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Asia learn from Indonesia in regional workshop on poverty reduction and women’s leadership
Jakarta, June 4, 2009 – The international community is turning to Indonesia to learn how to create and implement successful poverty reduction programs led by female heads of households. Development practitioners and policymakers in in Asian countries like India, Sri Lanka, Cambodia, and Vietnam would be connected through Video Conference, to learn from the Indonesian experience in a regional workshop entitled “Change through Empowerment – The Journey of Female Heads of Households in Indonesia”. The aim of the workshop is to share:
The evolution of strategies behind Indonesian community driven development programs focusing on the economic and social rehabilitation of widows as a most marginalized group.
The implementation of the strategies at the village-level using existing networks and systems, as well as empowering women’s leaders to play a vital role in this transformational process.
The success stories shared were from projects facilitated by the Female Heads of Households Empowerment Program or PEKKA (Program Pemberdayaan Perempuan Kepala Keluarga). PEKKA evolved from the idea to document the lives of widows in conflict areas, and give them access to resources in order to help them overcome their economic problems and trauma. This program has been fully supported by grants from the Japan Social Development Fund through the World Bank.
“The Goverment of Indonesia is extremely proud of how PEKKA has helped empower female heads of households to actively participate in the development of their regions, and become critically aware of their rights as human beings and citizens,” said Deputy Coordinating Minister for Social Welfare, Sujana Royat, who also heads the executing team of Indonesia’s largest community-driven development program, PNPM Mandiri. “The Government will continue to support PEKKA and other organizations dedicated to reaching out to the marginalized groups in Indonesia, through the PNPM framework.”
PEKKA programs have been funded by the Japan Social Development Fund through the World Bank. Under the JSDF program, the following five grants were awarded to Indonesia for providing assistance to widow women and their children:
Widows and Poverty in Indonesia project to support economic and social rehabilitation of widows (approximately US$2.2 million).
Education for Very Poor Children aimed at improving primary and junior secondary school enrolment and performance in very poor communities ($1.4 million)
Support for Female Headed Households in Conflict Areas II to reverse the downward poverty spiral that affects female-headed households in conflict areas ($1.1 million)
Support for Female Headed Household during Aceh Reconstruction ($ 1.7 million)
Poverty Reduction and Women's Leadership: The "PRIME" Project to develop a mechanism to promote sustainable grassroots capacity development for vulnerable women in poor villages ($1.7 million).
“Indonesia is virtually unrivalled in the region for fostering inclusive growth with low risks of corruption through community-driven development programs.The methodology and specific lessons learned from the Indonesia experience will be of great value, not only to development practitioners, but also to policy makers in many countries,” said World Bank Country Director for Indonesia, Joachim von Amsberg of the workshop’s objectives. “The World Bank is committed to seeing Indonesia flourish on this path, by supporting the design and expansion of similar programs for greater social protection of all marginalized groups.”
FACT SHEET
“Change through Empowerment:The Journey of Female Heads of Households in Indonesia" Regional Workshop – June 4, 2009
Objectives A major goal of the knowledge capturing and dissemination project will be to
Capture lessons learned, specifically on the project initiation focusing on one marginalized group implementing the project in the villages.
Disseminate the results and lessons learned to World Bank staff in headquarters and other World Bank offices, development practitioners and policy makers Asia (India, Cambodia, Sri Lanka and Vietnam).
Illustrate a successful model as an interactive case study to be used for further South-South knowledge exchange.
