Case Study:
Indonesia: Partnerships for Tourism Development
Partners:
- International Labour Organisation (ILO)
- NGO: Aceh Emergency Response and Transitional Recovery (UNDPERTR)
- City of Sabang, Ministry of Planning, Ministry of Tourism
- Pulau Weh-Sabang Tourism Association (PWSTA)
Partnership Summary:
This Local Economic Develoment (LED) program involved a broad spectrum of partners and was facilitated by the ILO in Indonesia focused on stimulating the tourism sector.
The program started in 2006 with a participative brainstorming exercise to identify practical actions to realize economic opportunities on the island. This helped members of the private and public sector as well as local NGOs to focus on the development of this industry and led to a prioritised list of 10 items to work on including a tourist trail, capacity building and marketing materials.
However, lack of infrastructure, access difficulties and perceptions of lack of security severely hampered the process- this triple challenge threatened to close the whole project. Instead, the partners jointly agreed to focus efforts on just one initial goal that would facilitate others- the opening of an international flight route to Banda Aceh. This was successfully achieved- creating momentum, showing investors that change was happening, and paving the way for a three year strategic development plan.
Points to note:
- The partnership began with a co-generation session for all partners, which led to the creation of a jointly-developed strategic plan
- The LED partnership’s success seems to have been facilitated by a structured, strategic approach throughout, and a willingness to be flexible and achieve one goal at a time- ‘positive events lead to other positive events’
- The collaboration agreement between the parties was flexible- allowing for adaptation to changing realities i.e. when the partnership was nearly derailed due to a number of challenges, the partnership team refocused on an achievable goal