Indonesia government is divided into three tiers 1.) National Government 2.) Provincial Government, with 34 provinces. 3.) District Government is about 508 districts. Unlike MDGs, the SDGs implementation are adopting inclusive approach where government partner with other sectors i.e. philanthropy and business; academia; and civil society organization (CSO) and media. This includes coordination, data collection and technical assistance to districts. To accelerate this process, BAPPEDA Riau partners with UNDP and Tanoto Foundation initiated a pilot project to start the localization process at Riau province.

To overcome the geographical distance and demographic difference between National government offices at capital city Jakarta and regional province Riau, an UNDP project manager was deployed to work closely with BAPPEDA Riau and Tanoto Foundation’s Riau field office. Using UNDP experiences and tools, such as strategic planning tools, the project manager will support BAPPEDA to create awareness on SDGs, to identify relevant stakeholders and its representatives, and to set up the Steering committee. Series of workshops involving local philanthropy, private sectors and its association , academia, civil society organizations and media have been initiated by BAPPEDA. In those workshops, aimed at creating awareness on SDGs, BAPPEDA with support from UNDP and Tanoto Foundation, was explaining the new approach of SDGs, and its differences with MDGs. In addition, UNDP’s project manager has facilitated internal BAPPEDA discussion to align Provincial Mid-term Development Plan with SDGs, and to design coordination mechanism. Those two draft papers will be endorsed by the Governor of Riau through Provincial Regulations to give it legitimacy. During discussion there is three main topics should be emphasizing in this province : poverty, education and environment. The above SDG localization efforts in Riau province are the first model localizing in Indonesia meanwhile awaiting the official launch of SDG through Presidential decree.

After the successful implementation on the three pilot districts, SDGs implementation can be further adopted to other districts in Riau province - UNDP efforts in Riau province created interest of other provinces. Therefore, UNDP is now in the stage to develop MOU with BAPPEDA Aceh and MEDCO Foundation to conduct SDG Localization in Aceh province.- Other provinces are also showing interest in cooperation with UNDP and therefore currently searching for suitable Philanthropy partners to support these efforts in other provinces

The Provincial SDGs Coordination Mechanism (or Steering Committee) is chaired by Provincial Secretary with memberships from Sub-National Sectoral Agency (SKPD), CSOs, Philanthropy/Business and Academic community. The role of coordination mechanism is to approve the Provincial Action Plan, to endorse semester and annual report, and to learn from SDGs implementation practices. Provincial SDGs Secretariat will prepare the material for Steering Committee meeting, through inclusive consultation with relevant stakeholders.The steering committee will meet at least every semester to approve annual plan and semester report. Communication and advocacy of SDGs at Province and District is the responsibility of each sector: Government, Civil Society and Private Sector through existing platform.

-BAPPEDA of Riau Province (Provincial Development Planning Agency) Indonesia has 34 provinces and BAPPEDA of Riau will lead the implementation of SDGs at the provincial level as showcase model of localizing SDG’s as bottom-up and multi-stakeholders’ approaches are encouraged, and the provincial government should develop innovation in implementing SDGs at local level. - UNDP Indonesia provides technical assistance, building partners capacity through tools and knowledge sharing. UNDP also supports stakeholder coordination. - Tanoto Foundation, a philanthropy organization supports the activities through their philanthropy efforts including funding and technical assistance