President Prabowo Subianto Reviews Digital Social Protection Progress Ahead of November Launch

President Prabowo Subianto received a report from the National Economic Council (DEN) on progress in digitizing social protection during a meeting at Merdeka Palace, Jakarta, Tuesday (10/20).

The Council’s Chair Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said the initiative aims to ensure that social assistance is distributed more equitably and reaches eligible recipients.

“We briefed the President on the social protection program, which he is scheduled to launch on November 10. This program aims to ensure fairness for Indonesians eligible to receive social assistance,” he said.

Council member Mochamad Firman Hidayat explained that trials of the digital social protection system had reached all 514 regencies and cities across Indonesia.

“As of today, 11.5 million households have registered in this digital social protection system,” Firman said.

The program is also supported by approximately 775,000 social protection agents who assist people with registration.

According to Firman, the number of people registering through the social protection portal now exceeds 600,000 per day.

The Council also presented the President with findings from a study of the digital social protection pilot program in Bali province. The study found that using a digital system can reduce errors in identifying eligible recipients.

“The digital social protection system can reduce exclusion errors by 24.1 percent and inclusion errors by 4.1 percent,” he explained.

Firman added that the findings indicate that digitalization can improve transparency and help ensure that social assistance reaches its intended beneficiaries.

In the meantime, the Council Chair added that strengthening the social protection system was part of the Government’s efforts to ensure that assistance reaches eligible recipients directly. He added that government assistance would increasingly take the form of direct cash transfers to beneficiaries.

“Government assistance will eventually take the form of cash transfers. Ultimately, the Government will no longer subsidize products,” he said. (BPMI of Presidential Secretariat) (FI/MEP)