Day: March 8, 2022

Indonesia’s inclusivity index is still low in terms of equal opportunities for people with disabilities and gender equality, an official from National Development Planning (PPN) Ministry and National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) has said.

“Indonesia’s inclusivity index, when compared with various nations not just globally but also in ASEAN, is relatively low,” Social and Poverty Mitigation Expert Staff at the ministry Vivi Yulaswati noted during the ‘Destroying Bias and Realizing Gender Equality’ webinar on Tuesday.

Indonesia ranks 125, or below neighboring countries such as the Philippines, Vietnam, Singapore, and Thailand, on the index, she informed.

The inclusivity index ranking is calculated based on a holistic measurement of inclusive policy development focused on race or ethnicity, religion, gender, and disabilities equality, she informed.

“This has become our collective challenge to improve our nation’s performance amid other nations and several challenges that come up,” Yulaswati said.

The low rank should serve as an important reminder for the nation to continue to bolster accessibility for vulnerable groups, including people with disabilities, to realize inclusive growth, she added.

According to Yulaswati, the nation should mainstream the issue of gender equality, disabilities, and social inclusion (GEDSI) in all policies or people’s activities.

This is because there are still several problems, for example, many women do not have a safe working environment, she explained.

According to the data from the March 2021 National Workforce Survey (Sakernas), only 1.13 percent of women work in a safe or healthy environment, she noted.

In fact, there is a pay gap between women and men in work environments, both in villages and cities, she said.

Moreover, only 113 or 548 regions across Indonesia have regional regulations concerning people with disabilities, she pointed out.

Twenty of them are provinces, 27 of them are cities, and 66 of them are districts, she informed.

In addition, according to the data from the 2021 National Social Economic Survey (Susenas), there is still a significant gap between the education level of women and men, she said.

For instance, the number of women who never attended school is 2.10 percent higher than men, she highlighted. Meanwhile, the number of women who never finished primary school is 2.34 percent more than men, she added.

However, the number of women who graduated from universities is 10.06 percent, or higher than men (9.28 percent), Yulaswati said.

Resolving GEDSI requires collaboration starting from the lower education level to understand the fulfillment of the rights of women and people with disabilities, she stressed.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a digital and technological transformation that can become key to not only expedite policy partiality, but also fulfill these groups’ rights, she added.

Source: Antara News

Rural or village regions are still a buffer or the main support for the national economy, Minister of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration Abdul Halim Iskandar has said.

“Throughout pandemic, the villages continued to innovate, rise, and grow on the path toward village independence,” Iskandar noted in a statement received here on Tuesday.

According to the minister, there are three priorities in the 2022 village fund budget.

First, the acceleration of the national economic recovery program (PEN) should follow the village’s authority, he said.

One of the PEN program’s targets is developing village-owned enterprises (BUMDes) and collective or joint BUMDes, as well as reducing poverty to realize prosperous villages, he added.

Poverty rates in villages are lower at only 0.60 percent compared to cities, where they stand at 7.88 percent, Iskandar said.

“It shows that villages are faster and more responsive to the COVID-19 pandemic compared to cities, and village funds distributed by the central government are quite effective,” he highlighted at the Muhammadiyah pre-congress on ‘Building Villages, Enhancing Local Economy.’

The second priority of the village budget is that the 2022 village funds be used for implementing national priority programs based on village authority, including village data collection, resource potential mapping, and food security strengthening, he said.

One of the efforts to increase food security in villages is the farming village program that is focusing on sustainability to meet food needs and enhance residents’ livelihoods, he added.

The third priority is the use of village funds for disaster mitigation, both for the handling of natural and non-natural disasters, based on each village’s discretion, he said.

“So, if asked, the answer is that village funds can be used for anything as long as it is still related to increasing human resources (quality) and economic recovery,” Iskandar explained.

Source: Antara News

Indonesian Defense Minister Prabowo Subianto met with Prince Khalid bin Salman in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia on Monday to discuss the potential for defense industry and education cooperation.

During their meeting, Subianto and Prince Khalid, who is also Saudi Arabia’s Deputy Defense Minister, discussed efforts to enhance military and defense cooperation as well as global and regional issues related to the interests of the two countries.

The meeting was a part of Subianto’s working visit agenda in Saudi Arabia, which included attending the IISS (International Institute for Strategic Studies) Riyadh 2022 and the World Defense Show 2022 events in Riyadh.

During the meeting, the Prince warmly welcomed Subianto and they ate breakfast, accompanied by the Commander of the Saudi Arabian Armed Forces.

Subianto and Prince Khalid also enjoyed Saudi Arabian coffee while exchanging ideas about defense.

So far, defense cooperation between Indonesia and Saudi Arabia has been well established, Subianto noted.

The defense cooperation was strengthened through the signing of the Defence Cooperation Agreement (DCA) between the Government of the Republic of Indonesia and the Government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, on January 23, 2014, in Jakarta, which was ratified in 2018, he said.

Meanwhile, in defense education, the ministries of both countries are already running the commissioned officer exchange program as part of education and training collaboration, he added.

During 2014–2022, Indonesia also sent 178 people to attend courses in Saudi Arabia such as the military college and enlightenment course on countering extremism.

Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia sent two officers to the Indonesian Army Command and General Staff College, and requested the addition of seats for each force.

Source: Antara News

Society must reduce women’s career hurdles by not obliging them to leave their jobs to become mothers, Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati said at the 2022 Women Leaders Forum webinar on Tuesday.

“Women leaders such as myself are an exception, not the norm. This is what we may have to change together,” she remarked.

This change can be achieved by creating workspaces that allow women to carry out their professional duties while also parenting children, the minister said.

According to Indrawati, career women can make a positive contribution to an organization by making more diverse decisions, which can lead to better decision-making.

She said she is striving to ensure her ministry has the same number of women and men officials in the first echelon.

Currently, the number of freshly graduated men and women at the ministry is equal; however, the number of women employees tends to dip at the higher levels, she noted.

“In the academic level, women do not encounter any trouble. In fact, they are even better than men in academic achievement,” the minister remarked.

“As soon as they enter the period where they have to choose between a career and a family, there lies the inequality between women and men,” she said.

Meanwhile, men do not have to face the same obligation to choose as women because they are considered to be the ones that are supposed to provide for their family, she noted.

“Society should strive to have the playing field level between women and men to not be too far different so that women can also continue their career,” she stressed.

The minister also highlighted a number of issues and challenges for leaders and women, in general, such as the fact that women are underestimated because of their gender.

Source: Antara News