The case study in this project examined the dynamics of piped-water and sewer
development between 1945 and 2015 in Jakarta, Indonesia. Each case study presented findings from interviews and documentation approaches, followed by interpretation using a MLP framework. The findings contribute to the growing discourse regarding the slow progress of piped-water and sewer development in Jakarta, where piped-water coverage has only increased 10% to 48% from 1975 to 2015. During this period, the development of sewer network has been stagnant, providing access to less than 2% of Jakarta‟s population.
This study has shown the changes and even improvements in the economy, politics, and health in Jakarta can be achieved without much progress in water and sanitation. Although Indonesia has initiated a decentralisation and privatisation reform which reduces the power of the central government and gives more authority to local government and private actors, local
governments and the public have failed to make water and sanitation an important aspect of development. This has occurred both in the centralized eras (Old and New Order) and the decentralized era (Reform). A main finding of this research, which is based on qualitative methodology, is that decentralization does not substantially increase government and public responsiveness to water and sanitation issues. The change of water supply management from public (PAM Jaya) to public-private partnership (PALYJA and Aetra) in Jakarta also did not bring about substantial improvements in providing piped-water access. In summary, we suggest
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that the central government not assume that local governments and private water operators are fully capable of satisfying national water and sanitation needs.
This case study shows that water and sanitation performance is better when it is managed by the central government, such as during in the centralistic eras. Therefore, to accelerate the achievement of universal access, water and sanitation should be managed centrally. Special consideration should be taken to prioritize the poor and ensure their improved welfare, equity, and access to basic needs. Also, current policy makers should pay more attention and learn from the country‟s history of the authoritarian bureaucrats, corruption, and weak legislative systems. Awareness of past fallacies and weaknesses can help law makers avoid similar pitfalls during the process of implementing water and sanitation project in a decentralized system.
The key point of the MLP is to observe where the dynamics within landscape, regime, and niche levels become linked. However, in the case of Jakarta, there have only been limited interactions between landscape, regime, and niche levels in Jakarta. The lack of interactions between these three levels has prevented the expansion of piped-water and sewer systems in Jakarta. There is some co-evolution in landscape events but not in niche and regime actors. The insider regime actor (i.e. the government) has overall been resistant to changes, with limited innovations implemented to solve water and sanitation problems. Furthermore, there have been inadequate interactions between inside and outside actors. Our findings show that the Jakarta piped-water and sewer systems have not been substantially influenced by technological innovations or by environments outside the technology sector, such as macro-politics, macro- economics, and societal behaviour.
The MLP is a fruitful starting point allowing for the identification of interrelated of dynamics within piped-water and sewer systems in Jakarta. However, the study of multi regime
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dynamics (ground water, bottled/refilled water, piped water, sewer and on-site sanitation) needs more emphasis. The slow progress of piped-water and sewer has two major implications for Indonesia and other developing countries that aim to improve their systems. First, to accelerate the achievement of universal access to drinking-water and sanitation, strong leadership from the government in planning and implementing infrastructure is essential. The government needs to create a dynamic between landscape and niche. The government ought to seek out more
opportunities for innovation and adaptation to local conditions. Second, the government should promote integration between cultural behaviour and water and sanitation development. The historical, political, economic, and cultural contexts are decisive in water and sanitation development pathways (Briscoe, 2003). What worked in developed countries may not work in developing countries due to the differences of historical, social, and cultural conditions.
Three important limitations need to be considered. First, the author combined the development of piped-water and sewer as one single analysis. Because piped-water and sewer system development in Indonesia are managed under the same regime, these two factors were considered simultaneously. However, future studies should focus on only one at a time or should compare and contrast the progress of each, as they may behave differently even when managed under the same regime. The second limitation is the length of the period of the analysis from 1945 to 2015. Although this paper focused on analysing changes in piped-water supply and sewer development from 1945 to 2015, the provision of water supply (using ground water as a raw resource)in Jakarta had begun as early as in 1843 (PAM Jaya, 2016). Furthermore, Indonesia has many rivers and springs. Some people may have relied more heavily on water from rivers and canals for drinking, bathing, and defecating. Thus, more information could have been collected by extending the time frame of focus. The third limitation is related to interviews
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and the selection of literature. Interview subjects may be biased, have poor memories, or provide inaccurate testimonies. The experience of the author working in government agencies in
Indonesia may also introduce biases in the interview process. The interviewee was selected from a broad range of actors in order to minimize selection bias. However, due to the inability of the author to travel to Jakarta, the study could be improved if the author was able to interview more people, such as public health experts, bottled and refilled water businessmen, etc. A thorough literature search was conducted; however, some literature may have been missed with valuable insights on this topic. Due to inaccessibility or inability to analyse several important
documentations because it was difficult to find in Indonesia and the United States, information from interviewers and from literature reviews were used to describe some findings.
Finally, there are five suggestions for future studies. First, a more complete MLP can be applied to conduct case studies in further depth including analyze the use of non-piped systems (i.e. groundwater, bottled and/or refilled water, and septic tanks). Secondly, a case study should be conducted on a longer time scale given that the development of piped-water in Jakarta had occurred during the colonial period. Third, future research should look beyond public officials and policy makers and seek to understand the position and viewpoints of non-governmental actors. It is important to understand the viewpoints of other outside actors on the development of water and sanitation systems. Fourth, future studies should compare and contrast piped-water and sewer systems between several big cities in Indonesia or between Indonesia and other developing countries. Jakarta is an outlier in many cases because its social, demographic, and economic conditions are very different from other cities in Indonesia. Thus, other cities in this nation may not follow the same pathway as Jakarta. However, at the same time a case study of Jakarta could be considered as a great example to show the real conditions of water and
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sanitation in Indonesia. Fifth, further studies could also analyse indigenous water and sanitation practices that contribute to current water and sanitation conditions.
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