Implementation of Open Government Partnership in Public Information Services in Baubau City
Wa Ode Arsyiah1
Lecture Department of State Administration, Universitas Dayanu Ikhsanuddin, Baubau, Indonesia Email: [email protected]
Syahril Ramadhan2
Lecture Department of State Administration, Universitas Dayanu Ikhsanuddin, Baubau, Indonesia Email: [email protected]
Abstract
Open Government Partnership (OGP) is an effort to improve government performance, encourage public participation, and increase the government's response to society. This study intends to describe how the implementation of the Open Government Partnership (OGP) in public information services in the city of Baubau. The approach used in this study is qualitative. This research was conducted in Baubau City, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. The research was conducted in 2018. In this study, the data obtained came from primary data sources and secondary data sources. The analysis technique used is the descriptive data analysis technique, namely by collecting factual data and describing it. Data comes from all information obtained from interviews and documents. Data analysis from this study took place in conjunction with the data collection process and was carried out after the data was collected. The validity checking techniques used by researchers were triangulation, an extension of observations, and increased persistence. The conclusion of this study is the implementation of the Open Government Partnership in the city of Baubau is carried out based on the partnership built by the Baubau city government with the private sector (mass media). Partnerships are followed up with various kinds of cooperation contract programs. The partnership between the Baubau city government and the mass media is related to increasing the promotion and progress of the city of Baubau. The partnership between the government and the mass media will make the promotion of the city of Baubau more targeted, focused and patterned, and programmed sustainably. This partnership is an effort for the mass media to participate in the development of the city of Baubau.
Keywords: Implementation, Open Government Partnership, Partnership.
Introduction
Public information services have an important role in the implementation of government, both at the central and regional levels. The presence of public information services is expected to open the widest possible access space for the community, to realize good governance (good governance) based on the principle of transparency. The right to obtain information is also relevant for improving service quality and also for community involvement in public decision- making processes. Public service, public participation, or involvement does not mean much without the guarantee of public information disclosure.
The concept of open government is often used by practitioners and academics to describe the notion of government transparency and accountability. Open government is a government doctrine that states that citizens have the right to access government documents and processes to enable effective public participation. Public information services as a way to increase transparency, increase accountability, fight corruption (Scassa, 2014).
The problem is that not all desires regarding the fulfillment of public information can be fulfilled maximally, even now public access to information on governance is still very difficult and very limited (Dwiyanto, 2012). There are even several opinions that state that government institutions think that not all access to government information is important for the public to know because there are concerns that it could create instability for the wider community.
The indication of this condition occurs at all levels of government structures, both at the central and regional levels for quite a variety of reasons, including; insufficient information facilities; lack of support for state and regional budgeting related to information dissemination; to the issue of limited human resources, and so on.
Problems regarding the communication process between the government and the community, such as the lack of access to information to the public, have made the government and the mass media collaborate as a link between the government and the community. Therefore, the empirical phenomenon that is the focus of this paper concerns the implementation of open government partnerships in public information services in the city of Baubau.
Literature Review
Over the past, nearly a decade, countries around the world have adopted government initiatives as a way to increase transparency, increase accountability, fight corruption, or promote economic development. Yu and Robinson (2012) reviewed the background of the concept of Open Government (OG) in the past as a synonym for the public accountability concept that emerged after the Second World War in 1957. The concept of open government is a doctrine that states that citizens have the right to access information from government and government processes to enable effective public scrutiny.
The concept of open government also refers to the disclosure of politically sensitive government information (Yu & Robinson, 2012). The concept of open government has a broad scope. Usually associated with the terms government transparency and accountability as well as government openness to information released by the government.
The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (2016) defines open government as "transparency of government actions, access to services and information from the government, and the government's responsiveness to new ideas, requests, and needs." Another important OG precedent refers to the creation of an Open Government Partnership (Gomes, et al, 2018).
The concept of the partnership (partnership) is the most interesting element of the OGP concept. A partnership is an arrangement in which the parties, known as business partners, agree to work together to advance their common interests. Partners in partnerships can be individuals, businesses, interest-based organizations, governments, communities or a combination of these.
Organizations can partner to increase the likelihood of each achieving their mission and to enlarge their reach. Partnerships can result in issuance and ownership of equity or they can only be arranged by a contract.
Uhlik (2007) defines partnership in the context of partnership theory as a transformational relationship-oriented towards achieving meaningful goals. This transformational relationship is a contract of two or more competent persons or institutions to place their money, business, labor, and skills, or some or all of them, in a legitimate trade or business, and to share profits and bear a certain proportion of losses. A partnership is a synergistic collaboration between two or more parties to carry out an activity (in action with). This collaboration is a social exchange that gives each other (social rewards), is dyadic, and mutual reinforcement (Bovaird, 2004).
Starting from the above definition, the partnership can be interpreted as a form of the contractual relationship between two or more competent people or institutions that are oriented towards the mutual achievement of meaningful goals or in other words as an alliance between two or more parties that form a cooperation bond based on an agreement. and a sense of mutual need to increase the capacity and capability in a particular business field, or a certain goal, so that it can get good results. The resources required for a successful partnership are not only money but many other forms. Certain information, networks, accommodation, products, personnel, expertise, and so on are necessary. The form of partnership that is now getting stronger is the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) or a partnership between the government and the private sector. This partnership also includes other sectors, especially civil society, as well as social business actors.
