A Case Study of a Project Proposal funded by
The World Bank in Indonesia
by
Hesthi Nugroho
Introduction
For more than a decade, funds have flowing in from international agencies to developing countries to assist with the development process of these countries. However, many of these projects are only for the interest of the international donors not in the interests of the local communities who usually become the target of their development projects. The project of expanding a piped water supply for poor households in Surabaya, which is funded by the World Bank is one example of these kind of projects. The objective is to increase the access of water supply for poor households who live in formal and informal areas (The World Bank 2008); however, the project planners have ignored several important factors in implementing this project.
This paper aims to analyse these factors, in which relate to political and institutional issues which have emerged during the implementation of this project. These factors are gender issues, environmental impact assessment (EIA), the form of public participation and social impacts of the project. From the discussion, it can be learnt that development projects that relate to the development of local communities should include women’s participation in the implementation process of the projects, as women usually suffer the major effects of change because of a project. Meanwhile, the project planners need to conduct serious EIAs to avoid delays and conflicts towards the projects. In addition, the social impacts need to be recognized as well, so that there will be no additional problems, which may spark bigger conflicts within the communities. Furthermore, choosing a suitable type of public participation is important because the voices and the visions of poor communities need to be heard. Therefore, in applying development procedures in their specialized areas will meet the interests of the whole community, which will also determine the success of the project. Nevertheless, the project planners of the expanding piped water supply project in Surabaya have so far ignored these factors above.
Explanation of the project
The expansion of the piped water supply is a project which commenced in 2008, being implemented in Surabaya, the capital of East Java Province, Indonesia and is expected to be finished in 2010 (The World Bank 2008). The objective of this project is increasing the access to piped water networks for poor households who are living in formal and informal areas in Surabaya, in which, the beneficiaries of this project will consist of about 77,500 people (The World Bank 2008). Meanwhile, the implementation of this project is divided into three main components; the in-fill connections to existing mains, expanding the connections to unserved areas, and to supply “master meter” connections to particular poor households (The World Bank 2008).
In this case, the outcomes, which have been expected from this project, are the change of average water use in connected households, the change in the water expenditure by connected households, the change in time spent in collecting water by connected households, the satisfaction of the households because of easy procedures, quality of services and cost of services (in which per household will spend IDR 700,000 or USD $78 for the first installation), and the change in the intensive utility for these poor households (The World Bank 2008). The stakeholders which will be involved in this project are, several officers from Perusahaan Daerah Air Minum Surabaya (PDAM, as known as the public water utility of Surabaya), as the representatives of donor recipients, the committee from Department of Public Works as the Scheme Managers, a particular local firm which will become an auditor of the project, and the World Bank staff as the supervisors of the project (The World Bank 2008). In this case, the poor households who live in the formal and informal area, who are to become the target of the project are not involved, at this stage as there will be notification via brochures when the project is about to be operated (The World Bank 2008). Meanwhile, the World Bank (2008) has insisted that there will be no major damage towards the pipe constructions in this project, nor the incident of land resettlement. Despite the fact that this project is to be operated in the second most highly populated area after Jakarta, of around four million people (BBC Indonesia 2007), yet the World Bank (2008) insists that there are no communities living on or near the construction site in the project area. However, this is clearly not the case, because there are communities living on the construction site, who will need to be resettled.
This essay will discuss and analyse several issues which are not explained well by the World Bank in the process of implementing the piped water project in Surabaya, which are gender issues, environmental issues, forms of participation, and social impacts of the project. The gender issue is important to be considered by the project planners because the issue of gender differences with respect to water lies in the access to and control of water (Zwarteveen 1997). In this case, women, as mothers and domestic caretakers, are the major water users for domestic purposes, however, this activity does not seem to be identified by the larger society, such as the government (Zwarteveen 1997). Meanwhile, environmental impact assessments are also important to be considered because this project will be operated in a high density population area and the project planners from the World Bank have overlooked some important points in regards to the environmental impacts, as environmental issues are always be political and generate controversy (Beattie 1995). Moreover, the form of public participation is another important point, because by knowing which form of public participation this project is into, the power of poor households to agree or disagree towards the operation of this project will also be known (Arnstein 1971). Furthermore, because of the operation of this project, the social impacts should also be noticed and considered as there would be privileged differentiation in accessing and using the water because not all the households would agree towards this project, as the access to water used to be free.