Audience/Stakeholders
Policy makers and community-driven development (CDD) program managers
Multilateral and bilateral donors
International NGOs working in CDD, particularly those working on women’s leadership and empowerment of widows
Technical CDD professionals
Researchers/academics
World Bank staff
About PEKKA PEKKA was originally developed in the year 2000, from the initial idea of the National Commission on Violence Againts Women (KOMNAS PEREMPUAN), to document the life of widows in the conflict region, and the intention of the Kecamatan Development Program (PPK) to respond to the request of the widows who are the victims of the conflict in Aceh, to get access to the resources, in order to overcome their economic problems and trauma. This project was originally named the "widows project" which was fully supported by a grant from the Japan Social Development Fund through the World Bank. KOMNAS PEREMPUAN then asked Nani Zulminarni, at that time the chair person of the Center for Women Resources Development (PPSW), to be the Coordinator of this program
Through the process of reflection and intensive discussions with various parties, Nani then proposed to integrate both of these original ideas into a more comprehensive empowerment program. As such, the theme and title of the "widows project" was changed to sound more provocative and ideological, i.e. by putting the widows in a better position, role and responsibility as the head of the family, rather than as poor/ pitiful, humble, helpless and useless women. In addition, this project was expected also to be able to make social changes by raising the prestige of widows in the society. Therefore, Nani proposed to name the project "The Female Headed Household Empowerment Program" – the PEKKA Program for short – which was agreed by all parties. The use of the term PEKKA also opened the door wider for the types of women that could be facilitated by this program, including:
Women who have no specific status because they were abandoned by their husbands
Single women who support their families
The wives whose husbands have physical disabilities or are permanently ill.
The PEKKA Program began in December 2001 with the vision to empower the head household women to help create a structure of a prosperous, gender just society with human rights values. The mission of PEKKA is:
to organize and facilitate the female headed households in order to improve their welfare,
to have access to the various resources,
to be able to participate actively in every cycle of development in their region,
to have a critical awareness of their rights as human beings and as citizens,
to have control over themselves and over the decision making process within their families and society.
In order to achieve this mission, PEKKA conducts four main activities:
To build a vision and mission as well a perspective of justice and equality in class and gender
To increase the technical, managerial, leadership capacity and the Pekka personnel in their attitude of life
To develop the Pekka organization and network into a movement
To conduct policy advocacy and to campaign the changes in values in order to be build gender justice in the society.
To document and publish the story of the life, struggle and activities of the women headed families
PEKKA operates in 8 provinces, including in Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam, West Java, Central Java, West Kalimantan, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Southeast Sulawesi, and North Maluku, thus reaching more than 300 poor villages. So far, hundreds of Pekka organizations have been formed/established at the grassroot level, and collectively, they own several micro financial institutions.
About the Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF)
The Japan Social Development Fund (JSDF) was established by the Government of Japan and the World Bank in June 2000 as an untied mechanism for providing direct assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable groups in eligible member countries of the World Bank Group. To date, the Government of Japan had provided over US$400 million to the JSDF and more than300 grants. The main purposes of the JSDF are to:
Respond directly to the needs of the poorest and most vulnerable groups;
Encourage the testing of innovative methods that are new or alternative approaches at the project, country, or regional level, or that facilitate new partnerships or assist new target groups;
Support initiatives that lead to developing sustainable outcomes through the adoption or scaling-up of the pilot project through Bank-financed operations, recipient government activities, or other activities; or
Build ownership , capacity, empowerment and participation of local communities, NGOs and other civil society groups to facilitate their involvement in operations financed by the World Bank.
Partnerships with Civil Society The JSDF is a tool for local communities and civil society organizations, including NGOs, to actively participate in the development process. Partnerships with Japanese NGOs The partnerships are forged in the following ways:
(1) The community group or NGO may collaborate with the World Bank task team currently managing an existing and related World Bank Group financed project in conceptualizing and designing the proposed grant, using the “Concept Note” format (downloadable from the World Bank website). The Concept Note should be discussed with an appropriate Task Manager in the relevant World Bank office. Please note that only World Bank staff can officially submit JSDF applications, and sometimes it may be impossible to find a Task Manager to work on the proposal, even for a very good potential proposal. Civil society groups are advised to establish contacts with the country teams directly or through the NGO liaison officers/Civil society specialists in the World Bank field offices.
(2) JSDF grants may be executed by recipient governments (central or local) or by civil society organizations. The executing agency may procure the services of civil society organizations in implementing specific grant activities. If you are interested in identifying potential Japanese NGO partners, please email Mr. Koichi Omori at komori@worldbank.org.
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