VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Feb. 19 - Ensuring the availability of clean water and sanitation for all Indonesian people must become the government's priority, especially in the COVID-19 pandemic situation, Minister of Finance, Sri Mulyani Indrawati, has said.

"The development and accessibility of clean water and sanitation must become a priority even in a pandemic situation because this is part of building community resilience and immunity," the minister stated in Jakarta on Friday.

The availability of clean water and sanitation reflects the welfare and basic quality of life of Indonesian citizens, so the government must continue to make efforts to provide such infrastructure to people who do not have access to it, she added.

This, Indrawati said, is in line with Article 28 H, Paragraph 1, of the 1945 Constitution, which states that everyone has the right to be physically and mentally prosperous and have a good and healthy living environment.

The United Nations, in Resolution No. 64/292 of 2010, has also explicitly stated that the right to water and sanitation is part of human rights.

"This is also one of the points of the 6th Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)," Indrawati noted.

She said the provision of clean and sustainable drinking water resources in Indonesia has reached a good level and continues to increase every year.

Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), access to safe and sustainable drinking water services has continued to increase in the country, rising from 62.75 percent in 2017 to 65.28 percent in 2018 and then to 84.91 percent in 2019.

But, she emphasized, this extraordinary increase should not make the government complacentbecause around 15 percent of Indonesian people still lack access to proper and sustainable drinking water sources.

Moreover, according to Indrawati, the availability of clean water and sanitation will greatly help relieve the burden on women, especially housewives, in carrying out their daily tasks.

“This (issue) is personal for me because this is something I hope can really help a lot of our society," she remarked. (Antaranews)