Yayasan Kota Kita Surakarta

Kota Kita (KK) is a non-profit organization based in Indonesia with expertise in urban planning and citizen participation in the design and development of cities. We build bridges between citizens and government towards a shared vision. We facilitate citizen participation and collaboration, influence urban policies, encourage open access to information, and provide civic education to empower active urban citizens. We take on issues such as governance, inclusivity and climate change resilience. We have an interdisciplinary team with a design-driven approach to develop tools and methods for city-making.

For almost a decade, Kota Kita has worked in more than 20 cities in Indonesia on a diverse range of projects from small scale urban interventions, city-wide assessments to large-scale strategic planning and visioning. We build platforms for new voices for change in our cities by organizing events such as the annual Urban Social Forum ( https://urbansocialforum.or.id/ ) - a civil society-led forum in Indonesia that brings together civil societies, civil servants, practitioners and students that work towards improving our cities. Kota Kita is a part of IDRC’s Think Climate Platform and has a consultative status at the UN ECOSOC.

Kota Kita and Advocacy for Disability-inclusive Indonesian Cities

The full participation of everyone, including almost 22 million persons with disabilities in Indonesia, is necessary for the realization of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and its promise of peace and prosperity for all. Yet, persons with disabilities continue to experience exclusion through negative attitudes, stigma, discrimination and lack of accessibility and mobility in physical environments.

Data is the most powerful tool in the hands of the policymakers trying to build disability inclusive environments, but the right type of data – timely, disaggregated and fit-for-purpose – is often a scarce commodity. Without good data, policy experimentation can be ineffective.

Kota Kita, in partnership with UNESCO, has conducted participatory data collection methodology. The initiative directly engaged the persons with disabilities living in Banjarmasin (South Kalimantan, Indonesia) through field surveys (supported with the use of technology and app-based survey tools), interviews, public consultations, and data analysis and mapping, leading to the joint production of a comprehensive disability profile of the city- showing the degree of inclusion and exclusion, also the opportunities for further intervention.

The data has been really helpful to catalyze ongoing collaborations between city government, DPOs, CSOs, academic institutions, and private sector to work on a disability-inclusive agenda. However, we need more support from allies from around the world to get involved in this pilot project, as we are working to promote positive stigma, policy change, also increasing safety and mobility for persons with disabilities, and building inclusive infrastructures.