"The Illusion of Inclusive Governance in the Slums of Bima, Indonesia"
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Issue Date
2025-01-09
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en
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Abstract
Slum areas face severe challenges in water-related issues, such as access to clean water, poor
waste- and sanitation management and vulnerability to floods. Governments often refuse or
face difficulties to provide for these areas, leading to the residents’ problems being neglected.
Inclusive governance, including process-based and outcome-based inclusive governance,
offers substantial opportunities for providing better solutions aligning to the specific needs of
the neighbourhoods. Indonesia’s decentralized government has many unique inclusive
strategies embedded in their system. This research focuses on the case of Bima, Indonesia, to
analyse the existing practices of inclusive water governance in Bima’s slum neighbourhoods.
Institutional perspective theory is a promising technique to map the organisations and rules
present in the city, and how these influence each other. Within this, formal and informal are
recognized as important categories to understand how these institutions influence the
inclusive water governance. This thesis takes inclusive governance- and institutional
perspective theory as a base, and through literature review, 20 semi-structured interviews and
site visits, the research question “How do institutional rules and actors influence inclusive
water governance practices for slum settlements in Bima, Indonesia?” will be answered.
This thesis shows that Bima faces budget constraints, leading to a higher dependency on
Central Government programs and limitations in fully utilizing the inclusive governance
potential. The development initiatives on one hand, do not directly benefit the marginalized
urban population including slum residents in Bima. On the other hand, the urban poor is
directly exposed to the negative consequences such as increased pollution, floods and poor
water quality. This is the population living in environmentally sensitive areas who already
struggles with water management and is most vulnerable. This thesis further shows that
process-based inclusiveness is more present in Bima than outcome-based inclusiveness.
While the Central Government has regulations to support process-based inclusiveness, the
City Government often limits efforts to the minimum required, overlooking community
aspirations. Informal structures help residents access the government, but lack of attention
forces communities to find their own solutions before gaining support. Community groups are
used for implementation, improving process-based inclusiveness, but the required personal
investments increase outcome-based exclusiveness. Achieving outcome-based inclusiveness
requires special attention to slum areas, yet structural rules continue to exclude these
residents from programs and decision-making.
Based on the results of the research, this thesis makes several recommendations addressing
process-based- and outcome-based inclusiveness, highlighting to prioritize developments in
the slum areas. Furthermore, strengthening process-based inclusiveness, utilizing informal
mechanisms to enhance participation should be encouraged. Stricter upstream management
is vital for the water management of Bima. Finally, several recommendations for further
research, such as exploring the gap between the government and slum residents, agricultural
policies and effects of forced evictions are made.
Keywords: Inclusive governance, Institutional perspective, Slums, Water Governance, Bima
(Indonesia)
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Faculteit der Managementwetenschappen