The need to revise the policy of regional development planning mechanism :

  to synchronize the absorption of Community aspirations in Indonesia *)

Sri Juni Woro Astuti

Abstract

Regional development planning is a process of decision-making on regional development policies and programs, to improve the community welfare in the region. Therefore, in formulating local development plans should always be oriented to the public interests, especially to prevent the creation of wealth gap between regions, preserving local culture, and can prevent the community dissatisfaction.

There are five approaches that need to be considered in the formulation of local development planning, namely: (1) political approach, (2) technocratic approach, (3) Participatory Approach, (4) Bottom-up approach, and (5) Top Down Approach. But in practice, those five approaches can not be applied effectively and simultaneously, especially the participatory approach is still being rhetoric. This would result in development planning output generated is not in accordance with the aspirations and interests of the community. Therefore, this study aimed to analyze the weakness of planning mechanisms that lead to failure in the aspiration absorption process. And secondly to analyze what factors are causing the failure in synchronizing the community aspirations whether committed by the legislative or executive.

Results of this study identified several things; firstly, that the political approach is the most dominant among other approaches within local development planning process. Secondly, there is a weakness in the  local development planning mechanism. therefore it becomes very necessary to revise  the policy related to regional development planning cycle and mechanisms.

Keywords: Development,  planning, community aspirations

*) Paper presented on AAPA Annual Conference, 6-8 February 2014, Cebu, Philipina