COVID-19 Appreciation Award - Observatory of Public Sector Innovation

Innovative response

Indonesia’s Ministry of State Apparatus and Bureaucratic Reform is holding competitions to recognize outstanding innovations and successes in public service provision. It is a one-off recognition competition for innovations responding to the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in Indonesia.

Innovations should fall into one of three categories: quick wins/fast responses, public knowledge, or social resilience. Implementers can be government agencies at any level, civil society (including NGOs), businesses, academia (universities or students), religious organizations, or individuals. Approximately 12 innovations will be selected as winners, ideally four from each of the three categories and from a variety of implementers from across Indonesia. They will be showcased and their replication supported.

The call for submission has been released in mid-May through a Ministerial Letter and announced on the Ministry’s website. An informative poster was distributed on social media and shared via various local government networks. Innovators can apply through a google form and all innovations are accessible on the Ministry’s national website. At the same time, a team is also exploring the sort of innovations being implemented and to ensure that as many as possible are documented, recognizing that some implementers may not see the official call for submissions. The two spreadsheets are combined on the to the national Jaringan Inovasi Pelayanan Publik (JIPPNAS) website at https://jippnas.menpan.go.id/

Specific issues addressed and anticipated impact

COVID-19 brings a huge challenges. The majority of local governments and citizens in Indonesia have shown to be very passive and are waiting for directions from the national government. The competition aims to recognize innovative responses to the pandemic and to inspire others to adopt and adapt these interventions or develop their own.

A short deadline was given to ensure that innovations will gain more publicity during (and not after) the pandemic and will thus be an inspiration to take up by.