Jakarta looks to empower Papuans in modern mechanisms
Jakarta focuses development approach in Papua on enabling grassroots communities to become equipped with the tools and skills to compete in modern market mechanisms.
Transcript
The Indonesian government's approach to development among Papua's grassroots communities has been described as being about enabling Papuans to integrate into modern systems.
The head of a government taskforce on development in Papua, Judith Dipodiputro is overseeing the construction of a major new market in Sentani for Papuan Mamas to sell homegrown and fresh products.
Johnny Blades visited Ms Dipodiputro at the construction site of the Pasar Pharaa market.
She told him the market is an integrated complex with education and health facilities, which looks to equip Papuans with skills to compete in modern market mechanisms.
JUDITH DIPODIPUTRO: Modern society means that you have to have assets, you have to have savings. Now the way they are trading today doesn't even allow them to have the minimum good life, so we need to bring them to that. And that is why actually the programme of the construction of this market was not only constructing it physically, that was the last item in the programme of Pak Jokowi. Because the idea is that the communities have to be part of the supply chain that exists in Papua, and hopefully one day outside of Papua. And this supply chain starts from their village. They should be able to produce in an amount that allows them to become traders and not keep on being barters. But then again we need to educate them that there is a system called trade and not bartering only. You can still see when you go to different places, especially in remote areas, where it is still trade - albeit that you are using money, but they trade for the blue or for the red money without understanding of monetary system. Photo: RNZI/Koroi Hawkins
