This paper analyses the Theory of Change underlying The Asia Foundation’s local governance reform programme in Timor-Leste. It explores the country’s political and governance context and considered how well the Suku Governance Support Programme (PAGOS) responds to this. The paper highlights successes of, and tensions within, the programme approaches to state-society relations. It finds that although the programme is context-appropriate to the context, a more political (rather than technical) approach may better serve navigating the complexity of Timor-Leste’s governance gap. It also calls for more research into the politics of this dynamic interface between demands for, and resistance to, improving state-society relations in Timor-Leste.
Governance in Timor-Leste is challenging. This largely rural, village-based society has been governed by a highly centralised state politically and geographically remote from the general population. Local-level governance has taken a hybrid form drawing on elements from formal governance, colonial and pre-colonial institutions and guerilla resistance organisations. Since independence, successive governments have either failed, or avoided, formally decentralising the state. This stalemate has exacerbated the geo-political gap between the government and wider society, where failure of information and understanding about rural needs has meant that rural development plans have failed to adequately address pressing issues of the population.
The programme has focused on working in the governance gap, driving the local demand side of governance (for improved services and quicker government response rates, for example) in two ways: (i) bringing together village-level societal groups and their leaders with formal state representatives and organisations; and supporting national-level government organisations and government branches at the sub-national level. Its attempt to bridge informal and formal organisations and modes of governance reflects an understanding of the complex nature of local governance. Working with local, hybrid institutions is an appropriate approach given the uncertain and rapidly-changing context of Timor-Leste. In some ways this is risky – a sudden change in government could dismantle the programme – but it it also provides the space and funds for local concerns to drive the agenda.
There are two main programmatic tensions: (i) raising village activism, and therefore potentially criticising central government projects and activities, can widen rather than reduce the state-societal gap; and (ii) some key national- and local-level actors in the programme have a vested interest in maintaining the governance gap. There appears to be an assumption within the programme design that increased village activism will create harmonious governance.
These two tensions within the programme, in part, reflect the way in which The Asia Foundation has articulated the wider issue of local governance as a technical problem. If the governance structures and institutions were in place, then development itself would be improved. However, the problem is widely recognised so identification is not the issue. A technical approach to the governance gap can do little to resolve the deep-rooted issues underpinning it because such an approach overlooks the mutual convenience of maintaining the status quo. It is not in everyone’s interest to dismantle the governance gap; central government and local-level government representatives do not stand to gain from community criticism and activism, and some community leaders derive their authority from the distance between state and society. More research into the politics of the dynamic interface between demands for, and resistance to, improving state-society relations in Timor-Leste is needed in order to find a more holistic solution.
