Under good governance, the processes and institutional results produced by a government should meet the needs of society while making the best use of resources at their disposal (UNESCAP, 2018). To ensure this, good planning and budgeting mechanisms are essential preconditions for implementing government activities.
In Indonesia, the Ministry of Environment and Forestry (MoEF) is assigned to govern the state’s activities within the environment and forestry sectors, such as policy making, technical supervision, ecosystem and natural resources conservation, social forestry, environment partnership, climate change adaptation and mitigation, environmental pollution control, etc. The success of the implementation of these activities partly depends on the workplans and budgeting that have been formulated in the institutional workplan (i.e. Renja K/L and RKP). The MoEF’s current mechanism for workplan and budgeting development was regulated under the Minister Regulation Number: P.01/Menhut-II/2006.
The forestry and environment sectors have been undergoing major changes in bureaucratic structures and policies in the last thirteen years and the regulation Number: P.01/Menhut-II/2006 needs to be revised accordingly. Thus, supporting the process of revising this regulation is considered crucial to improve the planning and budgeting system in the MoEF and to promote good governance.
The revision was also made necessary due to significance changes in the national regulations in the environment and forestry sector. Among others is the issuance of Law Number: 23/2014 on Regional Governance whereby forestry affairs, which previously were under the district governments, became part of the provincial governments’ responsibilities . Hence, the planning and budgeting of forestry activities at sub-national level is now also in the hand of the provincial governments. Furthermore, the Ministry of Environment and the Ministry of Forestry were merged based on Presidential Regulation No. 16/2015 to become one new ministry, named the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. While, however, the Minister Regulation P.01/Menhut-II/2006 was only regulating the planning and budgeting mechanism for the Ministry of Forestry.
FORCLIME supported and involved in the process of evaluation and revision of Minister Regulation P.01/Menhut-II/2006 by providing both experts and expertise until its gazettement. At least three Focus Group Discussion workshops were held during the process supported by FORCLIME. The revised regulation was decreed on 26 August 2019 through the Minister of Environment and Forestry regulation number P.43/MENLHK/SETJEN/SET.1/8/2019 on the Mechanism of Workplan Preparation and Budgeting of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.
The new ministry regulation is now in line with all government regulations related to ministerial workplan preparation and also streamlines the mechanisms of workplan preparation and budgeting in the Ministry of Environment and Forestry. The scope of the regulation is firstly, to coordinate the development and implementation of Budgeting Workplans (RKA) for the institutions within the Ministry of Environment and Forestry at national and sub-national level and, secondly, to develop and plan the DIPA. The DIPA is a document of budget implementation which serves as the basis for carrying out actions resulting in State expenditure and disbursement of funds from the Government budget, as well as further supporting documents on government accounting activities. Further, the regulation advises on steps of the workplan development in form of coordination forums at provincial, regional and central levels, the deliberation with parliament, trilateral meetings with the Ministry of National Development Planning and the Ministry of Finance; and finally, the national consultation and coordination meetings on budget planning. The output of the national consultation and coordination meeting then are RKA and DIPA for the Ministry of Environment and Forestry.
In 2020, it is planned that the dissemination and implementation of the revised regulation will be carried out by the Planning Bureau of the Ministry of Environment and Forestry with support from FORCLIME.
For further information, please contact:
Wandojo Siswanto, Senior Adviser, Forest & Climate Change Policy
Mohamad Rayan, Technical Adviser, Crosscutting Issues and Conflict Management
