Grads show govt, business and civil society can work together

The Jakarta Post ,  Jakarta   |  Wed, 07/01/2009 12:15 PM  |  Headlines

Can the government, bureaucracy and civil society work together? A group of Indonesians proved such collaboration is not only feasible, but more importantly, it can lead to innovative solutions unimaginable if they were to work separately.

The United in Diversity (UID) Forum on Tuesday inducted 29 people from the three sectors as the first batch of "graduates" to have completed the leadership program held under the auspices of the prestigious Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT) Sloan School of Management.

During the 12-month program, called the Dynamic Education and Action for Sustainability (IDEAS) Indonesia, participants traveled to Boston, the home of MIT, and conducted workshops in Jakarta, Bandung and Bali.

The program was built around the teachings of Peter Senge and Otto Scharmer, both MIT gurus known respectively for organizational learning and systems thinking, and the U-Process Theory.

At the graduation ceremony, participants showcased five prototypes of cross-sector collaboration.

They included work on cleaning up the Ciliwung river, changing sanitation practices in Indonesia, improving media ethics, promoting micro-business development and empowering women through entrepreneurship in the handicraft industry.

More than a cross-sectoral dialogue, the participants from these different backgrounds and professions worked together in collaborative projects, putting their thoughts and energy together, and breaking down the barriers that have in the past put them at odds with each other.

"Together, they make up more than the sums of their parts," Aristides Kattopo, chairman of the UID Board of Trustees, said about the collaboration, deemed a novelty not just in Indonesia, but also in the world.

The program is so unique even for the Sloan School, which runs many courses in cooperation with universities in capitals around the world, that it is now considering replicating it elsewhere.

"It is already attracting others from around the world," senior Sloan School dean Alan White said at the graduation ceremony.

"We need a program like this in the United States."

In her keynote address at the event, Trade Minister Mari Pangestu expressed her appreciation of the way participants had conducted "deep dive" to be involved with the community as they prepared the prototy-pes, and also of how they had brought in stakeholders to the evolving work.

Congratulating the graduates at the end of her address, the minister told them, "You are now agents of change, and your job is to create other new agents of change."

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