Justin Kwan, MAAPPS // April 2, 2015
The last few weeks have been dedicated towards two different projects our Asia Pacific Policy Project team has been working on. Our team of five students has selected to write a paper, which will address the prospects for sub-national reporting in the 13 countries we have selected as our case studies.
Our entire team has looked at a variety of factors that may influence the prospects of subnational reporting (SNR). Thus, our goal is to determine which political, economic and societal conditions are most conducive to effective sub-national reporting. Our preliminary findings suggest that countries that uphold the rule of law, have stronger democratic institutions, and predominantly operate in mineral-based extractive industries are more likely to produce effective outcomes through sub-national reporting.
To supplement our own research, we look at a variety of indicators to help us draw our conclusions. Some indices include: Global Democracy Ranking, World Justice Project Rule of Law score, BTI Civil Society Participation Score, Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index and GDP per Capita.
In particular however, I would like to focus our analysis on the potential connection between civil society participation and the potential outcomes for subnational reporting. In Indonesia, several civil society groups have expressed interest in subnational reporting and have been a vital part of helping collect data for SNR trial testing. For instance, Publish What You Pay (PWYP) Indonesia has conducted training sessions on EITI reporting and revenue sharing calculations. These civil society groups have also teamed up with EITI during Indonesia’s Anti-Corruption Day. In further personal correspondence, Indonesia’s civil society groups have also indicated that they are helping beta-test subnational reporting in certain areas.
Given Indonesia’s robust civil society, the country ranked fairly high within our case study countries with a score of 7 on BTI’s civil society participation score. I have advocated for our team to examine each country’s civil society participation with regards subnational reporting. While I find the BTI civil society participation score useful, in some ways, it is also problematic for our research. This is mainly because the score does not reveal the direct linkage between a country’s civil society and its engagement in projects related to subnational reporting. As such, the BTI score can only capture a general relationship between society and how they may initiate or help create the potential for reforms. Since there are different levels of civil society participation based upon different interests, it is rather important to examine the linkages between SNR and civil society groups. Currently, each member of our team will be asked to evaluate the formal conditions for SNR in their researched country, looking for the presence of subnational reporting in the stated EITI working plan, training sessions and/or workshops as well as formal reports issued by the member/candidate countries. After much debate, we will further look at civil society participation as a surrogate indicator for successful subnational reporting. Since civil society groups have played a fairly large role in helping implement subnational reporting in Indonesia, it will be interesting to see what influences civil society has on subnational reporting in other countries and whether or not any general trends can be concluded from the data we collected. Perhaps Indonesia is a unique case study when it comes to the relationship between civil society groups and subnational reporting. However, it is this particular specificity that makes the Indonesian story an important case study for other countries to learn how to engage with resource-revenue transparency issues.