The global humanitarian reform agenda has continually evolved over the last 15 years, yet has thus far fallen short of ambitions for transformative, systemic change. This stream seeks to contextualise global models to fit national priorities and achieve meaningful impact for affected populations.
The research seeks to build the evidence base to progress systemic humanitarian reform at the country level. While there is global agreement on the need to change, reform efforts are too complex and dispersed.
Tailoring efforts to the country level has allowed this research to identify key change priorities and understand how they interact in an Indonesian context.
Humanitarian Advisory Group and Pujiono Centre are now undertaking research to understand how to progress this change in a way that is contextually appropriate, sustainable and nationally led.
Humanitarian Advisory Group has established a long-term partnership with the Pujiono Centre, and all aspects of the Blueprint research design, methodology and outputs have been co-created through this partnership.
The first phase of the research mapped the humanitarian system in Indonesia and local priorities for reform. We held 3 stakeholder workshops in Jakarta, attended by representatives across the local, national and international humanitarian system. Participants utilised a systems thinking methodology to identify the largest challenges and opportunities within the system.
This process identified 4 key priority areas for change in Indonesia:
Findings from Phase 1 are detailed in the report, Building a Blueprint for Change: Laying the Foundations.
Phase 2 of the research has been adapted to help meet challenges brought by the COVID-19 pandemic in Indonesia. The stream temporarily pivoted to support the Pujiono Centre in the establishment of the Sekretariat Jaringan-Antar-jaringan (translated as Network-of-Networks of Civil Society Organisations and abbreviated as SEJAJAR, which also means ‘equal’ in Bahasa Indonesia).
SEJAJAR is a coordination and knowledge management platform to support national non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and civil society organisations (CSOs) in the COVID-19 response. Its objectives link closely with the priorities identified in Blueprint Phase 1 and through monitoring and evaluation, allowed the research team to capture evidence and learning to interrogate in the next stage of the research.
This stream has recently published a literature review and blog examining the evolution of the humanitarian system in Indonesia over the past 20 years. This report builds on the premise that in order to progress change moving forward you must understand the barriers and enablers of past efforts. It also further contributes to the growing narrative around local leadership and participation in humanitarian action in Indonesia.
The research team has conducted a series of interviews and workshops to test learnings from this review, the SEJAJAR evaluation and Phase 1 findings. The final report will bring together these findings to shed light on future opportunities for reform in Indonesia.
