Data limitations among disabled people, indigenous people, and vulnerable groups has hindered them from resources provided by government services

Jakarta (ANTARA) – Executive Director of Filantropi Indonesia (FI) Hamid Abidin has urged the government to use the COVID-19 vaccination program as a momentum to strengthen population data.

“Data limitations among disabled people, indigenous people, and vulnerable groups has hindered them from resources provided by government services,” Abidin said in a written statement received here on Friday.

As disclosed in its official website, Filantropi Indonesia is an independent association of philanthropic activists and organizations whose aim is to advance philanthropy so as to contribute to the achievement of social justice and sustainable development in Indonesia.

He observed that vaccination programs that have currently been expanded from the public to indigenous people and vulnerable groups should be a momentum for the government to seriously enhance population data.

The Filantropi Indonesia has revealed a number of vaccination challenges, especially in the availability of the latest and verified data, he highlighted.

One of them is population administration data on indigenous people, he said. “There is no mutual agreement on the terminology of who is called indigenous people,” he pointed out.

According to him, the law on indigenous people is still in draft form. The Alliance for Indigenous People of the Archipelago (AMAN) has estimated the number of indigenous people to be around 40-70 million, he added.

In addition, Abidin also highlighted that there were dissimilarities in data recorded on people with disabilities by various government agencies.

“Referring to the Information System Management of the Social Affairs Ministry, the number of people with disabilities recorded as of January 13, 2021 has reached 209,604 people,” he informed.

However, he said, the Health Ministry is targeting to vaccinate 564 thousand people with disabilities by the end of this year.

“There is a considerable difference, a distinction of 354,396 between the (data available with the) Social Affairs Ministry and the Health Ministry,” he remarked.

Nevertheless, indigenous communities can receive alternative IDs from the local government to register for vaccinations, according to an official from the Healthcare and Social Security Agency (BPJS Kesehatan).

“Those members of indigenous communities that do not possess an ID number can get an alternate ID from the local government to register for vaccination,” Head of BPJS Kesehatan Prof. Ali Ghufron Mukti told ANTARA in a text message earlier.

According to Mukti, the method of data collection that local governments can use for providing alternative IDs, as a substitute for ID numbers, is the same as what was done during the general or presidential election.

Source: ANTARA News