91800 Giving Villagers a Voice in Indonesia September 17, 2002 “We used to be half-dead when we arrived in the morning at our rice paddies.  Now we get there in minutes,” says one North Sulawesi villager.  “Of course, it is at harvest time when we reap the greatest benefits of the new road.  Carrying the rice while treading on the tiny zigzag path that was here before was an act of acrobatics and of endurance.  Now we do it by motorcycle taxi in no time at all.” In villages across the Indonesian archipelago, similar projects are being developed under the World Bank-funded Kecamatan Development Project (KDP), a community-empowerment initiative.  Villagers living in kecamatans, or sub-districts, receive grants for projects they themselves choose.  A village assembly has to meet and assess the needs of the community.  In addition, a notice board must be set up centrally in each village to show where every rupiah is going, and to announce who is accountable for the money, and for the implementation of the project. According to one Sulawesi women’s group, KDP has had significant liberating effects for women, whose time and effort have been freed up by many of the village projects.  According to another, the most important thing is that KDP leaves the decision up to those affected by the project. “Before, a development project could consist of us being told to produce goods for the market, and given resources to do so, without any help with marketing or selling,” says one Sulawesi woman. “We ended up with many unsold goods in our homes.  Production in itself is not enough.  With KDP it is now we who decide what—and if—to produce.” Over the past four years, the project has built roads stretching over 19,000 kilometers, and erected or rehabilitated some 3,500 bridges.  It has constructed 5,200 irrigation systems to improve crop yields, and has supplied 2,800 communities with clean drinking water.  For the children of these villages, KDP has financed the construction of 285 new schools.  KDP has also provided over 25 million man-days of paid labor in rural, poor parts of the country, paying the wages of nearly five million people. Related Links:   Indonesia  Kecamatan Development Project (KDP) Updated: September 2002