Fueling the future: civil society organizations advocacy for extractive industry resource transparency in the local level / Gita Widya Laksmini Soerjoatmodjo and Desiana Samosir

When Soeharto’s New Order dictatorship was ousted in 1998, Indonesia experienced a myriad of dramatic changes. These include a significant shift in 1999 - from a highly centralized authoritarian system into a decentralized one. As a result, local governments, relatively inexperienced and unequipped for good governance and accountability, were all of the sudden put in charge for various issues, including natural resources management. To ensure effective performance of resource-rich districts and cities in Indonesia, civil society organizations (CSOs) operating in the local levels engage with them to promote sustainable development. One way to do so is through advocating revenue transparency gained from extractive industries to avoid ‘paradox of plenty’ – the paradox that areas with an abundance of natural resources obtained from oil, gas and mining tend to have worse development outcomes, due to mismanagement of resources, corrupt institutions and so forth. Through semi-structured interviews with CSO representatives, this preliminary, qualitative research aims to describe how they view and advocate revenue transparency and how they contextualize a global Extractive Industries Transparency Initiatives (EITI) standard to suit local situations and dynamics. It can be concluded that revenue transparency is important for fueling the future of the next generation through sustainable development. In advocating resource transparency, EITI as an international instrument is used as a perspective, alongside other national and local regulations. Challenges ahead based on CSO perspectives are numerous, including advocating this push for transparency with various stakeholders – some with contrasting and conflicting interests - to achieve institutional changes in the local levels.