Day: February 1, 2023

Jakarta- Indonesia’s digital literacy in 2022 was categorized as moderate with a score of 3.54, based on the 2022 Digital Literacy Index survey initiated by the Ministry of Communication and Information.

“The results of this survey become the basis for us to map the targets and map the community’s needs for literacy so that the National Digital Literacy Program can be executed effectively and right on target,” the ministry’s director general of informatics application Semuel Abrijani Pangerapan said in a written statement released here on Wednesday.

While delivering his remarks at the release of the results of the 2022 Indonesia Digital Literacy Index, Pangerapan informed that the survey was carried out to determine people who need digital literacy improvement, the right learning materials, and to chart an effective strategy for digital literacy improvement.

The measurement of the 2022 Digital Literacy Index was divided into several categories, one of which was the measurement of the digital literacy index by region. The survey results showed that, in general, the literacy index among regions in Indonesia tended to be balanced.

The digital literacy index score in the western part of Indonesia was slightly higher than others at 3.56. Meanwhile, the score in the central part of Indonesia was the lowest compared to others at 3.48.

In the provincial category, Yogyakarta ranked first with a score of 3.64. The province also had the highest digital literacy index score in 2021.

The 2022 Digital Literacy Index survey targeted three groups: the government/Indonesian Military (TNI)/National Police (Polri) segment, the general public segment, and the education segment.

The survey showed that the government/TNI/Polri segment had the highest digital literacy index score of 3.74, followed by the education segment (3.70) and the general public segment (3.50).

The 2022 Digital Literacy Index survey involved 10 thousand respondents from 514 districts and cities of Indonesia and was carried out using the multistage random sampling method. It was conducted from August to September 2022.

The survey had a margin of error of 0.98 percent and a confidence interval of 95 percent.

Data collection was carried out through face-to-face interviews with the target population aged 13-70 years, who accessed the Internet in the three months prior to the survey.

Source: Antara News

Bintan, Riau Islands- Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions, and Transmigration (PDTT) Minister Abdul Halim Iskandar has asked village-owned enterprises (BUMDes) and joint village-owned enterprises (BUMDesma) to increase their role in supporting the businesses owned by village residents.

“BUMDes and BUMDesma should not become new competitors for businesses owned by village residents, instead they must become consolidators for the businesses of village residents,” he said at a workshop with BUMDes owners here on Wednesday.

At the workshop entitled “Improving Village Economy through BUMDes,” he emphasized that all economic activities of BUMDes must support village residents’ businesses.

In addition, BUMDes and BUMDesma must also play a significant role in saving the cultural assets of villages.

“BUMDes must play a big role in saving the cultural assets of villages, which have been passed down from generation to generation,” Iskandar said.

As of January 30, 2023, as many as 51,971 BUMDes and BUMDesma have registered for legal entity certification, he informed. Meanwhile, 5,300 Community Empowerment National Program-Financial Management Units (UPK-PNPM) have transformed into BUMDesma so far.

He added that the presence of BUMDes and BUMDesma has been strengthened with the operation of the business identification number (NIB) submission by the Ministry of Investment or the Investment Coordinating Board (BKPM).

Thus, BUMDes and BUMDesma can now register to get NIBs to make it easier for them to get investors because of their existence and legality being recognized constitutionally.

“In BUMDes’ journey from 2004 until now, they have only really existed as legal entities ever since the birth of the Job Creation Law,” he said.

At Wednesday’s event, the minister also distributed NIBs to several BUMDes and BUMDesma that have been registered with the BKPM.

Source: Antara News

Jakarta- The government is trying to preserve local wisdoms across Indonesia through the Local Knowledge Acquisition (APL) program, head of the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Laksana Tri Handoko has said.

“We want to make the local knowledge and wisdoms, which have been passed from generation to generation orally, into written knowledge,” he informed at the launch of “Webinar Series: APL Program in Book and Audiovisuals” on Wednesday.

APL is a program to record and disseminate various types of local knowledge as public literature sources for research and innovation projects.

The BRIN head said that the APL program also aims to explore Indonesia’s great potentials in cultural, culinary, racial, and linguistic diversity, which can inspire researchers.

The community can also contribute to the program by documenting their own local wisdoms, he added.

For instance, a community can document the traditional medicines used by them for generations and send the documentation to BRIN.

Later, the distribution rights of the results of the documentation, both in the form of books and audiovisuals, will be bought by BRIN, thus, the community’s works will be published and become an open source of information for the community.

These local wisdoms do not need to be scientifically proven since they will serve as inspirations for the researchers to carry out more detailed studies regarding the wisdoms, Handoko said.

