The New Set of Social Protection Program Intensifies

Indonesia – The government’s social protection program is aimed at addressing poverty issues in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, Vice President Ma’ruf Amin pointed out. In order to prevent the poverty and other social issues from getting worse, the government has prepared some social protection programs as countermeasures.

The Vice President mentioned two approaches to surmount the poverty issues, namely social protection through the provision of social assistance programs and community empowerment that involved the public in decision-making process at community level, in terms of development. That way, the people would have a sense of contribution to the program’s development, not just receive the final results.

On the other hand, to optimize the national economic recovery, the government has continued to improve the coordination among relevant ministries and agencies, so that the social assistance could reach the target, the Vice President said. Along with this, Amin acknowledged that a lot of funds managed by the government were allocated for the COVID-19 pandemic handling, and it impacted other budget-based government programs. Some time ago, indeed (the budget) was mostly (aimed for) refocusing. All of the funding was meant to address (the issue of) pandemic, so everything else (the programs) was affected by pandemic.

The Vice President emphasized that the national economy was currently in the recovery stage, and it would need further assistance to encourage the development of micro, small, and medium enterprises. In view of this, The availability of clean water and proper sanitation can reduce poverty levels in Indonesia,  Vice President Ma’ruf Amin stated.

For us, in Indonesia, (water availability) is a challenge because we really need water, and the availability of clean water can overcome stunting. The vice president conveyed this statement after opening the 2nd Asia International Water Week (AIWW) event organized by the Asia Water Council in collaboration with the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR).

Water and sanitation can reduce poverty. In general, poor areas have limited access to clean water and proper sanitation. The vice president acknowledged the lack of available clean water for the global population.

There is a lot of water in nature. However, sufficient clean water is not available, so we need to seek (a solution) regardless of the issue of climate change. Amin noted that the provision of clean water is also one of the government’s programs to achieve superior quality of human resources. This is since the way to produce superior human resources is closely related to public health, and health is also related to water. Hence, water is a source of life and a source of economic development, especially agriculture. Hence, Amin noted that the government had built more than 60 dams and one thousand dams.