According to a press statement of the Ministry of Finance`s Communication and Information Services Bureau received here on Friday, Indrawati made the remark during a panel discussion titled "The Role of Finance for Women`s Economic Empowerment."
The panel discussion was part of a series of the G20 annual meetings held in Buenos Aires, Argentina, on November 29, 2018.
Indrawati explained that more women, so far, worked in the informal sector since it was in accordance with their characteristics of still being able to manage a family life.
Women`s involvement in the economic sector is also supported by the ease of access to technology that can provide connections to financial inclusion.
"The existence of `unicorn` companies in Indonesia has made it easier for women to be able to focus on the two areas of tending to their families and making money at the same time," Indrawati noted.
Furthermore, she added that increasing financial inclusion for women will improve welfare, reduce poverty, and bridge the gap that is often a problem faced by developing countries.
The finance minister also highlighted the demand and supply challenges to increase digital inclusion for women in the rapidly evolving world of technology.
The challenges for women in the demand side include lower digital literacy skills, a lack of collateral to get formal financial institution funding, and need for greater comfort with the informal sector.
On the supply side, women face constraints in the form of information and technology infrastructure gaps, especially in disadvantaged, frontier, and outermost regions, and lack of variations in types of funding to reach women not yet eligible for access to capital.
To overcome this challenge, she stated that the government had built infrastructure to overcome digital problems of Indonesia, as an archipelagic nation, such as satellite development, electricity distribution, and soft infrastructure, such as education.
From the fiscal side, the government has implemented policies to increase the active role of women and create an environment to support digital inclusion.
"Indonesia has implemented a gender-responsive budget policy. The policy prepared is with budget tagging to ascertain how much rupiah is spent on gender-related agendas," Indrawati explained.
Reporting by Satyagraha, Otniel Tamindael
Editing by Yoseph Hariyadi
Reporter: Antara
Editor: Yosep Hariyadi
Copyright © ANTARA 2018
