Initiative in Active Representative Bureaucracy: Woman Leader in Nusa Tenggara Barat

The Gender Development Index in Indonesia, released by the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection of the Republic of Indonesia in 2020, ranked West Nusa Tenggara Province as the lowest nationally. These statistical data show that West Nusa Tenggara’s position nationally is still far behind other provinces in Indonesia. On the other hand, as a province led by a female Vice Governor, West Nusa Tenggara Province has a strategic role in the representation of women in the bureaucracy. Women leaders are expected to play a role in strategic issues related to the gender development index with an active representative bureaucracy. However, the active representation of women in local (provincial) government is still very small, especially in the context/situation of regions with patriarchal characteristics. Furthermore, research with phenomenological approaches/methods is still very rare. This study used phenomenological methods. The subjects of this study are female regional leaders, namely the Vice Governor of NTB Province. The data collection technique used is in-depth interviews and reviewing secondary documents that support the active representation of women in the bureaucracy in the field of education in West Nusa Tenggara Province. The data processing and analysis techniques in this study used technical narrative analysis, which was carried out in several stages such as making interview transcripts and interpreting the meaning of the information obtained by coding techniques, analyzing certain transcripts to then be classified into several themes to identify information that is by the theme and concluding meaning relevant to the research theme. The results of this study show that the importance of women’s leadership initiatives to the interests of women has a huge impact on women themselves. Special needs are becoming more of a concern and are considered as important as other development priorities. This is possible with the active repression of female leaders. Keywords: Active Representative Bureaucracy, women’s participation, women’s leader initiative, West Nusa Tenggara