Discussion
Gender issue
For decades, there have been differences of priorities in regards to water use between men and women, which in domestic areas, women are the major users of water for productive and domestic purposes (Cleaver 1998). However, there has been a lack of formal recognition of women as water users in many parts of development projects, especially in water supply projects (Zwarteveen 1997). In most cases, women’s access to water has been mediated through their husbands or male relatives, as women’s voices are hardly be heard when they try to speak out in public meetings (Zwarteveen 1997). In addition, poor women are unlikely to be elected to participate in community decision making activities, which means women are obtaining access to water in informal ways (Zwarteveen 1997).
In the project of water supply in Surabaya, the project planners have neglected the role of women in implementing this project. This can be seen that in the implementation of this project, and the poor households are not considered to be part of the participation process (The World Bank 2008). The poor households will only receive pamphlets which are informing about the existence of the project, and an apology for the inconvenience during the construction (The World Bank 2008). As the project planners overlook the importance of involving the poor households’ communities into the participation process, especially women as the major water users, the development planners have also overlooked that the problem of water in Surabaya which is not only about the supply pipes but also about the quality of the water, which has been a complaint for so long by women[1]. The problem that has been faced by PDAM Surabaya overtime, is the problem of its water quality, as the main water source that has been used by PDAM, which is the Brantas River, is heavily contaminated nowadays, in which every day, there are around 330 tonnes of chemical waste being dumped into this river (BBC Indonesia 2007).
There are many complaints to PDAM Surabaya about this problem, especially from women, in which their children suffered diarrhea after drinking the water from PDAM, although the water has been cooked, or the complaints that the whole family suffered rashes after taking a bath using water from PDAM[2], and PDAM Surabaya has ignored these complaints. Thus, because of these problems, women are starting to purchase recycled water which is being sold privately from door to door, which is costing them IDR 9,000,00 or AUD $1[3] per litre. Meanwhile, in the informal areas, women in poor households are still using the water from the rivers for cooking, bathing, and doing the laundry as well as washing the dishes, in which the contamination in this river is also high in mercury levels (Silaban 2007). If the construction of the pipe expansion water supply comes to this informal area, it would not solve the problem either, as the water from PDAM is contaminated, the same as the water that they have obtained from the rivers.
Thus, it can be seen that for the expanding piped water supply to poor households who live in formal and informal areas, the project planners have ignored the contribution of women in this issue. In this case, the focus of formal institutions, arranged by the World Bank and PDAM Surabaya, for water supply to poor households have overlooked informal institutional arrangements in which women play the most important and major role (Cleaver 1998). Women, as the major users of water, need to be involved in formal decision making communities as well as recognizing their role and activities in formal access of water users’ organizations (Zwarteveen 1997). Therefore, their voices will be heard in public meetings, between the World Bank, the officers from PDAM Surabaya and the poor households’ communities, in which the problem is not about the piped supply but about the quality of the water supply, which the World Bank as the donor may overcome this problem by focusing its funded to the improvement of water quality from PDAM Surabaya.
Environmental impact assessment
According to Pritchard (1996) Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) is a process to predict and evaluate the effects of series of actions to the environment, the conclusions that have been derived are being used for planning and decision making tools. In addition, Pritchard (1996) mentions that EIA is a process and not a product of a project, in which one of its aims is preventing the environmental degradation. Meanwhile, in conducting EIA, the environmentalists should not only consider environmental issues but also other issues such as social and health issues including the amount of compensation that would be given to those who suffer the impacts of the project (Beattie 1995). However, as the issue of the environment is always political (Beattie 1995), several project planners do not conduct the EIA in proper ways, such as not including public participation in planning and conducting the assessment (Shepherd & Bowler 1997). Moreover, there are also some particular information of environmental impacts in which the donor and the recipient state try to hide from the public as they want to defend their project and do not want to delay the operation (Shepherd & Bowler 1997).
In the case of the expanding piped water supply project in Surabaya, the World Bank as the donor as well as the supervisor, and the PDAM Surabaya as the recipient fund, do not conduct the EIA properly. There are several peculiar factors that have been raised by the World Bank, however they finally insisted that only minor and short-term environmental impacts would occur. For example, noise, dust traffic disturbance, materials and vehicles during the construction and after the construction the situation will come back to normal (The World Bank 2008). In addition, the World Bank supports their argument about minor environmental impacts by stating that there is no group of people who live in the construction area, therefore there will not be any people resettlement (The World Bank 2008). Nevertheless, these arguments by The World Bank and its environmentalists do not make sense at all. For example, the density of population in Surabaya is very high, being the second highest after Jakarta, in which almost four million people live in the area of 459.65 square kilometers (Bureau Statistics of East Java, 2008). In which, contradicts with the statement of no groups of people living in the construction area by the World Bank (see Figure 1).
