Community Governance And Disability Empowerment: Evidence From Makassar City, Indonesia

Abstract

This study examines the implementation of community governance principles in disability empowerment through a case study of the Indonesian Disability Movement for Welfare in Makassar City, Indonesia. Using qualitative case study methodology with in-depth interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, this research analyzes how disability communities operationalize community leadership, empowerment, and ownership frameworks in their empowerment initiatives. The study involved 15 purposively selected informants from the Indonesian Disability Movement for Welfare members, government officials, and supporting stakeholders. Findings reveal that the Indonesian Disability Movement for Welfare has successfully implemented comprehensive community governance approaches across multiple dimensions. Community leadership manifests through advocacy participation in policy forums, grassroots organizing activities, and strategic network development with government agencies and civil society organizations. Community empowerment encompasses economic capacity building through entrepreneurship training, political empowerment via rights advocacy, educational inclusion promotion, and social support systems. Community ownership is demonstrated through autonomous program management, self-reliant operations, collective enterprise ownership, and democratic governance structures. Despite these achievements, the research identifies significant structural constraints including limited government responsiveness, inadequate funding support, persistent social stigma, and weak coordination mechanisms between community initiatives and formal institutional frameworks. The study concludes that while the Indonesian Disability Movement for Welfare effectively demonstrates community governance principles internally, external recognition and institutional integration remain insufficient to maximize broader impact. These findings contribute to understanding community-driven disability empowerment models and highlight the need for enhanced institutional frameworks that balance community autonomy with formal policy integration in Indonesian urban governance contexts.