Luhut Reveals Digitalization Of Social Assistance Can Reduce Poverty To 34 Million People

JAKARTA - The government continues to accelerate the process of transforming public services towards a digital system. One of the initiatives that will be implemented immediately is the digitization of the distribution of social assistance (bansos).

Presidential Special Advisor to Government Digitalization and Technology Affairs, as well as Chairman of the National Economic Council Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan revealed that Banyuwangi Regency will be the test site for the social assistance digitization program.

Luhut said that this pilot project is scheduled to start running in the third week of September 2025 and President Prabowo Subianto is reportedly planning to attend directly to monitor the implementation of the program.

"In September, in the third week we will pilot. The pilot project in Banyuwangi and the President will come alone and now we have prepared how many months Banyuwangi," he said at his office, Tuesday, August 26.

Luhut said that the digitization of social assistance was designed to improve targeting accuracy by suppressing the level of inclusion and exclusion errors, while strengthening aspects of transparency and accountability.

He added that this system also allows residents to verify their identities independently through digital applications.

As for the backend side, the data verification process will be carried out automatically through cross-institutional integration, such as BPJS Kesehatan, BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, Bank Indonesia-Himbara, ATR/BPN, to Samsat.

According to Luhut, the digitization of social assistance has great potential in reducing poverty and if the program runs effectively, it is estimated that as many as 34 million people can be helped out of poor conditions because the distribution of aid is more targeted.

"So this data is important, so, for example, poverty will be reduced, from Prof. Arief from the Economic Council said that if we do this, we can reduce all 34 million. A very significant figure for reducing poverty if all of this goes on," he said.

For information, Luhut, who was asked to be the Chairman of the Committee for the Acceleration of Digital Transformation, the Government has just held a working meeting with relevant ministries and institutions, starting from the Ministry of PAN-RB, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of Communication and Digital Affairs, Head of the National Planning Agency (Bappenas), Central Statistics Agency (BPS), Ministry of SOEs, Ministry of State Secretary, and Regent of Banyuwangi.

He said that this committee had held the inaugural meeting and this meeting was a follow-up to Presidential Regulation Number 83 of 2025, as well as marking the start of concrete steps to strengthen Indonesia's foundation towards an inclusive, efficient, transparent, and sovereign digital government.

Luhut conveyed that this step is a commitment to leave the sectoral ego and work together for the success of national digital transformation.

Adapun mandat percepatan transformasi digital pemerintahan pertama kali diberikan Presiden sekitar tujuh bulan lalu dan menindaklanjuti arahan tersebut, tim kecil dibentuk untuk mendalami strategi digitalisasi yang dapat dijalankan.

Luhut menyampaikan agenda Komite akan difokuskan pada tiga use case utama yang menjadi fokus, yakni digitalisasi program bantuan sosial, digitalisasi perizinan usaha, dan peningkatan integrasi komponen Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI).

The mandate to accelerate the digital transformation of government was first given by the President about seven months ago and following up on the directive, a small team was formed to explore the digitalization strategy that can be implemented.

Luhut conveyed that the Committee's agenda will focus on the three main use cases that are the focus, namely digitizing social assistance programs, digitizing business licensing, and increasing the integration of the Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) component.