By: Rebecca Marian) *
Building Papua is building Indonesia. On this land located at the eastern end of Indonesia, the government has continued to make Papua land a development priority, especially since the issuance of Presidential Instruction No. 9 of 2017 concerning the Acceleration of Welfare Development in Papua and West Papua Provinces.
Encouraged by strong enthusiasm and commitment, from 2001 to 2019, the acceleration of development carried out by the government in Papua through increased access and quality of basic services and economic development through downstreaming of leading commodities continued.
In responding to various development problems and challenges for the welfare of the people in the land of Papua, the government has issued various regulatory instruments, such as Law Number 21 of 2001 concerning Special Autonomy, Presidential Instruction Number 5 of 2007 concerning the Acceleration of Development of the Provinces of Papua and West Papua, Presidential Regulation Number 66 of 2011 concerning the Unit for the Acceleration of Development of the Provinces of Papua and West Papua (UP4B), and Presidential Instruction Number 9 of 2017 concerning the Acceleration of Welfare Development in the Provinces of Papua and West Papua.
Not only various regulatory instruments have been formed, to support the implementation of accelerated development in Papua, the government has prepared five main areas to support development programs in the area. The five main fields include education, health, empowerment of the people’s economy, infrastructure development, and human resources.
In addition, the implementation of the acceleration of development in Papua will be done holistically. Holistic development needs to be done because Papuan people need logistics and development like citizens who live outside Papua, especially in Java.
Many policies accelerate physical development and prosperity in Papua. Physically dozens of pioneering airports have been built, river docks, and hundreds of bridges and thousands of kilometers of roads in Papua and West Papua.
However, one of the five main areas in supporting development programs in Papua, namely the development of human resources in Papua and West Papua, has reaped development. The results of the government’s five years of hard work have had an impact on increasing the Human Development Index and reducing poverty levels. Papua’s Human Development Index (HDI) in 2014 increased to 60 to 2019 in 2019. In West Papua in 2014 it was 61 and 64 in 2019.
In addition, there are two national energy policies that are also enjoyed by the people of Papua and West Papua, namely the one-price BBM policy and the availability of electricity to all corners of the country, the one-price BBM policy has been carried out at 170 distribution points.
The government also gives access to light at night. So to make it happen, the government has prepared 35 thousand MW of power plants, hundreds of kilometers of cable transmission cables are connected and for people in the interior, Energy Saving Solar Lights are presented.
Papua and West Papua also enjoy advances in information technology as a result of the equal distribution of internet quality improvement throughout the region through the Palapa Ring policy.
In addition to the achievements that have been described, in order to support the acceleration of development in Papua, the government has issued Presidential Regulation No. 17 of 2019 on Procurement of Government Goods / Services for the Acceleration of Welfare Development in the Provinces of Papua and West Papua to increase empowerment of Papuan Orang Asli entrepreneurs. This is a revision of the previous Presidential Regulation No. 84/2012. After the revision, the Presidential Regulation provides a number of facilities and special treatment for the procurement of goods and services that support efforts to accelerate the development of the welfare of the land of Papua.
Not only that, the Special Autonomy (Otsus) fund for the Provinces of Papua and West Papua sourced from the APBN General Allocation Fund (DAU), which should be stopped in 2021 according to Law Number 21 of 2001, will be recommended by the Supreme Audit Agency (BPK) in early 2020 to be extended so that development can continue in accordance with the five priority development programs in Papua and West Papua.
) * The writer is a Papuan student
