ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Sustain. Cities
Sec. Cities in the Global South
This article is part of the Research TopicESG as a Driver of Organizational and Social Development: Opportunities, Investments, Performance and ChallengesView all articles
Strategic Co-Creation and Synergistic Partnerships in Digital Budgeting Reform: Strengthening Public Governance for Sustainable Cities in Makassar, Indonesia
Provisionally accepted
- 1Universitas Muhammadiyah Makassar, Makassar, Indonesia
- 2Universitas Muhammadiyah Bandung, Bandung, Indonesia
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Background: Digital budgeting reforms increasingly hinge on collaborative governance. This study examines how strategic co-creation and synergistic partnerships shape Makassar's e-budgeting and strengthen public governance for sustainable cities. Methods: A qualitative single-case design triangulates a five-year fiscal series (2019– 2023), a regulatory hierarchy, internal documents, and 15 semi-structured interviews (government, DPRD, civil society, academia, banking/technology). Results: Makassar has established strong procedural rails—standardised workflows, KKPD non-cash instruments, bank integrations, and interoperable audit trails— enhancing transparency and control. Execution remains uneven: transfers realise ≈97– 98%; PAD fluctuates ≈80–94%; total expenditure fell to ≈76% (2021–2022) before rebounding to ≈86% (2023). Participation is largely transactional; citizens/CSOs rarely engage in problem framing, prototyping, or joint evaluation. Discussion: We identify an operational "synergy gap"—strategic alliances not institutionalised as day-to-day co-monitoring and co-problem-solving. We advance a venue–capabilities–resilience (VCR) triad to explain why transparency gains in a SIPD-centred ecosystem do not automatically yield participatory governance. Conclusions: Closing the synergy gap requires performative co-creation: re-engineering Musrenbang as co-design sprints, a multi-party execution task force, audit-to-design rule translation, and local resilience to national platform disruptions. The findings offer portable guidance for cities linking digital rails to inclusive, accountable, and sustainable budgeting.
Keywords: Digital Budgeting Reform, interoperability, KKPD, Makassar, participatory budgeting, Public governance, SipD, Strategic Co-Creation
Received: 30 Sep 2025; Accepted: 18 Dec 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Khaerah, Fatmawati, Hawing and Hardi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Nur Khaerah
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