UpdatesAs of August 2007, PNPM Generasi ‘s village plan-

ning process had begun. During social mapping, villagers registered over 450,000 mothers and chil-dren under-five, and 750,000 school-aged children. By November, the 3-month participatory planning process had born fruit: village forums had approved proposals aimed to help improve each villages’ twelve indicators.

By early December, villages had received the first of three block grant installments. Total annual block grants averaged USD 8,400 per village. As of Febru-ary 2008, 122 sub-districts or 95 percent of the sub-districts have received their full block grant amounts, seven sub-districts in NTT should have their final in-stallment by April.

Village representatives are rigorously applying the project’s monitoring tools to evaluate the villages’ performance with the twelve indicators. For example, mothers have their coupon books stamped by a health worker each time they receive a targeted health ser-vice; every month village representatives track school attendance; and conduct monthly meetings to dis-cuss the progress, their performance according to the twelve indicators, and strategies for improvement.

Anecdotal evidence confirms that the participatory process is effective and communities take the project principles to heart. In Lembata District NTT, an empow-ered inter-village forum repulsed one village head’s attempt to push his own agenda, an electric genera-tor, against the wishes of his village forum. The inter-village forum refused to accept the proposal, arguing that the village head circumvented the participatory planning process. When the village head refused to reconsider the village was barred from participating in the 2007 project cycle.

National Program for Community Empowerment (PNPM)towards a

SUPER GENER ATIONQ u a r t e r l y U p d a t e I s s u e N o . 2

Also in this issue......

• What is PNPM Generasi Funding? Pg.2

• Upcoming Activities Pg.2

• Case Study : Program Flexibility

Keeps Children in School Pg.3

• Puppet Show Brings Messages of

PNPM Generasi Home Pg.3

What is PNPM Generasi?PNPM Generasi is an innovative pilot program launched by the Government of Indonesia in July 2007 designed to accelerate achievement of three Millennium Develop-ment Goals: universal basic education, reduction in child mortality, and improvement in maternal health. PNPM Generasi is short for PNPM Generasi Sehat dan Cerdas, which means “A Healthy and Bright Generation.”

Villages participating in PNPM Generasi commit to improv-ing 12 basic health and education indicators (see below). Trained facilitators assist villagers in a participatory plan-ning process, helping them to identify problems and cre-ate local solutions. Flexible targeting and locally appropri-ate interventions are possible owing to PNPM Generasi’s decentralized and participatory design.

PNPM Generasi is in 1,625 villages across five provinces: East Java, West Java, Gorontalo, North Sulawesi and Nusa Tengara Timur (NTT). In 2008, the Government is commit-ted to expanding PNPM Generasi from 129 to 200 sub-districts in the same five provinces.

PNPM Generasi is part of the Government’s flagship pov-erty alleviation program, Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat (PNPM) or the National Program for Commu-nity Empowerment. PNPM Generasi builds on the exten-sive project infrastructure of the Kecamatan Development Project (KDP). The Ministry of Home Affairs implements PNPM in rural areas with an overall government coordina-tion team (Tim Penggendali) providing policy oversight. PNPM Generasi is supported by the Government of Indo-nesia, the World Bank and the Embassy of the Royal Neth-erlands.

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In general, communities have opted to fund a mix of public and private goods. Public goods include access

infrastructure, rehabilitation of facilities, equipment for vil-lage health posts, transportation for the village midwife, and seed funds for group savings for deliveries and related complications.

In terms of private goods, village block grants are funding: provision of daily supplementary foods for malnourished children; subsidizing fees for delivery; and door prizes to monthly weighing sessions at the village health post to motivate participation. To target education indicators, vil-lagers are funding provision of bicycles for children walk-ing long distances to school and school uniforms and shoes for school-going children.

The launch of the 2007 cycle unfortunately missed the school registration period in June. As a result, villagers could not re-enroll school dropouts in the middle of a school year. For the 2008 cycle, funds should be available for the new school year to allow communities to plan and act on their school enrollment indicators.

The project’s operational manuals are being revised for the 2008 cycle adding a stronger emphasis on the need for vil-lagers to work with non-service users and poor perform-ers, such as those who never attend the monthly weighing at the village health posts and school dropouts.

What is PNPM Generasi Funding?

Common Activities Funded by PNPM Generasi

Some communities choose to buy weighing scales for village health posts with their funds.

Upcoming ActivitiesThe following is a rough timeline of PNPM Generasi’s field activities:

Month/Year Activities

April and July 2008Quarterly inter-village cross-audits. Village auditors will au-dit the 12-indicator performance and financial records.

May 2008Inter-village meeting to kick-off the 2008 cycle planning activities

Mid July - Aug 2008Fielding of 2008 follow-up quantitative and qualitative sur-vey

Aug 2008

Recapitulation of village performance on the 12 indicators. Inter-village comparisons of scores according to the 12 in-dicators. Target disbursement date for the 2008 cycle com-munity block grants.

