nusa Tenggara Province. Their role is significant as poverty is a classic

problem in Indonesia upto today, even if Indonesia is stated as one of the top economy in the
world, there are still major poverty issues in Indonesia that involves millions of Indonesian
population.
The second group of NGO is oriented towards the empowerment of civil society. One of the
most prominent NGO in this field is the LP3ES (Institute for Social and Economic Research,
Education and Information, established in 1971). Their main agenda is to do publishing,
research, education, promotion of community-based industries, and family planning. This
NGO also play a pivotal role because education in Indonesia still needs improvement in
quality wise, even though Indonesians literacy rate is among one of the highest in the world,
however, there are still many children in rural areas that does not have access to good quality
and standardise education. YLBHI (Indonesian Legal Aid Association) is also an organization
that independent and critical towards the government, They are more of an advocacy group
that assist people in court cases regarding the issues of human rights, labour issues, and land
disputes.
The third group is the NGOs that is in the environmental field, the most prominent one is
WALHI and ELHAM. Both of these NGO work is sustaining and preserving the rich natural
resources of Indonesia. These environmental NGOs realize that Indonesia has the rich natural
resources and therefore, they wanted to protect them from the illegal logging that may trigger
the environmental degradation.
The relationship between NGO and the State can not be catogorized all together into one
classification. In the Soekarno era, the relationship is somehow cooperation, however, the
NGOs in this era were mostly used as a means/tools by the government in assisting the
government to mobilize the local community. It is also rather ambiguous to consider these
organization as non-governmental organization in the real sense because they are mainly
linked with the political party at that time, however, apart from this hidden interest of the
political party involvement in NGOs at that time, the NGOs were given liberty to express
what they want.
This relationship changed in the guided democracy era, or the President Soeharto era, the
NGOs were firmly under the Statess control. Most of the NGOs that existed during that time
are NGOs that are in support of the governments vision and mission. This is because
Soeharto considered NGOs to be latent elements of instability that could divide society. In
the 1980s however, NGOs in Indonesia increased in number because foreign aids started

giving their funds to these NGOs and this was beneficial for the government in the sense that
the government also needed these funds for the foreign exchange. In the 1990s the
relationship between NGOs and the government of Indonesia become somewhat more
constraint, this is because, the government violate the human rights issues especially in the
case of the Ombo Dam issue (1982) and the Dili massacre (1991) where many Indonesian
armed forces shot down unarmed civilians. The government control and repressed the NGOs
during this era.
The relationship between the NGOs and the government post-Soeharto era can be seen as a
proactive one and less constraint as compare to the era before this. The activities of the NGOs
are more foocused on local communities development. The funds itself rely much on the
outside funds. This outside funds means not only domestic and international donors but also
projects that are join with the governments projects. Therefore, in this era, the relationship is
more cooperation than repression.
This article contibute to the study of NGO in a specific way, focusing on the development,
characteristic, types, and relationship to the government of a particular country. The studies
of NGO is wide range and this article assist us to understand NGO in a particular country
more deeply than just knowing it generally or just on the surface. It makes us in realizing that
the government system in a particular country contributes significantly on the fields of NGO
that is most abundant and also the role of the NGO.
This article however, tends to focus more on the Soeharto era and not the present day
situation on the relationship between the NGO and the government. The relationship between
the NGOs and the government in the present day is just concluded as being proactive and
cooperative without explaining about the limitation or NGOs full liberty in expressing their
interest. The article provided a chart on the fields of activites that Indonesias NGOs are into
these present days but there is no particular explanation on the result of the chart/diagram
itself and onto why small business cooperatives and environment/agriculture is the most
abundant field in the Indonesian NGOs in the year 2000 (the year the chart was made).
Vredeseilanden/VECO is a Belgium-based International NGO with 40 years experience in
sustainable agricultural development, renounced for its expertise on sustainable farming
practices and efforts to streghthen farmer organisations. Cocoa Production provides the main

source of income for over 1,400,000 smallholder farmers and their family in Indonesia.
Smallholders contribute 93% of national production. 1
The above statement taken from a source outside this article may provide a little explanation
on why the small business/ cooperative sector and agriculture are popular NGOs in Indonesia
in the 21st century. They contribute 93% of national production which means rising the
economy and also rising the citizens standard of living. One of the main concern of the
Indonesian NGOs, that needs help is poverty. This field of NGO may bring possible solution
and that may become the reason on why this field of NGO is fluorishing in Indonesia.

1 http://www.veco-ngo.org/sites/www.veco-ngo.org/files/blog/bijlage/indonesiacocoa-case.pdf access on 17/11/2014