By: Ferdy Mawirampakel
The Government of the Republic of Indonesia (RI) is focusing on improvements in various sectors such as education, health and security to accelerate welfare development for the indigenous Papuan community (OAP).
Of course, this is not without reason, because in order to achieve optimal welfare development for the Papuan people, there must be improvements and improvements in quality in sectors that are important and basic for citizens, such as education, health and security.
Therefore, because these three sectors are very important fundamentals, the government continues to focus on improving education, health and security to support the acceleration of welfare development in Papua.
In carrying out these efforts, one of them, as stated by the Deputy for Strategic Studies, Prof. Dr. Ir. Reni Mayerni said that the National Resilience Institute of the Republic of Indonesia (Lemhannas RI) continues to try to find solutions to various problems in the easternmost province of the country, especially regarding the education and health sectors.
Likewise, Vice Admiral of the Indonesian National Army (Laksdya TNI) Maman Firmansyah said that education and health are two fundamental pillars of human development.
The reason is, the quality of the education and health sectors is clearly very influential in determining what the quality of local human resources (HR) is, which ultimately also determines the progress of a nation.
To deal with these two fundamental factors, the government continues to carry out thorough investigations to identify and analyze the actual source of the current problem, then various important steps will be taken to find an effective solution.
The education sector in Bumi Cenderawasih continues to face obstacles such as a shortage of teachers, the large number of community settlements that are very far from schools, including the still high illiteracy rate, low lottery due to lack of interest in reading and the ongoing conflict in Papua which also has an impact on field of education.
Furthermore, for the health sector itself, the obstacle that Papuans experience is the spread of people who live in the highlands, lowlands and valleys. Apart from that, people’s customs and beliefs still tend to stick together, making it difficult for the health sector to develop there.
Furthermore, there is a lack of health facilities in remote areas and villages that are still isolated and there is also a lack of health personnel, health equipment and adequate health infrastructure (sarpras) for the community.
Various parties emphasized that they would continue to provide full support for the government’s efforts to use a welfare approach to implement development programs in Papua.
The Head of the National Police of the Republic of Indonesia (Kapolri) General Listyo Sigit Prabowo emphasized that synergy between the TNI and Polri security forces is important to oversee all government policies regarding the acceleration of the development of Bumi Cenderawasih.
In fact, his party has also established coordination and communication with the government such as the Ministry of Public Works and Public Housing (PUPR) to find out what has been the obstacles in the development program there. The role of the security forces is also very important to ensure that all of President Jokowi’s policies for equitable development and improving the welfare of Papua run optimally.
For information, the Head of State has held a limited meeting regarding the acceleration of Papua’s development with a number of ministers and other related institutions in the Advanced Indonesia Cabinet at the Merdeka Palace.
The meeting agreed that it was really necessary to increase the rate of important sectors such as the quality of education, health and security in Bumi Cenderawasih in order to make welfare development there a success.
The Minister of National Development Planning (PPN), Suharso Monoarfa, said that his party would continue to accelerate and improve the welfare program in Papua, which until now is gradually starting to take place, including setting the budget into other related ministries or institutions.
The Papua development acceleration project itself is actually contained in Presidential Regulation (Perpres) Number 121 of 2022 concerning the Steering Committee for the Acceleration of Papua’s Special Autonomy Development (BP3OKP).
Article 3 of the Presidential Decree has mandated the body led by KH Ma’ruf Amin to evaluate and coordinate the acceleration of development and implementation of Special Autonomy (Otsus) in the Papua region.
During the limited meeting, it was also important to remember that the government really highlighted the existence of problems and the security conditions in Bumi Cenderawasih, for which its approach had received special attention to ensure the peace of the Land of Papua.
The government’s seriousness in truly realizing prosperity and accelerating development in Papua can also be seen from how mature the planning is, according to the Deputy Minister of State-Owned Enterprises (BUMN), Kartika Wirjoatmodjo, that discussions are also taking place regarding the budget for special operations there.
Thus, it is very clear that the Indonesian Government continues to focus on several important sectors so that they continue to experience improvements, such as the education, health and security sectors to accelerate Papua’s development.