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Social assistance programs helpful but inaccessible: Survey

Indonesians say social assistance programs are helpful, but generally out of reach, and have failed to significantly impact their lives, according to a survey revealed on Saturday

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta
Sat, April 25, 2015

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Social assistance programs helpful but inaccessible: Survey

I

ndonesians say social assistance programs are helpful, but generally out of reach, and have failed to significantly impact their lives, according to a survey revealed on Saturday.

The International NGO Forum on Indonesian Development (INFID) revealed the findings of its social barometer on public perceptions of the 2014 government'€™s six social assistance programs, which included the School Operational Assistance (BOS), National Program for People Empowerment (PNPM), and the Community Health Protection Scheme (Jamkesmas).

The overall social barometer index score was 5.6 on the scale of 10, an increase from 5.3 last year, which means people saw a slight increase in the quality of the social assistance programs.

'€œLike what we see with BOS. It was generally deemed helpful, but in practice, people thought that the information about it was insufficient and it didn'€™t reach the people who needed it,'€ INFID senior program officer Hamong Santono said at a media briefing in Jakarta

"That'€™s why people think the program has not affected them."

The survey was held from January to March involving, 2,500 respondents across the country with multistage random sampling method.

Another complaint was the long and confusing procedures to access such programs.

Health and education were the sectors respondents said most needed assistance, with 99.3 percent and 98.5 percent, respectively.

BOS program is perceived as the most helpful among the six programs evaluated, yet half of the respondents said that all of the programs were hard to reach.

University of Indonesia researcher Bagus Takwin recommended the government clarify standard operating procedures, needs analysis, and certain quality standards to fix the problem.

'€œThey have not created a system that ensures the programs have significant impacts.By chance, some programs were found helpful, but it wasn'€™t by design. They should make one good design to ensure the impacts are felt,'€ he said. (fsu/nvn)(+++)

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