The awareness of sharing resources has indeed strengthened so that between the government and the private sector there are more and more forms of partnerships to be found to solve various development problems.
According to Dwiyanto (2010), cooperation between the government and non-government organizations can improve the cost-effectiveness of public service delivery. The government can expand the scope of services without having to increase the budget and personnel. Through cooperation with non-governmental organizations, the scope of services can be expanded without having to increase the state budget. The community and stakeholders have resources that can be used to expand the scope of services.
In theory, partnerships present the parties involved with complex negotiations and specific challenges that must be navigated by agreement. The overarching objectives, levels of giving and take, areas of responsibility, lines of authority and succession, how success is evaluated and distributed, and often various other factors must all be negotiated. This partnership mechanism is generally initiated or initiated by the government, but sometimes there are offers from the media itself. The partnership process does not necessarily provide media managers with whom to cooperate but is related to the feasibility of the media, the amount of circulation, the reach, including the broadcast duration for electronic media. Therefore, the evaluation has been running since the beginning, until the collaboration process ends.
The concept of open government partnership (OGP) is not relatively new in the field of public administration. Open government partnerships have been increasingly studied in recent years, which implies a growing interest in this topic. In the past decade, the term Open Government Partnership (OGP) has become a popular topic of interest to academics, activists, citizens, and policymakers. This concept has sparked an academic interest for academics to undertake scientific studies and led to significant changes in improving the quality of public service delivery. The result of this trend is the emergence of multi-stakeholder initiatives and commitments at the subnational level in realizing a more open government: transparent, participatory, innovative, effective, and accountable.
The Open Government Partnership was officially launched on September 20, 2011. Since then, the 79 OGP participating countries and 20 local governments have made more than 3,100 commitments to make their governments more open and accountable. OGP provides a platform for stakeholders inside and outside governments around the world to develop initiatives that promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption, and leverage new technologies to strengthen governance.
The Open Government Partnership has 4 (four) major objectives, namely: increasing the availability of data on state administration, supporting public participation, implementing the highest standards of professional integrity in public administration, increasing access to new technology to support openness and accountability. Government and civil society play an equally important role in managing OGP.
Indonesia as one of the founders of the Open Government Partnership with the largest economy, Indonesia has shown an interest in playing a leading role in spreading open government principles and practices throughout the world, with Southeast Asia's main concern.
The Open Government Partnership (OGP) is an international multilateral organization, founded in 2011, and has successfully added 75 countries to promote concrete public policy commitments. Consequently, it can be noted that there has been an international trend that in recent years has proven successful when it sets OG at the front of the international publication agenda on transparency, participation, collaboration, open data, among other important issues to improve relations between government and society ( Gomes, et al, 2018).
Method
The approach used in this study is qualitative. This research was conducted in Baubau City, Southeast Sulawesi, Indonesia. The research was conducted in 2018. In this study, the data
obtained came from primary data sources and secondary data sources. Primary data sources are data sources obtained directly from the field. The primary data sources of this research include interviews and observations. The interview technique used in this research is in-depth interviews.
The analysis technique used is the descriptive data analysis technique, namely by collecting factual data and describing it. Data comes from all information obtained from interviews and documents through several stages. After data collection, data recording, the researcher conducted an interactive analysis consisting of data reduction, data presentation, and verification. The analysis of this study took place in conjunction with the data collection process and was carried out after the data was collected. The validity checking techniques used by researchers were triangulation, an extension of observations, and increased persistence.
Result and Discussion
The orientation and indicators of current development success will largely be determined by the extent to which the multi-stakeholder development actors can carry out the synergy. Until now, it is impossible for all that is contained in the regional development plan to be realized by the regional government unilaterally. Therefore there is an absolute need to develop a development model that involves other stakeholders starting from the stages of development, design, and management.
The public-private-community partnership approach is a synergistic operational model to achieve sustainable development in which the three parties jointly develop mutually beneficial services and provide maximum benefit to the wider community.
In its implementation, the partnership approach will encourage dialogue between various parties, through seminars/workshops, dialogue forums, research, and studies on the implementation of cooperation models at the local level and facilitate the development of multi- stakeholder operational agreements in the long term.
In this connection, the partnership pattern can be understood as meaning that a partnership is an arrangement in which parties, known as partners, agree to work together to advance their common interests. The partners in a partnership may be individuals, businesses, organizations, schools, governments, or a combination. Organizations partner to increase the likelihood of each achieving their mission and to strengthen their reach. Partnerships can result in the issuance and ownership of shares that are governed by a contract. There are 4 (four) main functions that must be carried out by the government, namely the service function, the development function, the empowerment function, and the protection function. However, this does not mean that the government has a monopoly on these functions. In the Governance system, three main actors participate in carrying out these functions, namely the government or the public sector, business / private/private sector actors, and the community.
