The Jawa Pos Institute of Pro-Otonomi (JPIP) is an independent and no-for-profit organization established by Jawa Pos Group in April 1, 2001. Jawa Pos dedicates the institute to monitor and evaluate government decentralization in Indonesia. To conduct this mission, since 2001, JPIP has implemented participative and competitive model to appreciate local government performance in three categories: economic development; public service improvement; and local risk minimization. As a final output, every year the institute presents Otonomi Awards (OA) to local government who have best performance in each category.

In addition to this, JPIP annually publishes local government ranking in each category at Jawa Pos newspaper and its network across the country. JPIP chose the pro-autonomy issue because the Indonesian government system was reformulated on January 1, 2001, from centralistic to decentralization. Since then, local governments have a massive authority to manage their region in politics, fiscal, and administration. This drastic change has made many local governments lose direction due to the central government’s lack of commitment, regulation, and supervision. However, decentralization is point of no return for Indonesia. This system gives a shortcut for local governments across the nation to accelerate economic development and improve public service delivery.

In this necessity, decentralization should be monitored, evaluated, and even assessed to ensure that this policy bring about the progress to the people from Aceh to Papua. Indonesia is not just about Jakarta and java. Development should spill over beyond these two territories and decentralization (otonomi daerah) is the platform to achieve that goal.

Since 2001 until now, JPIP has consistently carried out work that supports the institution’s main vision and mission, which is to support decentralization policies by encouraging innovation competition between local governments in East Java. Through this innovation competition, the local governments will produce real works of public services that have a direct impact on the people.

Some of the portfolio projects that JPIP has worked on are as follows:

a) JPIP has been actively involved in innovation and public services issues through the OA process since 2001 until 2014. JPIP has collected innovations and given awards to local governments (firstly in East Java, and now also in South Sulawesi, East Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, and West Kalimantan) that have successfully produced best practices in public services and poverty alleviation. JPIP’s past experience shows that OA has been effective to raising awareness among local governments for replicating best practice.

b) JPIP’s efforts in supporting dissemination and replicating best practices have gained support from international donors, such as USAID, CIDA, JICA, and GIZ.

c) RTI-KINERJA Project: Development Activities and Implementation of Autonomy Award Results in East Java, South Sulawesi and West Kalimantan 2011-2012)

d) Monitoring and Evaluation of Regional Autonomy through Ranking and Competition Progress in Five Monitoring Areas: East Java Province, South Sulawesi Province and East Kalimantan Province, West Nusa Tenggara and the Combined Central Java Province –Yogyakarta Province 2011-2012)

e) Advancing the role of media to raise reader awareness and improve the capacity of local journalists through AKUNTABILITAS! with support from USAID-SIAP II (April 2012-September 2014).

f) The AIPD project through a program to increase the capacity of journalists to supervise APBD and regional development in 2013)

g) Consultants, Technical Assistance, and Jury in the Public Service Innovation Competition (Kovablik) Organization Biro East Java Proviance from 2014 to 2021

h) Consultants, Technical Assistance, and Jury in “Lomba Sinergitas Kinerja Kecamatan se-Jawa Timur”, Government Biro of East Java Proviance from 2019 to 2020.

i) JPIP in 2017-2019 runs the Ayo Inklusif! under a consortium of Mitra Kunci funded by USAID in the Inclusive Workforce Development (IWD) program which provides training and job opportunities for youth with disabilities in Surabaya and Malang in order to empower poor and vulnerable groups to be compatible in the work.

j) Become a consultant and assistance for the implementation of the Bali Autonomy Award in 2017-2018 which was carried out by Radar Bali and FISIP Udayana University

k) From August 2021 to January 2022, JPIP became a subcontractor of DFAT-AUSIDKOMPAK to provide technical assistance to the Regional Secretariat Organizational Bureau of East Java Province in establishing the East Java Provincial Innovation House platform. The platform as a center for information, consultation, learning and documentation of public service innovations in East Java