If the implementation of local knowledge is scientifically proven through research, it may become Indonesia’s superior cultural product in the future, he added.

“We will become an open domain, which can be accessed by everyone. Thus, it is not only the BRIN researchers (who will be able to access the documentation), but also the teachers, college students, school students, and so on,” he added.

The public can submit their original works on local knowledge and wisdoms through the link https://linktr.ee/akuisisiBRIN. The works can be written or audiovisual and made individually or in a team.

BRIN will accept works in the form of monographs, anthologies, popular scientific books, textbooks, manuals, pictured story books, documentary films, animation films, fiction films, and innovative creative documentation.

The agency will give incentives to authors whose works are selected to be included in the APL program. The incentives will range from Rp6 million to Rp20 million for written works and from Rp5 million to Rp20 million for audiovisuals.

Source: Antara News

Cianjur, West Java- The Indonesian Red Cross (PMI) has distributed 10 million liters of clean water, including 3 million liters of ready-to-drink water, to meet the needs of Cianjur quake victims in the past two months.

The distribution of clean water and ready-to-drink water to quake victims will continue for the next three months, in accordance with PMI’s operational plan, PMI’s coordinator for water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) Nanang Kurnia said here on Wednesday.

“Entering the third month after the Cianjur earthquake, clean water services for earthquake victims are still running. It is recorded that 10 million liters of clean water have been distributed to meet the needs of more than 200 (thousand) residents,” he informed.

He said the 3 million liters of ready-to-drink water has been distributed to around 114 thousand people at several evacuation locations.

According to him, the distribution of clean water has been carried out by 15 water tank trucks of PMI in several villages in Pacet, Cugenang, and Cianjur sub-districts, including to several residents in the city area who do not get water supply from the regional government-owned drinking water company (Perumdam).

“Several water tanks of PMI still receive water supply from Cianjur’s Tirta Mukti Perumdam. Thus, the distribution is still running smoothly, including to residential areas in the city area,” he said.

Meanwhile, the beneficiaries at several evacuation locations and residential areas said that the distribution of clean water, which has been running since the third day after the earthquake, has been of great help to them.

“We convey our gratitude to PMI for the clean water assistance that we still receive every day. Hopefully, this service will continue to run until the clean water supply from Perumdam runs normally again,” a resident of Pamoyanan village, Leti, 62, said.

On November 21, 2022, an earthquake measuring 5.6 in magnitude and located at a depth of 10 kilometers rattled the Cianjur district, West Java, leaving hundreds dead and injured.

Source: Antara News

Jakarta- The Environment and Forestry Ministry is pushing for community welfare improvement through complete waste management, starting from waste collection around settlements to waste processing in waste management facilities.

Director general of toxic and hazardous waste management at the ministry Rosa Vivien Ratnawati said that currently, the public is still not used to sorting waste, thus the government must strive to ensure the unsorted waste is still able to boost people’s welfare.

“When I was younger, (there was a saying:) ‘Do not litter, thus throw the trash in the bin,’ (but now) it (the concept) seems old-fashioned. Now, let’s sort waste and process it because waste can be economically useful,” she remarked at the National Waste Awareness Day 2023 press conference here on Wednesday.

She noted that in Jakarta and several big cities in Bali, waste sorting is only carried out by scavengers at the waste dumping ground who are looking to find trash that can be sold immediately without being processed.

Meanwhile, the remaining trash, which is not picked up by scavengers, needs to be processed to become refuse-derived fuel (RDF) or briquettes to replace coal.

“Diapers and multilayer plastic sachet packaging can also be processed into briquettes or bricks, while some others can also be used as fuel. They are what we are currently developing for (increasing) people’s welfare,” the director general said.

Indonesia is targeting to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the waste sector by 40 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent through its own efforts and 43.5 metric tons with the support of international cooperation by 2030.

Hence, the Environment and Forestry Ministry has developed an action plan to achieve zero waste and zero emission from the solid waste sub-sector to achieve the emission reduction target.

The ministry is also seeking to implement sanitary landfill management at all landfills throughout Indonesia through the use of methane gas in 2025.

The Environment and Forestry Ministry is targeting to stop the construction of new landfill sites from 2030 and will use existing landfills until their operational period is over.

Furthermore, the ministry said it expects that there will be no illegal burning from 2031 and landfills will be operated only as residual waste disposal sites by 2050.

In addition, the government is also optimizing various waste processing facilities such as waste-to-energy plants (PLTSa), RDF, solid recovered fuel (SRF), biodigesters, and maggots to manage biomass waste.

Source: Antara News