Launching of South
South West Aceh (ABDYA) KRF was launched on the 24th of May, 2007 in the DRPD HALL. Among the 88 attendees were the BUPATI, Head of DPRD, Head of BAPPEDA, Head of Police District (KAPOLRES), Head of KPA, All Heads of Dinases, Camats, Association Representatives, Religious Leaders, Women Representatives, and Youth Representatives. NGOs such as SIRA, IFRC, Rekompak, P2DTK, AECOST also participated.
The response of the local government, communities and all involved in the launch was encouraging and points to great expectations in the community for resolving development issues in ABDYA. ABDYA Bupati, Akmal Ibrahim, formally opened the forum by emphasizing its role gathering information and identifing priorities for ABDYA. The complete database and district profile will serve as useful tools to assist in promoting ABDYA to broader audiences. Any donors and NGOS who are interested in implementing their programs in ABDYA could get accurate and sufficient information.
Pak Bupati announced his expectation that the proactive involvement of all parties in the forum would help speed up recovery activities and enable the realigning of the reconstruction process in accordance with the perspective of the district government.
Outlining these perspectives, Pak Bupati explained that the focus needs to be on local community empowerment in order to adapt the job market to newcomers from tsunami-affected regions outside of ABDYA. Fortunately, BRR and NGOS have constructed thousands of houses to assist these people. The broader challenge now is to find sustainable solutions for the newcomers and the people of ABDYA to get decent jobs. Poverty eradication through innovative strategies that take these new circumstances under consideration is a main priority of the district government.
One of the strategies that the office of the Bupati has planned is to focus on the gardening that was left behind during the conflict. 15,000 hectares are available and Bupati plans to provide 2 hectares of land and palm oil tree seeds chocolate tree seeds for each household. At present, the district government has procured 500,000 chocolate seeds and 250,000 palm oil trees to this end. At the same time, Pak Bupati acknowledged, basic infrastructures facilities are needed to ensure the plan bears fruit this as the district government does not have the budget to fulfil these basic needs.
Physical facilities for health and education have reached an important target by now being available to all ABDYA community. Having reached this critical milestone, for the next year the district government will focus on improving quality. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for basic infrastructures needs. Here the district government has a smaller budget.
Pak Bupati informed the audiences that he has hired a fisheries expert from west java to assist in improving fish seedlings. This expert will work closely with the department of oceanography and fisheries. The office of the Bupati took this initiative in order to assist the community in managing and developing this skill as fishing is a mainstay of the district’s livelihood.
Dewi Elyana, Head of UNORC-Meulaboh, noted that she was pleased to attend this recovery forum launch.
It is hoped, she explained, that the forum will showcase synergies between the activities of all parties present in order to identify gaps and overlaps activities. This is also to speed up the recovery activities in accordance with perspective of district government.
UNORC is fully committed to assist the process of recovery, reintegration and reconstruction and is looking forward to supporting all forum members in actualizing the goals of ABDYA government.
Fadli Ali, Asperkim, reminded participants that the district was weak even before the tsunami and earthquake. A lot of things should be prioritised in this current government period such as, basic infrastructures needs, reintegration of ex-combatants, reconstructions processes and local empowerment.
All these mentioned above should be fully accommodated with strong support from all parties involved and the district government particularly, which in line with the aspiration at all community levels and it is expected that the implementation will reach the targets as planned.
DPRD representative, Rusli, outlined the rate of poverty in ABDYA as the following:
- 47,8% is the poverty average number of Mukim population
- 26% is the poverty average number of absolute poverty
- 30% is poverty average number of unidentified unemployment
The overall ABDYA population stands at about 120,000 people. All these statistical numbers above should be rechecked carefully for future purposes.
Women representative (L-P3A), Rahma R, mentioned the role and involvement of women. Women should be involved significantly within processes of recovery. To do so effectively, women’s capacity needs to be improved.
Garda Madina Institute, T.M. Daud, stated that government bureaucracy is in need of reform. Public services provision is not optimal, he noted, and added that it is perceived that there is no sensitivity to this fact. To this end, a publication outlining the development and governmental progress should be made available to inform the public of what is being done. This would enable the community to provide relevant inputs to the process as well as monitor ongoing activities within ABDYA. Finally, he added, district government is not supposed to rest its powers on old regulations and procedures. Regrettably, the Law on Governing Aceh (UUPA) is not very clear in this respect.
KPA Leader, T. Abdurahman, stated that the district government should fulfill their commitment throughout the district. There are huge numbers of damaged and burnt houses in several sub-districts that have not been completed yet. Uncertainties exist and the aspirations of ex-combatants have still not been catered too fully. He suggested that the district government should involve KPA members in activities relating to improving the lives of ex-combatant members.
Youth representative (Muda SIGUPAI), Ulul Azmi, stated that Muda Sigupai organization is willing to fully support this recovery forum. Moreover he enclosed the preliminary proposal for collecting data assessments systems and prepared the strategy ahead which involved all youths, youth leaders and community leaders.
Vice Religious leader (MPU), Mr. Said, stated that there are some problematical issues that head of villages have frequently visited and asked for the numbers of data that the head villages did not know the purposes for.
Business association representative stated that there are some market venues that have not been occupied by the traders. It is noted that 6 market venues are not yet fully functioning.
· Joint Secretariat
Head of BRR Regional IV, Mr. Taqwalla was grateful that the planned project targets of BRR regional IV for 2007 in ABDYA were accomplished on time.
No comments:
Post a Comment