Jakarta, 30 June 2011 - The World Bank signed agreements with three national organizations that will implement PNPM Peduli, a program to empower the most marginalized population at the grassroots level. This new program is implemented under the umbrella of the National Program for Community Empowerment (PNPM) Mandiri.
PNPM Peduli will support poverty reduction activities by opening more access to health, education and economic opportunities. The program will also support capacity building in entrepreneurship management to strengthen capacities of grant and sub-grant recipient organizations. PNPM Peduli differs from other programs within PNPM because it is driven by civil society organizations with support from the Government. Three Executing Organizations comprised of Kemitraan, Association for Community Empowerment – ACE, and Lakpesdam NU, have been selected to receive grants from PNPM Peduli. These organizations have strong track records in sub-granting to local CSOs or sub-national branches, also working in poverty reduction across more than one thematic area, region or type of marginalized group.
The three organizations will implement the program with a total grant of USD 3,708,700 under the oversight of the Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare and the National Development Planning Board. The World Bank will coordinate PNPM Peduli grants through the PNPM Support Facility, a multi donor trust fund managing grants from the Governments of Australia, Denmark, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, the United States, and the European Union.
The agreement was signed by Jan Weetjens, Indonesia Social Development Sector Coordinator, and representatives of each Executing Organization. The signing was witnessed by the Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare, represented by Hadi Susanto, Deputy Assistant for Regulation and Budget Affairs and Magdalena, Deputy Assistant for Micro Finance and Applied Technology.
The signing of the agreement formalized the legal procedure for activating the grants, “This is just the beginning,” said Jan Weetjens. “Now we have to implement the plan. So the real challenge is to really get the work to the marginalized people.”
Marginalized population that the PNPM Peduli will reach include street children, orphans, beggars, people living with HIV and AIDS, poor ethnic minorities and indigenous people, the handicapped and people with disabilities, poor female-headed households, victims of trafficking, victims of domestic or community abuse, youth in conflict with the law, landless farmers, sexual minorities including transgender, and others.
PNPM Peduli will be implemented in two phases: the first phase will be implemented in 2011 and 2012 and the second phase in 2013 and 2014. During the first phase, PNPM Peduli, through the three organizations, will work with 30 local partner CSOs and 30 NU branches to reach more than 40,000 beneficiaries across 23 provinces. The program will be scaled up in the second phase to reach more marginalized people across more locations.
The Coordinating Minister of People’s Welfare recognized the important role that CSOs play in empowering the most marginalized population. “PNPM Peduli is based on the belief that more inclusive poverty reduction will come from a stronger partnership between the government and Indonesian civil society,” commented Hadi Susanto and Magdalena. Therefore an important focus of the program will be to strengthen national and local CSO capacities for inclusive poverty reduction, while also building the capacities of the three national organizations and their local CSO partners and branches.
PNPM Peduli fills an important funding gap for local CSOs working with the most marginalized. Many of these CSOs have not had easy access to funding in the past and have often had to function with very limited resources. PNPM Peduli will allow them to have more impact, helping to expand their programs, thereby reaching more marginalized people in more locations across Indonesia.
