18 November 2021 – Indonesia Country Level Event

Mr Peter Oborn from the UKBEAG welcomed participants and provided an overview of the event, following which Ms Maria Herdanti, UK FCDO Global Future Cities Programme Adviser, offered introductory remarks. Mr Francois Brikke, Mott MacDonald Country Lead, then introduced the city stakeholders.

Ms Febrina Kusumawati, Head of Surabaya Development Planning Agency provided an overview of the development of an earthquake preparedness strategy in Surabaya and the development of an urban transportation plan for Putat Jaya. Mrs Tammi Lasmini MSc, Head of the Development Administration Division, Bandung Secretariat Office provided an overview of the project to develop an integrated transport system in Bandung.

Mr Oliver Harman, City Economist at the International Growth Centre gave a short framing presentation on moving from policy to practice. Ms Sarah Lynch, Operations and Stakeholder Engagement Manager at Bristol City Council gave a presentation on the Bristol One City Plan and One City Office. Dr Nick Goodwin, Director of International Programmes at The Behavioural Insights Team gave a presentation on apply behavioural insights to inform policy and improve public services
for national, regional, and local governments to deliver better results for their citizens.

Ms Sophie Evans, Head of Country Programmes at the Centre for Disaster Protection gave a presentation on managing disaster risk and resilience and unlocking disaster risk finance. Mr Stanley Cochrane, Head of Energy Transformation, at the Howden Group a UK insurance industry expert, gave a presentation on managing earthquake risk and possible earthquake insurance mechanisms for achieving financial resilience.

Key Takeaways

• Across the interventions, the teams emphasised the merits of participatory planning, particularly facilitating better community engagement to underpin their interventions. Participants highlighted that better community engagement does not necessarily mean more in quantity. There is an inherent cost and trade-off when asking citizens for their opinions – policy decision-makers should not overburden communities by requesting repeated input. Rather, the quality of engagement matters. This integration of people in the urban planning process can help crowd in interest for financing and embedding the project in the city.
• Speakers, subject matter experts and the audience all recognised leadership as crucial to balancing all actors and their interests. Strong leadership helps parties understand who to ask in relation to participatory planning, when to ask (and when not to), as well as how to ask. For example, community task forces and community capacity building are effective methods of building engagement.
• Finally, there is a huge movement to promote sustainable development and activities to slow climate breakdown after COP26. This provides an opportunity to ensure the interventions are transformative while also opening potential new financing opportunities.