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Indonesia to promote inclusive urban planning in rural areas
Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Rizal Ramli (Tribunnews)Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Rizal Ramli has said that Indonesia needs to empower local economies and accelerate the improvement of basic infrastructure in all rural areas to promote inclusive urban planning in order to eliminate development disparities
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Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Rizal Ramli (Tribunnews) (Tribunnews)
Indonesian Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Rizal Ramli (Tribunnews)
Coordinating Minister for Maritime Affairs Rizal Ramli has said that Indonesia needs to empower local economies and accelerate the improvement of basic infrastructure in all rural areas to promote inclusive urban planning in order to eliminate development disparities.
'Domestic policies should be revised to accelerate growth in low-income areas. Budget allocation was mostly directed at Java, but starting from this year we will shift the budget more to outside Java to reduce the income gap,' said Rizal during the opening ceremony of Habitat III Asia-Pacific Regional Meeting on Wednesday in Jakarta.
Attended by 27 countries from the Asia-Pacific region, the regional high level meeting is held in advanced of the third United Nations Conference on Housing and Sustainable Urban Development (Habitat III) in 2016. The leaders convened to discuss priorities and develop policy recommendations for the New Urban Agenda that would strive for the realization of inclusive and sustainable urban development.
In the past few years, urbanization has been regarded as a tool for development. The fact that urbanization often brought socio-economic problems, for example growth of poverty and lack access to safe water and sanitation, could not be blamed on spontaneous tendencies that attract people to cities. It was the economic condition of rural areas that was the problematic issue, According to Executive Director of UN-Habitat Joan Clos.
'We need to find a suitable model of urbanization. Quality of urbanization is important because it affects the quantity of development that will contribute to achieving prosperity,' said Joan, adding that he was optimistic for a change in urbanization.
The problem with urbanization in Indonesia is that the government fails to anticipate the movement of people from rural areas to cities.
According to Public Works and Public Housing Ministry secretary-general Taufik Widjoyono, there are three things that the government could do to fix the current trend of urbanization. First, directing the policy toward rural areas and strengthening law enforcement. Second, creating financial planning with bigger budget allocations outside of Java. Third, designing better urban planning for inclusive development in rural areas.
'Sustainable urban development is in line with Jokowi's development agenda in Nawa Cita. Economic independence should be realized by directing our policy and budget allocation toward rural areas, which would create better economic opportunities to slow down the flow of urbanization in cities at the same time,' said Taufik. (dan)
