INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA
7.1. Trust and Community
T
he findings from the literature review, ICT4D program case studies and fieldwork
in Kebumen have important implications
for how the concept of ICT4D can most effectively be put to use and the role that NGOs
and government agencies can or should play in this. One theme of particular importance is that
of trust and the link between trust and community. This was particularly clear in Kebumen, but also
came up often in examples from the other ICT4D case studies.
An old and well-known Javanese saying, “mangan ora mangan asal kumpul,” states that coming
together as a community is necessary even when one is worried about finding enough food to eat.
Though this saying was initially also used to imply that people should not leave the village even to find
food, villagers have come to accept the increase in migration for work over time. The means by which
mobile phones and social media now enable more villagers to stay in touch with their families and
communities certainly seems to play a role in this. However, the emphasis on community staying
together continues to be strong in Javanese and other Indonesian cultures.
Examples of the strong link between trust and community can be seen in the district of Kebumen
through the use of the locally operated travel shuttles used by migrant workers from Langse;
the desire of the Karrangadung Facebook page creators to ensure that the Facebook page settings
were private and membership was limited to those who were verified as being from Karanggadung;
the trust that the returned migrant worker in Pasir had for the local NakerTrans office over the
PJTKI agents that often came from outside of the district; the general consensus among villagers that
the most trustworthy way of finding accurate job information and avoiding scams was to receive
information from friends, neighbors or family whether in person, by phone call or by text
message; and by the hesitation on the part of the Kebumen office in charge of disaster preparedness
and relief to input the phone numbers of village heads into the alert system because they believed
that SMS texts would be disregarded as spam.
These findings resonate with the experience of the rural bank in Bali that tried to give mobile
phones to MFI clients and found that the clients did not trust them. In this case, the solution was to have
VII.
Major Implications for Development Practioners
and ICT4D in Indonesia
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INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA
the MFI agents, with whom the clients already had an established relationship, show by example how
the mobile phones could be used to make financial transactions. The Grameen Foundation also has
shown their understanding of this need for utilizing local relationships with their idea of selling their
job information application through local warung airtime sellers. Other development practioners
interested in developing ICT4D tools must keep these ideas in mind when planning how best to
reach target clients and provide services that are considered trust worthy. Specifically, development
practioners would do well to have a local partner that is trusted in the target community and that is
willing to introduce the ICT4D initiative.
Lastly, development
practioners should
remember that because of the large amounts of spam delivered to mobile phones and the scam and
ensuing legal issues surrounding this in Indonesia, most Indonesians are very wary of receiving
information from any mobile phone number that is unknown to them. As such, this will likely create
a challenge for those attempting to use SMS based services, particularly if money is involved.
7.2. Promising Areas for ICT4D Use
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