"Poverty is an urgent problem in ASEAN, but often also considered a marginal issue. Everybody seems to give up when dealing with this," Dr. Adriana Elisabeth, head of International Political Development Division of the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) said here Thursday.
There are few agreements on how to cope and eradicate poverty in the ASEAN region, instead the members put forth the Millennium Development Goals of each ASEAN country, she said.
Meanwhile, Ratna Shofi Inayanti, M.BA., a political observer of LIPI said ASEAN should build a community to protect its civilians from poverty and encourage people to be independent and autonomous.
"ASEAN should guaranty the development of autonomous and independent people. In view of this, poverty could be caused by the asymmetrical relationship between the country, the market (business enterprises) and the society," she said.
According to her, ASEAN should focus on development. Therefore it was important for development in prioritizing poverty eradication in ASEAN.
Inayati said, CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) also needs to be standardized to strengthen the link between peoples of the ASEAN countries.
Small and medium enterprises (UKM) should be promoted to increase the potentials of the people in their participation in poverty eradication, she said.
"When it comes to poverty, an effective solution is needed to eradicate it," Inayanti said, adding that people could eradicate poverty by increasing their development potentials.(*)
Editor: Heru Purwanto
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