GOVERNANCE CHALLENGES IN PARTNERSHIP-BASED FUNDING APPLICATIONS FOR INDONESIA'S SMALLHOLDER OIL PALM REPLANTING PROGRAMME: EVIDENCE FROM KUD BINA TANI SEJAHTERA

Abstrak

Indonesia's Smallholder Oil Palm Replanting Programme (Program Peremajaan Sawit Rakyat—PSR) represents one of the government's strategic interventions to improve the productivity and sustainability of smallholder oil palm plantations. Despite substantial public funding and institutional support, the programme has consistently failed to achieve its national implementation targets. Previous studies have primarily focused on land legality, partnership schemes, or programme implementation separately, while limited attention has been devoted to the governance of funding applications as a critical stage determining programme success. This study aims to analyse the governance challenges that hinder partnership-based PSR funding applications, identify the institutional and administrative constraints contributing to proposal stagnation, and formulate an improved governance model for the funding application process. A qualitative case study was conducted at KUD Bina Tani Sejahtera in partnership with PT Sawindo Kencana, Bangka Belitung Province. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, field observations, focus group discussions, and document analysis, and analysed using the interactive model of data reduction, data display, and conclusion drawing. The findings reveal that prolonged proposal stagnation is primarily caused by five interrelated governance dimensions, namely unresolved land legality, fragmented administrative databases, delays in land documentation, limited institutional capacity of cooperatives, and weak inter-agency coordination. These conditions create a recurring resubmission cycle that substantially increases administrative burden and delays programme implementation. The study proposes an integrated governance framework that combines cross-agency digital verification, institutional capacity strengthening, harmonised regulatory coordination, and administrative readiness enhancement to improve the effectiveness, transparency, and accountability of PSR implementation. The proposed framework contributes to the literature on collaborative governance and public programme implementation in agricultural development by explaining how administrative complexity and institutional interaction influence access to public funding.