PARTISIPA is Australia’s flagship sub-national governance and resilience program in Timor-Leste. It works primarily with the Ministry of State Administration, the Ministry of Public Works, municipalities, and communities to strengthen national systems, improve municipal governance, and deliver sustainable and climate-resilient infrastructure.

By combining support for policy reform, local government systems, and infrastructure services, PARTISIPA helps Government of Timor-Leste (GoTL) to deliver real benefits for citizens — more effective institutions, stronger community voice, and better access to quality services.​

The three Pillars are as follows:

1. National Systems to Support Municipalities: focuses on strengthening national policies, standards, and coordination among national level government stakeholders to ensure coherence, resilience, inclusion and clear mandates for municipalities.​
2. Municipal Governance Systems and Processes: targets the functioning of municipal administrations through improved planning, budgeting, procurement, and participation, embedding citizen voice, GEDSI, and resilience into governance systems.
3. Sustainable and Resilient Sub-National Infrastructure: integrates PNDS, rural water, and roads into a single framework for quality and sustainability, enhancing infrastructure coordination, embedding resilience and accessibility in design and operations and maintenance, using infrastructure as a governance entry point to build trust in municipal service delivery. ​

PARTISIPA mainstreams Gender Equality, Disability and Social Inclusion (GEDSI) across all components to ensure that government policies, planning and implementation processes continue to increase the visibility, voice, participation and agency of women, people with disabilities and other marginalised groups.

PARTISIPA support is delivered through these three mutually reinforcing Pillars that together support a set of End-of-Investment Outcomes (EOIOs) that integrate infrastructure, governance, and resilience:

• EOIO 1: National government better addresses the infrastructure and service needs of villages.
• EOIO 2: Sub-national governments better deliver their mandated infrastructure and services.
• EOIO 3: National and subnational governments have better systems and tools to provide sustainable and resilient subnational infrastructure to communities.