Aug 2008 - April 2009Implementation of village-level sub-projects

HealthVillage awareness raising activities • Supplemental feeding• Transportation for mothers and midwives• Subsidies for fees for delivery• Seed funds for group savings for deliveries• Incentives/transport cost for village health cadres• Weighing scales and furniture for Village Health Posts• Infrastructure for Village Delivery Posts•

EducationSchool uniforms, shoes, bags, and stationery• Subsidies for students’ transportation costs• Bicycles for junior secondary school students• Honorarium for part-time teachers• Building and facilitating establishment of satellite • classes

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“Hey, your child needs breast milk, not market milk,” Mrs. Cangik tells her daughter, Limbuk. The audience laughs at the play on words and Ki Purbo Asmoro, a puppetmaster from Solo, pauses to let the laughter die down.

It is 11pm in Trenggalek, a small city in rural East Java. Ki Purbo Asmoro is performing a wayang kulit—a traditional Javanese shadow pup-pet show that lasts from 9pm to dawn—called Wisanggeni but this is no ordinary performance. The puppetmaster or dalang is using this tradi-tional art form to convey key messages about PNPM Generasi to the audience.

Tonight, the puppetmaster is focusing on the importance of maternal and in-fant health. As he explains “Wayang is an ideal form for conveying messages to the people. You do it metaphorically during the story and then directly during the intermezzos. So people hear things

of motorcycles that ring the seating area.

“Listening to speeches is boring, it makes you sleepy,” says one female audience member. “With the wayang you get to laugh, the message is heard and felt more deeply.”

“It’s a good way to promote the program, people come for the entertainment, then they learn something,” says another lady.

This section of the play is comedy, spoken by servants who are allowed to be direct and even a little crude. It allows the puppetmaster to give his message straight to the public with a healthy dose of humor. In the more serious section of the play, the puppetmaster

works with deep metaphors, ones that resonate with the crowd. One of the main char-acters questions, “What is the meaning of family? A child needs all the support it can get for it to grow into a healthy adult, both physically and spiri-tually.” This is the theme the puppetmaster weaves through-out the play—the development of a child into whole person, one who is, in the fullest sense of the word, bright.

Puppet Show Brings Messages of PNPM Generasi Home

For more information on PNPM Generasi , please contact:National Management Consultant (NMC)

Graha Pejaten No.2Jl. Raya Pejaten Pasar Minggu Jakarta Selatan 12510

Phone: 62-21-7988-940 Fax: 62-21-797-4712generasi@nmc.ppk.or.id

Secretariat PNPM Mandiri - PerdesaanDirectorate General Pembadayaan Maysarakat dan Desa,

Ministry of Home AffairsJl. Raya Pasar Minggu Km. 19, Jakarta Selatan 125220

Phone: 62-21-79191648 Fax: 62-21-79196118ppkpmd@yahoo.com http://www.ppk.or.id

Case Study: Program Flexibility Keeps Children In SchoolKeeping her children in school is important to Mrs. Aisyah Abdul Bobihu, a mother of four living in Ipilo, a village in rural Gorontalo province. “I graduated from junior second-ary school but my parents could not afford to send me to high school.”

Mrs. Aisyah and her husband have two school-aged boys, Raplin, 14, and Khaidir, 9. “My children can keep up with their schoolwork, its me that is unable (to pay), but I try no matter what.”

Ipilo uses PNPM Generasi funding to provide cash assis-tance to 275 families with primary and junior secondary school children. The community originally decided to give needy students money for uniforms.

During the implementation some families with children going to school outside Ipilo used their funds for trans-portation instead of uniforms. The community was open to the idea that families have different needs, thus Raflin received USD 2.5 per month during the nine-month imple-mentation period.

Mrs. Aisyah was happy with the program’s flexibility. “If I could choose between uniforms, transportation money, or scholarships, I would choose scholarships because you can use them to suit individual educational needs.”

This year the family will use their PNPM funds to lighten their heaviest load: a kind of school betterment fund that Mrs. Aisyah calls “committee money”. In the past, these funds have bought marching band instruments and last year they built a welcome archway for the school. Mrs. Ai-syah does not agree with what the money is used for, but she has to pay—Raflin will not be promoted to the next grade before the money is received in full. At present they have paid USD 5 of this year’s USD 15 fee.

These days, Mrs. Aisyah is feeling more confident about Raflin finishing junior secondary school—he is half way through. She knows the burden will increase when her two youngest boys, now 2 and 4, are ready to go to school. For now, she is happy to see her eldest continue his education and hopes that he may be able to go farther than she did.

two different ways.” The messages are not lost on the audience—more than 600 people have packed the central square of Trenggalek. Seats below a massive blue tarp are full, hun-dreds sit on the backs

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