"Regional Disparity and It's Context"

H.E. Rudiantara, The Minister of Communication and Information Technology mentioned about the Palapa Ring Broadband which aims to provide better communication access in Indonesia by building an optical fiber network as the backbone of the national telecommunications system. 

Other than that, in order to reduce the digital gap between region, the government has the High Throughput Satellite. This technology aims at providing broadband access for some areas that have yet been covered with broadband access.  Other than these projects, the digital education is also needed to support the project.

Prof. Geoffrey J.D. Hewings from University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, United States said that some policies strategies that can solve the disparity in the case of Indonesia are by trying to understand more about how the inequalities are formed and persist, monitoring and evaluation techniques, paying attention to demographic drivers of development and convincing macro-policy makers that Indonesia have enormous degree of internal heterogeneity that has to be accounted for in the development of both spatial and spatially-blind policy formation.

Narrowing the Gaps at the Periphery

The speakers from different sectors present their method on how to respond to the disparities and gap. Ari Waluyo, the CEO and Co-Founder of Sehati Tele-CTG which runs in the medical technology sector attempt to help the citizen to have equal opportunities for healthcare services through telehealth-based community approach. 

Sehati Tele-CTG (Cardiotocography) empowers, educates and helps midwives in Indonesia by providing the telehealth base technology and establishing the ecosystem by cooperating with some health facilities with the help and support from the government and the investors.

Suyanto Waspo Tondo Wicaksono, from Local Development Planning Agency in Banyuwangi explain about Banyuwangi's development priorities that focusing on education, health, farming, tourism, UMKM business, infrastructure, social protection and bureaucracy by upgrading the public facilities, reducing the poverty, cooperating with some agencies such as PT Angkasa Pura, ASEAN, Traveloka, GoJek, etc. 

Arifin Rudiyanto as the Deputy Minister for Maritime and Natural Resources of National Development Planning Agency added that reduce the inequality is one of some goals in SDG, according to him, the stakeholders need synergy to share resources, experiences, knowledge, etc.  The synergy itself is also including the trust building, equal partnership, participation, accountable and mutual benefit.

Another key to support the regional development in Indonesia is through the digital economy. In Samsul Widodo's opinion, as the Director General for Underdeveloped Regions, Ministry of Villages, Development of Disadvantaged Regions and Transmigration, digital economy development can also be an effective way, it can be seen that nowadays, digital has become an effective tool to do daily activities and can be used to do any kind of things and used by many people.

For Ronald Hartman, the Country Director, South East Asia and the Pacific Sub-Regional Office, International Fund for Agricultural Development, the rural transformation is important, it will reduce the rural poverty that will also give impacts to the economic development. Helianti Hilman, the CEO and Founder, Javara Indonesia also support the rural development, by mentioning the rural entrepreneurship that will help and support the development as well.

As we know, there are still some communities in Papua can't access the electricity, Isna Riski Safira from Bandung Institute of Technology, described an attempt to narrow the gap between regions.  For Papua, a stirling machine can be considered as one solution to provide electricity for all of the people in Papua and of course, it is for the welfare of the citizens.

Writer: 

Vera Hadinata 

Intern 

ASEAN Farmers' Organisations Support Programme - ASEAN Foundation