Figure 1. A picture of downtown Surabaya[4], taken in 2002
Meanwhile, the World Bank (2008) does not explain further how would they solve the problem when the construction begins, as the water connection obviously will be shut down during the days of construction, which means that these poor households need another alternative of water resource. The development planners do not explain whether they would provide another alternative or let the households search by themselves. Another point that is not explained by the World Bank is what kind of compensation it is when the members of particular households have developed respiration problems because of the dust from the construction, whether the compensation would be in cash or the project planners’ committee undertake the costs of these people’s treatment in the hospital. In addition, the World Bank does not explain how the water waste of households will be managed during the construction of the project.
It should be noted that EIA is not a product but a process of a project (Pritchard 1996), and during the process of conducting EIA, the development planners need to include the public in the process of participation. In this case, not only particular public who hold the strong power of decisions but also the public who become the target of the project. With reference to the expanding piped water supply project in Surabaya, the World Bank (2008) does not include the poor households in the process of participation for EIA. It is clearly shown that the World Bank and PDAM Surabaya as the project planners do not want to delay their schedule in constructing this project and tend only to educate the poor households about the merits of the project (Shepherd & Bowler 1997). In addition, as Beattie (1995) mentions, environmental issues and EIAs are always political, the EIA in this project tends to be political as well. In this case, the development planners have ignored several important points such as public participation, in which it seems they are hiding major environmental impacts from the public. Besides that, the conduction of this EIA tends to become the complementary of the requirement in proposing the project and does not need to take the results seriously or into further consideration. Overall, these points above, the project planners have overlooked in conducting the EIA, and could spark conflicts within the poor societies or between the societies and the project planners.
Form of public participation
According to Arnstein (1971) public participation is a public power, in which the distribution of power enables the “have-not” citizens to become deliberately included in the future. The advantages of having public participation in implementing the project are the competence of the final decisions of the project is higher because it has already been publicly examined, the legitimacy of final outcomes is higher, and the project planners become more responsible in the implementation of the project (Webler, Kastenholz, & Renn 1995). However, these advantages solely depend on what kind of public participation has been implemented by the project planners, as to what Arnstein (1971) has stated that participation itself without the distribution of power will make the participation process is empty and frustrating for the powerless people. There are eight rungs on a ladder of public participation by Arnstein (1971), manipulation, therapy, informing, consultation, placation, partnership, delegated power and citizen control.
In regards to the project by the World Bank in Surabaya, the form of public participation towards the poor households, which is being used by the project planners, refers to the combination of therapy and informing. In this case, the project planners do not include the poor households to participate in the project, the project planners only inform the poor households about the project through pamphlets (The World Bank 2008). This kind of approach by the World Bank is referred to as the therapy type in public participation by Arnstein (1971), in terms of that this project does not enable poor communities to participate in planning or in conducting the project. Meanwhile, the distribution of information about the project through pamphlets is referred to as the informing type of public participation, in which, there is only a one-way flow of information, from the project planners to the poor communities, without no providing channel for feedback (Arnstein 1971). Moreover, because these poor communities have no power on negotiation, they tend not having power to influence the project which should be designed ‘for their benefit’ (Arnstein 1971).
According to Bryant and Bailey (1997) as well as Arnstein (1971), the use of therapy and informing types of participation in expanding the piped water supply project in Surabaya relates to the unequal power between actors. The unequal relations between actors are becoming the key factors in understanding the pattern of human interaction (Bryant & Bailey 1997). In this case, the unequal power is related to the power that each actor possesses either in lesser or greater amount, which can influence the implementation process of the project and give the ‘desirable’ outcomes for the strong powerholders (Bryant & Bailey 1997). Meanwhile, according to Arnstein (1971), in dealing with public participation in the project, the powerholders, in this case the World Bank and PDAM Surabaya, have included racism paternalism and resistance to power distribution. While, the “have-nots” citizens, in this case, the poor households communities, have included their inadequacies in political and socio-economic infrastructure as well as knowledge-base about the project, their difficulties in organizing representatives who are accountable and can be trusted (Arnstein 1971). Nevertheless, this kind of public participation will bring ineffectiveness towards the implementation of the project, because one-flow of information and not enabling the poor households to participate will increase the chances of delays and opposition towards the project (Shepherd & Bowler 1997). In the end this condition will spark dispute and conflicts between the project planners and poor households’ societies, which the project planners are actually wanting to avoid when they put the project in place.
