"President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) ordered us to achieve a zero percent extreme poverty rate in 2024, which is six years ahead of the target agenda (SDGs)," he conveyed when becoming the keynote speaker at the opening of the ASCC Knowledge Forum in Nusa Dua, Bali Province, Sunday.
According to Presidential Instruction Number 4 of 2022, extreme poverty is a multidimensional problem that must be solved in integrated synergy by mobilizing all budgetary sources, both the state budget, regional budget, village budget, and other legitimate sources, as well as involving all parties from the central government, regional governments, the academic community, and non-government.
"All of the efforts aim to alleviate problems faced by the extreme poor, such as limited basic needs, low education, low levels of health, limited access to clean water, uninhabitable houses, and limited economic access," Effendy continued.
In order to realize convergence in accelerating extreme poverty elimination, Effendy noted that each ministry or agency, local government, and various parties involved were asked to use the information regarding the level of welfare contained in the Targeting Data for the Acceleration of Extreme Poverty Elimination (P3KE) as ordered by President Jokowi.
"Convergence efforts to eliminate extreme poverty are starting to show results," he remarked.
Based on data from Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the extreme poverty rate in September 2022 was 1.74 percent, down 0.3 percent from 2.04 percent in March 2022.
He also said that two of Indonesia's programs for eradicating extreme poverty were ending stunting and building the infrastructure needed by the regions.
However, infrastructure development does not only focus on large infrastructure programs.
"The government also pays attention to efforts to build the infrastructure needed by the grassroots, which includes communication networks, transportation networks at the lowest level, drinking water supply, clean water supply, sanitation, and strengthening the development of community health centers (posyandu) and other health centers," he remarked.
Effendy hopes that the target to achieve zero percent extreme poverty in 2024 can be realized. He admits that the target is quite difficult considering that there are some areas in Indonesia that are hard to reach.
"We hope that the zero percent extreme poverty target will be achieved, or at least close to zero percent," he added.
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Translator: Zubi Mahrofi, Resinta S
Editor: Azis Kurmala
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