Partnering with the mass media is an effort to achieve maximum publication, related to information from local governments to increase knowledge and positive understanding in the eyes of the community. Within this framework, the municipal government of Baubau established partnerships with local mass media to develop regions in various fields. The role of mass media in shaping public opinion in the era of globalization is quite dominant. The role of mass media in the city of Baubau is very much needed in disseminating information to the public. Therefore, this opportunity was taken advantage of by the local government of Baubau city to socialize the work program and announce the success of the development that has been achieved. The mass media has an important role in informing the development progress and achievements of the government to the wider community. Information delivery provided by the mass media has educational value, is independent. Currently, many achievements have been made, for example, recently Baubau was awarded the title of a healthy city. After that, Baubau also managed to get the Adipura trophy.
Many activities or information from the government are not perfectly known by the public.
However, with the presence of the media, the public can find out the information they want to know.
The Baubau City Communication and Information Office has the main task of assisting the mayor in coordinating planning and formulating policies, as well as synchronizing the implementation of government policies in the fields of informatics communication, coding, and statistics. The Baubau City Communication and Informatics Office is tasked with presenting information and documentation of activities related to news delivery in the city of Baubau including documentation, protocol, and news in the mass media. Carrying out its role as an information window for the people of Baubau city and its surroundings, the Baubau City Communication and Information Office uses the mass media as a means of facilitating the delivery of information and making it easier for the public to access information.
Information services agreed upon by the Communication and Informatics Agency and the mass media information manager in Baubau City are by their respective functions as stated in a Work Order. For example, media releases, press conferences in the form of dialogues with the theme of a partnership between the government, society, and mass media, and media gatherings, by presenting competent sources. Dissemination of information on regional development has also been carried out through cooperation with several leading newspapers.
The mass media can take part in carrying out certain parts of these functions or partner with the government. The importance of a partnership pattern in distributing information to the public with the mass media, for the government represented by the Communication and Information Technology Office, of course, has its mechanisms and requirements for the partner institutions concerned, such as; must be supported by an organized institution, have a clear company, or requirements as ideally a healthy company.
Publication partnership mechanisms include bid opening, administrative and factual verification, signing of cooperation agreements, price negotiations, media orders, and accountability. Administrative verification based on press law and press council circulations, factual verification in the form of an assessment of a blank questionnaire filled out by the company when submitting a cooperation offer. From the verification results, there will be a media categorization based on the level of administrative completeness and performance of the mass media, such as the number of circulation for print media.
Partnership in the Communication and Information Technology Office, four main criteria must be met, namely companies engaged in the mass media sector, have official permits, are willing to work according to contracts or agreements made, and have easy access to the wider community. The partnership that has been established between the Baubau City Government represented by the Baubau City Communication and Information Agency and the mass media management in this area is designed in the form of mutual benefit for both parties, with a mechanism that is regulated in such away.
In this regard, it is a serious concern of the City Government of Baubau so that the dissemination of information runs optimally, as the main target of his party. The collaboration between the City Government of Baubau and the mass media (private) is an alliance that benefits both parties. The government benefits from the ease of channeling communication information, while the private sector has many things apart from economic interests, including; resource support in providing news sources, understanding the bureaucratic system, developing government information, and so on.
The partnership of the Communication and Information Technology Office with the Print Media is in addition to disseminating information on development activities, also through Photographer and Journalistic Training. Participants were members of the press, students, high school / vocational high school students as well as representatives of regional apparatus organizations within the Baubau city government. The City Government of Baubau wants to support the openness of public information between the media, the government, and the public.
The Bau-Bau City Government participates in increasing professionalism, as well as synergies in journalistic work. It is hoped that the media can synergize with public relations tasks in the context of information disclosure in the 4.0 era. become a pillar of truth enforcement, facts, and
public aspirations.
The municipal government of Baubau further improves the delivery of information related to regional programs to the public through the mass media. Several media in Baubau City namely Kendari Post, Baubau Post, Buton Post, Kepton Post, Kendari City News, and the People of Southeast Sulawesi. Apart from posting news, there are newspaper subscriptions for Rukun Tetangga (RT) and Rukun Warga (RW) paid by the City Government of Baubau. In addition to partnering with print media, the City of Baubau Communication and Information Agency also partners with electronic media, namely online media via the internet, TV broadcasts, and radio broadcasts in the dissemination of information in Baubau City. Mass media is the main working partner of the Baubau city government which continues to forge good cooperation in disseminating various things.
Public information disclosure, which is organized by the municipal government of Baubau, has an important role in the involvement of the local mass media which helps the Baubau city government in realizing its vision. The provision of access to information and publications from the government to the public is very much needed, related to the democratic process which is the main thing in assessing good governance.
Conclusion
The implementation of the Open Government Partnership in the city of Baubau is based on a partnership established by the Baubau city government as an information provider with the private sector (mass media) as a professional service provider to disseminate information to the public who plays an important role in monitoring development. Partnerships are followed up with various kinds of cooperation contract programs. The partnership between the municipal government of Baubau and the mass media is related to increasing the promotion and progress of Baubau city based on the region. The partnership between the government and the mass media will make the promotion of the city of Baubau more targeted, focused and patterned, and programmed sustainably.
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