The Indonesian Government has allocated a social protection budget of Rp427.5 trillion in the 2022 draft State Budget (APBN) to help the poor and the vulnerable meet their basic needs.

“In the long term, (the budget) is expected to be able to cut the chain of poverty,” President Joko Widodo (Jokowi) said in his speech on the State Budget Bill for Fiscal Year 2022 and Financial Notes at the Plenary Meeting of the House of Representatives of the Republic of Indonesia (DPR-RI) Session Year 2021-2022 at the Parliament Complex here on Monday.

President Jokowi said that the government will continue to improve the Integrated Social Welfare Data (DTKS) and synergize it with other related data to support the reform of the social protection program.

The harmonization of the data is meant to support gradual and measurable social protection reforms, support the Job Loss Guarantee Program in accordance with the Job Creation Law, and improve the quality of social protection implementation as well as the development of adaptive social protection schemes, he elaborated.

According to the website of the Directorate General of Treasury of the Finance Ministry, the social protection program is part of the government’s efforts to provide protection to the poor and vulnerable so that they are able to meet their basic needs, such as food, education, health and other essentials. The program is expected to protect the community from the risk of social setbacks, especially amid the COVID-19 pandemic, it stated.

Some forms of social protection offered by the government include the provision of cash assistance to the poor and vulnerable across Indonesia through the Family Hope Program (PKH), Non-Cash Food Assistance (BPNT) or Basic Food Program, and Social Cash Assistance (BTS).

By 2022, the government is targeting to lower the open unemployment rate to 5.5-6.3 percent and the poverty rate to around 8.5-9.0 percent, with reducing extreme poverty levels serving as its primary focus, Widodo said.

Furthermore, the level of inequality in the Gini ratio is targeted to be around 0.376-0.378 and the human development index at around 73.41-73.46, he added.

Source: Antara News