Written by Amanda Tam
The involvement of non-state actors is now crucial for much collaborative policymaking and governance. Indonesia is a country that illustrates the interplay between state- and non-state actors furthering our understanding of the nature of collaborative policy practice. That is, where governments often work through networks and engage with non-state actors, as mandated by law. Networked governance structures can have advantages over hierarchical or market-oriented structures, which include information sharing and innovation strategies that emerged from interactions between multiple actors. However, these governance arrangements require unique non-state capacity deployment.
While the policy capacity of the state has been extensively studied, the role of operational capacity of the non-state actors remains understudied. The question of whether it is critical could be examined through looking into two organisations — one which has strong operational capacity and the other lacks so, and whether having the operational capacity enables such an organisation to achieve policy success in the long run.
Bandung City, Indonesia. Photo by Fikri Rasyid on Unsplash
Is ‘operational’ policy capacity still important post-crisis where the government-initiated policy formulation? Is operational capacity required for the non-state actors to give recommendations in collaborative policymaking process? Does the law-making process require the operational capacity of the non-state actors to provide such a well-rounded and holistic input? The existing literature has argued that the failure of networked governance is often when the actors do not have the operational capacity, but is this also the case for the non-state actors?
The case below will focus on Indonesia, but this analysis is also applicable for the study of operational capacity of the civil society organisations in other countries. As the operationalisation of organisations relying on an ad-hoc participation might still be deployed in some areas by organisations lacking resources. Some mitigation strategies and recommendations to tackle these issue are provided below.
Policy Capacity, Operational Policy Capacity, and Non-state actors
Policy capacity is defined as the competences and abilities of the state actors to perform their policy functions. It refers to the skills and abilities that enable the state actors to carry out their activities and roles in the government, such as making the decisions out of the many options or managing diverse stakeholder interests. Such a definition leaves a gap in the capacity practice of non-state actors in policy making, such as advocating their own findings on the specific issue to inform policy making.
Operational capacity is often under-examined and only partially theorized as it relates to supplies outside of government. It refers to the management structures within the organisations that help them to mobilise resources necessary to carry out policy tasks. This includes the structures of separate divisions or departments, or thought leadership and coordination systems that help inter-department communication, further allowing organisations to collaborate with external stakeholders, providing innovative thoughts and ideas for the policymaking process.
Indonesia’s Response to the COVID-19 crisis: The Tale of Two Organisations
Analysis of Indonesia's response to the COVID global pandemic helps unpack the capacity issues raised above. The management of COVID–19 has been deemed ineffective, as the country recorded the highest cases and death rates in Southeast Asia, and only second to India in Asia.
Despite the countries’ neglect of expert knowledge, there are two notable organisations which continually gave their inputs and recommendations to the government and demanded better regulation: LaporCOVID-19 (ReportCOVID-19) and the Center for Indonesia’s Strategic Development Initiatives (CISDI) with varying degrees of operational capacity.
Indonesians waiting for covid vaccinations
LaporCOVID-19 is an ad-hoc non-governmental organisation which aims to supply the number of cases via data gathering infrastructures and mechanisms permeated into the local government. The analysis of statistical information is the product of their analytical capacity, and coupled with their political capacity, they were able to stop planned paid COVID-19 vaccination. Their operational organisation relies on the voluntary participation of the citizens in reporting COVID-19 cases.
CISDI, similarly, provided recommendations to the government on the ‘population prioritisation’ in the government’s vaccines roll-out. Their political capacity is also exhibited via building coalitions with the same stakeholders and media outreach through their framing strategies that enable the government to pay heed to their recommendations on the different COVID-19 issues. The most striking difference with LaporCOVID-19 is that CISDI has its operational capacity, such as most of the staff are hired through contractual agreement. Furthermore, the staffing and leadership is shown through the management of the healthcare cadres that they trained to assist the local health offices.
CISDI was able to train and mobilise healthcare cadres and gave them technical training to implement a smooth vaccination program in the local healthcare centres, further collaborating with the West Java province. This further provides a more holistic and well-rounded CSO-type of crisis management, whilst collaborating with the state. On the other hand, LaporCOVID-19 relied on the voluntary ability of citizens to report their cases on vaccination and further implementation training is not evident.
The presence of operational capacity contributes to such a holistic advocacy approach. Such an implication also extends to the country where non-state organisation seems to be relying on the ad-hoc participation, in which limited participation on the policy analysis and collaborative implementation is due to the lack of incentives for the staff to provide their resources. For instance, some organisations might be relying on the volunteers to collect data on the ground and might lose some opportunities of deploying the staff’s capacities beyond collecting, for instance, for dissemination and analysis.
Capacity for Advocating Health Reform Post-Crisis
figurines with pills
The Government of Indonesia in 2023 launched a new health law that aimed towards ensuring an even distribution of healthcare workers across archipelagos, strengthening the primary healthcare system and the provisioning of advanced health technologies. The law was created through the omnibus approach, which removes public participation because it aims for a fast process. Such a lack of participation has been criticized by LaporCOVID-19 and CISDI but through different approaches.
The LaporCOVID-19 only produced one analytical statement on the problems of the health law, demanding for the law to be revoked. Their analytical capacity seems not to be aligned with the government’s policy agenda and driven by the lack of operational capacity that would enable the long-term staff and managerial team to understand broader contexts better. Indeed, the organisation did not evolve into a new form in 2023 due to its ad-hoc nature, and still relied on voluntary mechanism for the team management. The limited number of teams, after the pandemic resolved, could be attributed to the low number of knowledge products generated.
On the other hand, CISDI has given numerous analytical products (it is observed that there are a minimum of five press releases or policy briefs produced) about the limitation of the health law. They provide more inputs on how to improve some clauses in the law to better accommodate a wide range of stakeholders in the health system, such as the healthcare cadres. The resultant outcome was that the government responded and changed the clause that reflects CISDI’'s recommendation. Operational capacity can be attributed to the success, as it allows for the ongoing stakeholder engagement and tailored communication.
So what? Implications for Policy Practice
Operational capacity seems to be driving organisations to have stronger capacity for managing resources and mobilising evidence to create numerous policy briefs and press statements for the government. The presence and provision of contractual staff enables them to also connect with key stakeholders via the dissemination of their knowledge products or appropriating the windows of opportunity to insert their evidence through monitoring the progression of health policy issues.
Therefore, organisations that are still operating in an ad-hoc capacity could further:
Hire grant-seeking professionals to ensure the continued funds for operational management of the organisation. This can include professionals with project management backgrounds.
Ensure continual professional development for their contractual staff to enhance its adaptive capacity to meet current policy needs, such as responding to the policy or advocating for certain causes.
The end of a specific crisis should be seen as the strategic timing to swiftly change the organisation’s mission statements and further elaborate long-term activities post-crisis.
Amanda Tan is the recipient of Monash Indonesia Inspire Doctoral Scholarship Program (IIDSP) and pursuing a doctoral degree in public policy studies at Monash University. Her research seeks to examine the strategic capacities of brokering organisations.
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