World Bank Office Jakarta
Jakarta Stock Exchange Building
Tower 2, 12 th Floor (62-21-5299-3000) Contacts:
In Washington :
Mohamad Al-Arief (202) 458-5964
malarief@worldbank.org; In Jakarta:
Prabha Chandran – (021) 5299 3084
pcahandran@worldbank.org
Randy Salim – (021) 5299 3146
rsalim1@wordbank.org
Nusa Dua, Bali, December 12, 2007 –The President of Indonesia , Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, and World Bank Group President Robert B. Zoellick today witnessed the signing of the US$ 33 million Multidonor Support Facility which will provide key technical support and strategic oversight for the country’s main poverty alleviation program, the National Community Empowerment Program (PNPM). The Facility, which will be administered by the World Bank, pools grants from the governments of the Netherlands, Australia and Denmark to help fund Indonesia’s ambitious billion-dollar-a-year PNPM program, which is intended to cover all of Indonesia’s 70,000 villages by late 2009.
PNPM builds on the success of the World Bank-supported US$1.6 billion Kecamatan Development Program (KDP) and the Urban Poverty Program. These community-led programs are being emulated in several countries for providing poor communities with a development model that is cost effective, more transparent, provides large scale employment, builds grass roots capacity and creates significant economic assets in village infrastructure. Earlier, Mr Zoellick met with a group of beneficiaries from the village of Bona in the Balinese district of Gianyar, which faced tough development challenges even before the 2002 Bali bombing. Five years later, with help from the PNPM-KDP program, Bona has a busy village market, a modern primary school, a network of paved lanes, and a thriving private sector with many new women entrepreneurs. Mr. Zoellick was given first-hand accounts of how the community transformed itself with the aid of block grants, democratic decision-making and shared responsibility. “Like many middle income countries in the region, Indonesia is grappling with the challenge of bringing growth to millions of poor,” Mr. Zoellick said. “Villages like Bona show us what can happen when people have the resources and power to make their own decisions about what happens in their communities. This is what I mean by inclusive development.” The PNPM-KDP targets village communities at the sub-district or kecamatan level. Sub-districts receive block grants ranging from Rp. 500 million to Rp. 1.5 billion (US$55,000 to US$165,000) for infrastructure, education, health and micro-financing projects. Through a democratic process, communities decide for themselves which projects to pursue and manage. “Programs that invest in the poor not only spread benefits, but also help sustain national stability by taking large numbers of poor off the sidelines,” said Mr. Zoellick after the signing ceremony. “Other countries and the World Bank itself will learn a lot from this Indonesian model.” Grant funds provided through the Multi-donor Support Facility will be used primarily for building capacity across a broad range of Indonesian players, including national and local governments, universities and research centers, civil society organizations and grassroots initiatives. The Facility will also place special emphasis on innovative ways to ensure that PNPM reaches out to disadvantaged groups across Indonesia. For more information on this and other World Bank assisted programs in Indonesia visit www.worldbank.org/id |
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