STOP TELLING, START LISTENING: Owen's Guide for Do-Gooders
The 1998 Jakarta riots, the fall of President Soeharto and his 32-year-old authoritarian Orde Baru (New Order) rule and krismon (the Asian financial crisis) were social and political earthquakes.
Emerging from the rubble the idealists wanted changes; according to the Australian-educated economist Boediono who later became vice president (2009 - 2014) they sought “economic recovery, improved governance, supremacy of law, and democracy.”
Pushing the swing hard was an Australian - little known in his homeland but a central figure in Jakarta.
Owen Podger, good governance advocate, corruption fighter and democracy defender wasn’t always a chart-topper with the Indonesian elite he worked with for more than 30 years.
This had nothing to do with his professional skills, overseas education or personal traits. He was a modest, personable Ozzie administrator married to an Indonesian and fluent in the language.
But here's the hassle: Owen wouldn't tell his employers what they wanted to hear unless it was the truth. So his reports often revealed discomforting facts suggesting painful solutions. When bureaucrats dig in to defend against advancing change, admiration for a stirrer is hard to hear.
Owen, 80, died in his sleep on the remote island of Sumba on 6 June. Last year he posted this academic paper in his continuous campaign to get the outside ‘experts’ to ask the locals and glean their wisdom.
Owen trained as an architect at NSW University in the 1960s, later shifting to town planning and then to public administration:
In 2012 he organised a seminar in Jakarta led by Boediono for bureaucrats advising ministers' advisors, implementing good government policies without getting snared by politics and corruption.
Copies of The Role of Departmental Secretaries, (ANU E-Press) were distributed to all new civil servants trying to shake off the old bad practices.
The author was Owen's younger brother Andrew, a former federal Public Service Commissioner and an ANU Professor.
He recalled that Owen's love of Indonesia began in the early 1970s when he travelled through the country after completing a master's degree at UCLA.
“He spent many of the decades since living in Indonesia involved firstly in advising on urban planning and then, in light of first-hand experience with corruption and poor management, in bureaucratic reform.”
Owen wrote: “I changed my career from just urban development to governance reform: particularly policies to improve performance of democratic, decentralized and accountable government, with emphasis new mindsets to respond to and anticipate disasters.”
Owen stressed the need to decentralise power and get the regions to recover their responsibilities and take on local government.
That happened, though piecemeal. Some provinces are now stronger and more innovative. Last century controls killed initiatives; it sometimes seemed regional bureaucrats had to entrain to Jakarta for permission to empty ashtrays.
In 2004 Owen was the first international adviser to the new Regional Representative Council (Dewan Perwakilan Daerah Republik Indonesia) DPR.With University of Indonesia lawyers he helped draft laws on regional government and villages.
Overseas advisors are now becoming rare in Indonesia. During the early years of Soeharto's 32 years in power, the so-called 'Berkeley Mafia' of economists from the University of California had a major influence.
This waned as they were replaced by new generations of local-born experts often educated overseas. The role of outsiders now tends to be confined to specific tasks with aid agencies directed by Indonesians.
When the earthquake and tsunami hit Aceh in 2004 the the disaster was too big for the nation to handle alone, so needed international help.
Said Andrew: “ Owen worked with the local governments there not only to help them address the immediate response but also to develop longer-term sustainable redevelopment plans
“He was disappointed that the central government, and international aid agencies including AusAID, failed to listen to the local communities and tended to impose external ‘solutions’.
“ This experience added to his long-held view that much democratic and bureaucratic reform needs to be based on local communities.
‘While continually disappointed by the slow progress of reform in Indonesia and the failure to successfully combat corruption, Owen remained positive about Indonesia’s future.”
The Republic has been running its international aid agency since 2019. In nine months last year, it disbursed Rp 140.45 billion (AUD 13.5 million) in grants for 28 global humanitarian aid activities, including for Palestine.
In many ways, Owen's passing marks a shift in the culture of international aid programmes and the role of outsiders. But even in his early days as an advisor, his work shows he was always backing local wisdom against imported solutions.
He was buried alongside his late wife Helena in a tomb at the front of the family’s Sumba house - a tradition in the Eastern Indonesia archipelago that’s largely Christian.
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First published in Inside Indonesia 4 July 2024:
https://www.insideindonesia.org/archive/articles/obituary-stop-telling-start-listening
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