The study will observe how the first two years of the implementation affects village governance—whether the embodiment of good governance principles (participation, transparency, and accountability) can be translated into managing the village resources in an accountable manner to benefit the general community; how various groups in the community respond to the VL implementation; and what the key contributing factors are that influence implementation (including roles of different institutions and experience with CDD/PNPM). 

The passage of Law 6/2014 on Villages (Village Law, VL) provides opportunities to improve village governance in Indonesia by incorporating good governance principles of community participation, transparency, and downward accountability, and providing more resources and autonomy to villages. Despite the Law’s  multiple accountability mechanisms, such as giving back power to the village council (Badan Permusyawaratan Desa, BPD) as community representatives, instituting village deliberation forum (Musyawarah Desa, Musdes) to enhance general community participation and provide transparency on government operations, and reporting to district government, given that many village governments will be managing large resources with limited practices in such good governance measures, concerns have been raised about potential misuse of funds, misalignment of priority development needs between village government and the community at large, and increased exclusion of marginalized groups from development processes.  Hence, it is important to observe how these good governance principles are practiced, especially in the early years of the VL implementation.

Responding to the implementation of the new Village Law, SMERU – with the support from the World Bank - initiated a study to monitor the implementation of the Village Law in five districts in three provinces, namely Jambi, Central Java and East Nusa Tenggara. The study comprise of three components: a baseline and endline study; a mini case study; and field monitoring activities. The takes place over 23 months, from August 2015 to June 2017.