Day: October 14, 2021

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Women’s economic empowerment needs joint synergy: minister

To achieve optimal women’s economic empowerment, strong synergies are needed among the central and local governments, community agencies, the business world, and the media, Minister of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Bintang Puspayoga has said.

“This synergy is not only limited to national but also international through meetings such as this ASEAN Ministerial Meeting on Women,” Puspayoga said during a webinar on ‘Women Empowering Women in Pandemic Situation: Indonesia’s Experience’ here on Thursday.

However, endeavors to enrich women’s economies are still hindered by gender inequality, she added.

One of the Indonesian government’s efforts to address gender inequality has been the launch of the national strategy for supporting women’s inclusion in finance in 2020 that has received the Asian Development Bank’s recognition as the first and only policy in the world, the minister noted.

The ministry is also implementing several strategies such as carrying out gender advocacy in a massive and structured way for the preparation and implementation of financial inclusion policies, she said.

The strategies include holding gender-perspective entrepreneurship training and supporting women MSMEs to grow and develop during the pandemic through digital literacy workshops, she added.

Furthermore, she highlighted, the ministry is also helping women business players gain access to microfinance services.

“As gender inequality is still real, we need to ensure women get access to supporting factors for economic empowerment, access to financing, and digital literacy,” Puspayoga said.

According to her, access to funding and digital comprehension is key to the progress of women MSMEs’ in the present and future.

It is important because based on the 2019 National Survey of Financial Literacy and Inclusion, the percentage of women accessing financial products and services was at 75.15 percent, which was lower than for men (77.24 percent), she expounded.

There are fewer women using the Internet than men, as shown by the percentage of women Internet users (46.87 percent) compared to men (53.13 percent), she informed.

Source: Antara News

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Govt to implement PPKM during Christmas, New Year holidays: official

Public activity restrictions (PPKM) will continue to be enacted during the Christmas and New Year holidays this year, the government’s spokesperson for COVID-19 Task Force, Wiku Adisasmito, has said.

“Facing the period of Christmas and New Year holidays, PPKM will continue to be conducted because it has proven effective in suppressing (COVID-19) cases,” Adisasmito said at a virtual press conference accessed from here on Thursday.

Regarding the PPKM enactment, Adisasmito asked the public to keep complying with government policies. He also said he hoped that local governments will supervise and control the mobility of residents to prevent an increase in cases.

Adisasmito, who is also coordinator of the COVID-19 Task Force Expert Team, observed that based on the previous spike in cases, it seems the number of cases usually increases when there is a relaxation in restrictions without any policy modifications made for each region.

Meanwhile, micro-PPKM that is conducted simultaneously in all regions to the level of neighborhoods (RT) and hamlets (RW) has proved efficient in reducing COVID-19 cases, he noted.

The micro PPKM has reduced cases by 134 percent in fourteen weeks despite the easing of public activities by 50 percent, he expounded.

“It should be a lesson in facing the Christmas and New Year period that has the risk to increase COVID-19 cases again,” Adisasmito said.

He stressed that the emergency PPKM and Level 4 policies are evidence that emergency restrictions applied throughout the regions, adapted to their conditions, can suppress cases effectively.

As the 2021 holiday period draw close, policies need to be prepared based on the situation in each region, he stressed.

The policies should be in conjunction with easing of restrictions like the one limiting attendance to 50-percent of capacity, very thorough supervision, and a restrictive scenario if there is a significant trend in cases, he added.

Source: Antara News

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Govt studying six locations for carbon store

The Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry is studying six potential locations for carbon capture, utilization, and storage (CCUS) as part of efforts to mitigate climate change-related disasters, an official has said.

“The first project is located in Gundih (Central Java). It is being developed by ITB (Bandung Institute of Technology), J-Power, and Janus,” director general of oil and gas at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, Tutuka Ariadji, said in a statement released on Thursday.

In addition to CCUS, the government is also considering an enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR) project called Sukowati, he informed. The project is being developed by PT Pertamina EP in cooperation with Japan Petroleum Exploration Co Ltd (Japex) and Oil and Gas Institute (Lemigas), he said.

Japex and Lemigas, which are also involved in the MRV methodology project, are in the process of studying the application of CCUS and EOR in the Limau Biru field, he informed.

The two other projects are the Sink Match project developed by ITB and Janus and the CCUS project in Tangguh developed by BP Berau Ltd and ITB, he added.

“The three CCUS projects in Gundih, Sukowati, and Tangguh are expected to be able to store up to 50 million tons of CO2 in the future,” he said.

Currently, the capacity of CCUS in Indonesia is 1.5 gigaton in depleted oil and identified gas reservoir, he said.

The six potential CCUS projects will add to the number of places implementing CCUS, he added.

Tutuka said the government is paying serious attention to any effort to reduce carbon emissions in the upstream oil and gas sector.

After all, the target of increasing oil and gas production remains the government’s priority to maintain national energy resilience and reduce dependence on imported oil and gas, he said.

“We are looking for a balance between oil and gas production hike and emission carbon reduction,” he explained.

The government has set the target of increasing oil production to 1 million barrels per day and gas production to 1 billion standard cubic feet per day (BSCFD) by 2030, he noted.

“To reckon climate change through carbon emissions we will use CCUS in the oil and gas fields, which have a high carbon content,” he said.

Source: Antara News

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Meet Waisimon, protector of the cenderawasih and forests

Alex Waisimon received the Kalpataru award, which is bestowed to individuals or groups for their services in preserving the environment in Indonesia in 2017, but he is not ready to rest on his laurels just yet.

“I want sustainability,” he told ANTARA at the customary forest that he manages, “Isyo Hills Bird Watching” in Rhepang Muaid, Nimbokrang, Jayapura district.

Waisimon asserted that he expects those who come to Isyo Hills Bird Watching to truly love nature and care about the forest, especially the cenderawasih (the birds-of-paradise).

Through the birdwatching area, he said he wants to show people that if they genuinely love birds, they should only see them in their habitat and not lock them up in cages.

Moreover, he said he wants to save animals in the forest from capture and from habitat destruction, caused by practices such as illegal logging, which is still rampant despite the enforcement of several laws and regulations.

Born on September 19, 1968 in Nimbokrang (3 hours from Jayapura city), Waisimon is a true adventurer. After graduating from high school, he moved to Java and enrolled at the Satwacana University, Semarang.

“I studied there only for two years. Around the 1980s,” he recalled as he guided the ANTARA team to see birds-of-paradise on October 7, 2021.

He did not stop in Semarang long and ended up shifting base to Jakarta, Surabaya, and finally Bali, where he met the love of his life and with whom he has raised four children.

From 2009 to 2014, Waisimon worked for ILO (International Labour Organization). He said his work took him abroad and that gave him more opportunities to gain knowledge, which eventually led to his becoming the person he is today.

Source: Antara News

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