VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Indonesia has encouraged an increasing role of women in the United Nations (UN) peacekeeping forces. The role of women in the peacekeeping forces is considered very important to mainly reduce the adverse impacts on women in conflict areas.

“Basically, in conflict area, women are the most vulnerable object. So, by having female peacekeepers, hopefully we can mitigate, and reduce the risk for women, such as sexual harassment. Maybe, we can also learn from other countries, not only among MIKTA. It is interesting to know that Sweden sent 40 percent of its female peacekeepers. Meanwhile, Indonesia has 2.700 women peacekeepers,” said Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, A.M Fachir in the opening speech of MIKTA Panel Discussion on Women and Peacekeeping in Jakarta more recently (April 19, 2018).

A. M Fachir further said that now, Indonesia is a country ranked in the top ten contributors to the UN peacekeeping forces, with 2,700 personnel scattering in conflict areas. Since 1957, Indonesia has contributed through the dispatch of approximately 40,000 personnel to maintain peace in some countries in the world. In the future, Indonesia will keep improving its contribution by sending one military battalion and hundreds of police personnel; 40 of whom are women. (VOI/Rezha/RHM)

The protection issue of migrant workers in Southeast Asia is one of the issues to be highlighted by Indonesia in the 32nd ASEAN Summit to take place in Singapore on 27-28 of April. At the meeting of the plenary sessions and the retreat, Indonesia to be represented by President Joko Widodo and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi will discuss again the strengthening of cooperation of Indonesian migrant worker protection among ten ASEAN member countries.

“Of course, other things that will be encouraged and concerned by us are about the strengthening of cooperation of migrant workers protection through the implementation of ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion on the Rights of Migrant Workers. As we know, the consensus has been signed by the ASEAN head of state in November 2017 in the Philippines.” said Chandra W.Yudha,Director of ASEAN Political andSecurity Cooperation of theIndonesia Ministry of Foreign Affairs in a press conference at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Jakarta on Friday (April 20^th).

Furthermore, Chandra explained that the 32nd ASEAN Summit is an appropriate forum to discuss various regional issues in Southeast Asia and how to move forward, including the protection issue of migrant workers. So far, the protection of migrant workers in Southeast Asia has been mutually agreed upon by the ten ASEAN member countries through the ASEAN Consensus on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers. The agreements administer a number of rights owned by every migrant worker, ranging from the rights to hold a passport, rights to treatment and fair income in the workplace, the rights to communicate, the rights to participate in associations or unions in the recipient country, and the rights to file a case in case of breach of employment contract. In addition, the ASEAN Consensus also regulates the rights of families of migrant workers, including the rights to visit migrant workers working in one of the ASEAN countries. (VOI/Rezha/RHM)

President Joko Widodo and Minister of Foreign Affairs, Retno Marsudi are scheduled to attend the 32nd ASEAN Summit in Singapore. A series of meetings of the ASEAN Summit will last for four days.

“We would like to convey the plan of the activities of Indonesian Minister of Foreign Affairs and also the President who are scheduled to attend the ASEAN Ministerial Meeting and the ASEAN Summit in Singapore. ASEAN Ministerial Meeting itself will be held on 26-27 April and afterwards, it will be continued with ASEAN Summit on 27-28 April,” said Spokesman of Indonesian Foreign Ministry, Arrmanatha Nasir in a press conference held in Jakarta on Friday (April 20^th).

Arrmanatha Nasir added that Singapore as the host of the 32nd ASEAN Summit and ASEAN leaders in 2018 will specifically raise the theme "Building Resilient and Innovative ASEAN". There are some things that will be of interest to Indonesia at the 32nd ASEAN Summit, such as cyber security cooperation and government efforts to push the framework of ASEAN to advance ASEAN Smart City Network. Then, the 32nd ASEAN Summit is also expected to produce some key documents, such as ASEAN Leaders Vision for Resilient and Innovative ASEAN, and ASEAN Leaders Statement on Cyber Security Cooperation. (VOI/Rezha/RHM)

Rural development becomes one of the national priorities as listed in the nine-priority development program-Nawacita. To support the national development program, the Central Bureau of Statistics –BPS will conduct a Data Collection on villages’ potential –Podes from 2nd to 31^st of May 2018. Podes is a data collection on infrastructure, social and economic potentials owned by each village / sub-district, and district /city throughout Indonesia. Head of the Central Bureau of Statistics, Kecuk Suharyanto said that Podes is aimed at creating data of villages’ potential, village typology, updated source data of working area of ​​statistical data and basic information for the Population Census 2020. On the socialization of Podes 2018 in Jakarta on Thursday (April 19), Kecuk explained that the data collection can measure the effectiveness of village fund policies which have been conducted by the government since 2015.

“We cover all villages and sub-districts. We visit almost 82 thousands one on one. From there, we can see how many villages are shifted, left behind or developed and then become independent. The second, we will later make a model how the impact of village funds is towards economic growth and the quality of human life. Because if we talk about development targets and development funds, it's not just economic aspect. The quality of human life is important,” Kecuk Suharyanto said.

Suhariyanto further said the villages’ potential -Podes will be used as a reference for changes in urban and rural classification. Podes data plays a major role in the allocation of village funds, as the basic data of village development evaluation. Based on BPS data related to Podes, Ministries and Agencies can also develop geographic difficulties indexes that are important indicators in allocating village funds. The government is very serious to deal with rural and suburban development by disbursing a lot of village funds. From this Podes data, village development index can also be carried out and it divides the villages into independent, developing and disadvantaged villages. The government is targeting 5,000 disadvantaged villages to become developing villages and 2,000 developing villages to become independent ones. (VOI/SEKAR/RHM)