Social impacts of the project
Social impacts are the future consequences because of current actions that relate to social macro-systems, organizations and even individuals (Becker 2001). Social impacts are an important factor to be concerned with because the project planners could seek whether their intervention in poor households in Surabaya changes the outcomes and the institutions within this population (Newman, Pradhan, Rawlings, Ridder, Coa, & Evia 2002). The social impacts can be recognized by having community consultation in which the affected public is being invited (Momtaz & Gladstone 2008).
Because of the project planners in the project of expanding the piped water supply in Surabaya do not recognize the participation of poor households, thus, they do not have proper community consultation, which has led them in failing to recognize several social impacts of this project towards poor communities. One of these impacts is that the impact directly to the community, in which only particular households who agreed towards the project and have enough funds to pay for the first installation will obtain the privilege of having more water supply directly to their households. It should be noted that for the first installation, these households have to pay a very high price, which is IDR 700,000,00 or USD $78, in this case, majorly poor households cannot afford this amount of payment as their average income is IDR 150,000 to 200,000[5]. This condition will likely spark conflicts within the households and many of them will find illegal ways to obtain the same amount of water supply, such as stealing the connection of the water pipes and directing the water flows to their households (Polwiltabes Surabaya, 2008).
Meanwhile, the World Bank (2008) has mentioned that there will not be people resettlements towards the project, however, many poor households live in informal areas and most of them live illegally on the governments’ land, and sooner or later the government will evict them from this land[6]. In this case, the World Bank does not consider that constructing the piped water supply in informal areas would be a waste of time and funds as the poor households would be evicted from this area anytime soon. Besides that, as these poor households live in informal areas, it means that when their location is on the construction way, the government will automatically request them to move out to smoothing the construction process. This is because these poor households have no legal power in claiming their house position, while the government as the major powerholder will try hard to exert control power over these poor households (Bryant & Bailey 1997). Moreover, even if the poor households live in formal areas, a temporary resettlement cannot be avoided, as the density of population is very high and the construction of the project itself obviously needs a wider space to be conducted (see Figure 1). Furthermore, because such social impacts have not been considered by the project planners, it is unlikely that the project will bring benefits to the poor households but only bring more conflicts and disputes within the poor communities.
Conclusion
Despite many funds being donated by many international donors to developing countries for their development, most of these donors tend to simplify contextual reality of developing countries. These donors are only thinking how to fit their procedures and perspectives towards the projects that they have been funding, and do not realize that more problems will be created because of their projects rather than be solved.
The project of expanding the piped water supply for poor households in Surabaya, funded by the World Bank is one of these examples. Many failures have been found because the project planners from the World Bank as the donor and PDAM Surabaya as the recipient do not conduct proper participation and impact assessments. The failure of ignoring that the quality of water is the major concern of poor households has made this project worthless to be put in place. Not including women, as the major water users, to become part of their participation is also become a supporting factor of this failure. Meanwhile, the failure of not taking their work in EIA seriously has resulted in an absurd report. Moreover, implementing false public participation has made this project become worthless in the eyes of poor households as well as will spark more conflicts within poor communities. Furthermore, ignoring the social condition of poor households and charging a high price for them will also spark more problems in the reality context.
From this fact, it can be concluded that development projects, which relate mostly to the development of local communities’ households, need to realize that the inclusion of women is very important in decision making and the participation process. This is because women are the ones who are obtain majorly effected because of the project as they are the domestic carers (Cleaver 1998). In addition, environmental and social assessments have to be conducted seriously to avoid any environmental damage or social conflicts which emerge because of the project as well as to avoid an absurd result. Meanwhile, choosing the right type or form of public participation is very critical, in terms of voices from local communities being heard, which are important and crucial for the success of the project. Therefore, development itself is not only about words and procedures, but it is more about changing the reality of lives of the local people (Win 2004). In this case, a way to do this is by listening to local voices and their visions, so that the project will not create more problems than it solves (Win 2004).
References:
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[1] According to observation and research of the writer while working at Women Empowerment Organisation, Brawijaya University, East Java, Indonesia, about women and water in Surabaya in 2002.
[2] According to observation and research of the writer, about women and water in Surabaya in 2002.
[3]According to observation and research of the writer, about women and water in Surabaya in 2002.
[4] From personal photos’ collection
[5] According to observation and research of the writer while working at Women Empowerment Organisation, Brawijaya University, East Java, Indonesia, about women and water in Surabaya in 2002.
[6] According to observation and research of the writer while working at Women Empowerment Organisation, Brawijaya University, East Java, Indonesia, about women and water in Surabaya in 2002.
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