Global Journal of Economic and Finance Research

This study examines financial performance and public accountability in the management of Papua Special Autonomy funds allocated to education. To align the claims with the available evidence, the paper is presented as an archival qualitative case study rather than as field research conducted during 2022–2025. The qualitative corpus consists of preserved interview excerpts from two anonymized community informants, synthesis notes from focus-group discussions involving government, legislative, civil-society, religious, customary, women’s, academic, and educational actors, and documentary materials generated during the first phase of Papua’s Special Autonomy. These materials are reassessed against official legal, fiscal, audit, and statistical documents issued through 2025. The analysis uses a transparent coding matrix covering planning, implementation, reporting, supervision, participation, managerial knowledge, benefits, efficiency, and effectiveness. The archived evidence indicates a recurring gap between formal education-priority rules and stakeholders’ perceptions of program delivery, budget orientation, transparency, and oversight. These perceptions are reported as historically situated testimony and are not treated as direct evidence of conditions in 2022–2025. The post-2021 framework—especially Law No. 2 of 2021, Government Regulation No. 107 of 2021, and Minister of Finance Regulation No. 33 of 2024—provides clearer earmarking, performance, reporting, and monitoring requirements. The study proposes an accountability model linking regulatory compliance, participatory planning, traceable expenditure, outcome reporting, multi-level supervision, and managerial capacity. The principal limitation is that the surviving archive does not preserve a complete participant count, exact fieldwork dates, or an ethics-approval identifier; these gaps are explicitly disclosed and should be addressed by new empirical research.

special autonomy funds, financial performance, public accountability, Papua, education finance

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