22 February 2008
Trainings aim to inform Indonesian civil society about the basics of the multilateral development banks and hold the institutions accountable.
Participants in Tasik
In the first week of February 2008, BIC Indonesia, in collaboration with its local partners, held two trainings on the multilateral development banks (MDBs) in Indonesia. The first training was held in a small town in West Java, Tasikmalaya, where BIC joined forces to co-host and organize the event with debtWATCH Indonesia and UPLINK. For two and a half days, February 4-6, 25 participants from various groups (students, urban poor, woman, local activists) learned about the basics of the MDBs, particularly about the World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB). They discussed topics on how to make the MDBs accountable based on the presentations by Jelson Garcia and Nadia Hadad from BIC, Arimbi Heroepoetri and Diana Goeltom from debtWATCH as well as the guest speaker, Muhamad Riza-Yayasan Duta Awam, who shared his experience in using the ADB’s Accountability Mechanism.
The second training took place February 8-9 in Bandung, the capital city of West Java province. In Bandung, BIC collaborated with the Bandung Institute for Governance Studies (BIGS). More than 35 people from 30 organizations participated in this training. Other than the basic issues of the MDBs, this training gave special attention to preparing nongovernmental organizations in West Java in a systematic and proactive monitoring of the Integrated Citarum Water Resources Management Project (ICWRMP), financed under the ADB’s multi-tranche financing facility (MFF). At the end of the training, initial plans for a collaborative work on the ADB’s CWRM Project were discussed.