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, Amin said in a press statement received here on Sunday.
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.
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,” he elaborated.
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.
Source: Antara News