Poverty Reduction and Achievement of the MDGs

The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) comprise eight goals that emerged from the 2000 Millennium Summit of world leaders in New York. The MDGs provide a set of time-bound and measurable targets for combating poverty, hunger, illiteracy, disease, discrimination against women, and environmental degradation — an accountability framework that all countries, including Indonesia, has committed themselves to.

Local problems, local knowledge, local solutions

UNDP support to achieving the MDGs in Indonesia includes (1) advocating for and monitoring Indonesia’s overall progress towards the MDGs (2) support to achieve the MDGs in Papua, (3) targeted support to MDG 3 to promote gender equality and empowering women, and (4) targeted support to MDG 6 to combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

1. MDG Advocacy and Monitoring

As part of a joint UN Country Team effort, UNDP support a national campaign to raise awareness among government agencies, media, civil society and the private sector about the MDGs in Indonesia. It also provides support to the Government of Indonesia in monitoring and reporting on progress and challenges in achieving the goals in all regions of the country.

Activities include:

• Intensifying advocacy efforts through the media and CSO networks to improve awareness of the MDGs and promote action among stakeholders;
• Strengthening the technical capacity of the Government at both national and sub-national levels to collect and analyse MDG data;
• Building the capacity of the Government to better assess progress towards the MDGs, with support to the production and publication of Millennium Development Goal Reports;
• Supporting Indonesia’s Poverty Reduction Strategy, while providing seed-financing for local community development initiatives in areas critical to the achievement of MDGs targets.
• Producing Indonesia’s Human Development Reports, UNDP’s flagship publication aimed at putting people at the centre of the development discourse.

2. MDGs in Papua

UNDP aims to strengthen local government and civil society capacities to promote, implement and monitor human development in Indonesia’s Papua region (West Papua and Papua provinces).

The Papua Development Programme has four key components:

• Support for improved MDG and development data collection, as well as MDG-related policies, instruments and plans, including Papua-specific MDG reports;
• Assistance with the implementation of localised approaches to achieve the MDGs in Papua through local government and civil society organisations, including improvements in education, health services and community livelihoods;
• Improved monitoring and evaluation practices of development policies and programmes;
• Support for improved coordination and preparation of future programmes, including better donor harmonization in Papua, coordinated joint evaluations, and improved communication of activities.

3. MDG 3: Promoting Gender Equality and Empowering Women

UNDP aims to reduce poverty and support the empowerment of women by better integrating women’s roles and responsibilities into the development policies and programmes of regional governments. UNDP support for mainstreaming gender in the Government’s development policies and programmes has three key components:

• Building capacity through technical support and advocacy for gender mainstreaming for the Ministry of Women Empowerment and government officials in the province and District level, with particular emphasis on those responsible for formulating development plans and programmes;
• Applied skills capacity building at the national and regional levels to ensure gender-responsive inputs into regional development policies and programmes, technical assistance for advocacy work, and documenting the lessons learned from gender mainstreaming activities;
• Improving the National Policy Framework and supporting the establishment of the National Gender Mainstreaming Strategy

4. MDG 6: Combat HIV/AIDS

UNDP is working to halt and help reverse the spread of HIV/AIDS infection both in areas of concentrated epidemic transmission and among the general public. UNDP manages the Indonesian Partnership Fund for HIV/AIDS in support of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. As a co-sponsor of UNAIDS, UNDP is providing support by:

• Mainstreaming HIV into the national and decentralized decision-making levels (including linking to Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers), as well as assisting in developing enabling legislations for HIV programmes;
• Increasing the capacity at the decentralized levels to provide comprehensive HIV/STI/HR services;
• Supporting the full engagement and participation of those affected by HIV, particularly people living with HIV;
• Increasing the capacity and accountability of the AIDS Commission at the national, provincial and district levels to implement the HIV and AIDS Programme.