The huge potential of West Kalimantan, which is 1.5 times bigger than Java and inhabited by 4.5 million people, has driven the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) Indonesia to collaborate with the provincial administration and local organizations to speed up development in the province, Jakarta Post reported.
USAID deputy program director David Hatch said his agency wished to establish cooperation with the administration, civil organizations, universities and the media in the province to arrange a strategic program that could stimulate development over the next 10 years.
Hatch was speaking during a regional consultation on Country Development Cooperation Strategy (CSDS) in Pontianak.
“Why are we here? Indonesia has changed dramatically over the last 10 years and USAID Indonesia needs to change with it,” said Hatch in front of nearly 100 workshop participants, which consisted of non-governmental activists, regional administrative officials, students and media workers.
He explained that apart from Pontianak, his agency has so far held regional consultations in Jakarta, Medan (North Sumatra), Makassar (South Sulawesi) and Surabaya (East Java) as well as a planned future consultation in Ternate (North Maluku).
The consultation is expected to receive input on what particular strategy USAID could assist with. Hatch said that they planned to complete the strategy by Spring 2013. West Kalimantan gubernatorial expert staffer Ida Kartini said it was disclosed in the forum that many aspects in West Kalimantan had not been optimally explored.
“For example, of the available 1.2 million hectares of rubber plantation area, only between 500,000 hectares and 600,000 hectares have been optimized. This needs to be enhanced so the people’s welfare could be improved,” said Ida.
West Kalimantan Development Planning Board (Bappeda) secretary Herkulana Mekaryani said statistics showed that the highest rate of illiteracy was among women in the province, despite literacy programs carried out by a number of social organizations including the family welfare movement (PKK) and universities.
“We acknowledge that planning at regional agencies and administrations has not been synchronized, as a result we see the unequal approach of programs. In the future, we will integrate the illiteracy eradication program into other programs,” said Herkulana.
It is expected that the province would not always depend solely on financial aid but also utilize technical understanding and innovation to resolve various issues.
“The community should also change their mind-set. They regard the development programs as the governments responsibility, so they refuse to get involved in it,” she added.
For instance, if residents who own farmland can easily sell it to third parties for non-agricultural interests the province would gradually suffer from a lack of farmland.
Herkulana said that a strategic approach was needed to raise land owners awareness so that they would understand the implications of changing the function of their land.