Village Councils & Effective Local Governance

In the lead-up to revision of the law governing village (suku) councils in Timor-Leste, the Ministry for State Administration in the Government of Timor-Leste requested a governance analysis be undertaken of the potential impacts, both positive and negative, of different proposed legal status for the suku council. Counterpart International engaged Bridging Peoples to perform this analysis.

The objective of this project was to review the draft legislation, consider the proposed legal options for suku council status that had been developed by the legal drafting team, and analyse potential impacts based on the Timorese village context and broader political realities. Suku council’s roles and responsibilities were analysed in relation to: (i) service delivery, (ii) natural asset regulation, (iii) accessing state-derived entitlements, (iv) conflict resolution and (v) domestic violence prevention.

Bridging Peoples conducted various stakeholder interviews, and analysed the proposed law against existing research and other reports, producing a variety of recommendations for improvement that were put to the Ministry for State Administration.

This project was conducted in 2014.