Vice President Says The Government Uses These Two Ways To Overcome Poverty Problems

Vice President Ma'ruf Amin (Photo: Antara)

JAKARTA - Vice President Ma'ruf Amin revealed two ways that the government has taken to overcome the problem of poverty. The first way is social protection in the form of distributing social assistance.

The second way is community empowerment, in the sense of a program that involves the community in every development decision-making at the community level, so that the community does not just receive assistance.

"The problem of poverty is approached through two things, first, namely social protection or social assistance and the second is community empowerment," said Ma'ruf in an official statement, Monday, March 21.

Ma'ruf said that the government is currently intensively implementing social protection methods due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This social protection program, he continued, was part of an effort to help people affected by the pandemic.

"We take care that poverty and social problems do not fall too much, so we have to prepare them through social protection efforts," he said.

Furthermore, Ma'ruf said that the government is currently optimizing the national economic recovery. Therefore, the government continues to seek coordination between the relevant ministries/agencies, so that this social assistance can be provided on target.

"We are now coordinating all existing programs, we are conducting convergence so that the targets are indeed in line with those in the regions," he said.

In addition, Ma'ruf emphasized that the economic recovery effort that was also carried out was the encouragement to generate micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) in the form of assistance.

"We encourage MSMEs through assistance, tax relief, as well as social assistance for small entrepreneurs, all of which we encourage and are currently in recovery," he added.