A New Era for Social Assistance

Jakarta (ANTARA) – We often hear stories from villages or low-cost housing complexes about two equally poor families, one of whom receives social assistance while the other never gets any. This usually happens because residents’ records are incomplete, or because people who should qualify have not been registered at the sub-district office.

The administration of President Prabowo Subianto and Vice-President Gibran Rakabuming Raka is now overhauling the way social assistance is distributed, aiming to make it fairer and better targeted through a new system called Digital Social Protection (Perlinsos Digital).

Under this system, beneficiary data will no longer be open to manipulation at the discretion of individuals or groups who have won elections. It will all be checked by a fair and transparent computer system. Anyone may register, and neighbours can help monitor the process to ensure assistance reaches those who need it.

For residents without smartphones, those unfamiliar with the internet and older people, the government has prepared a mutual-aid initiative called the Neighbour Care Movement (Gerakan Peduli Tetangga). Hundreds of thousands of volunteers – including neighbours, neighbourhood and community association officials, village supervisory non-commissioned officers (Babinsa) and village facilitators – are ready to visit homes and help residents register, free of charge.

This major change effectively reverses longstanding practices in social-assistance bureaucracy, which for decades have been slow and opaque. In the past, the fate of a poor resident was determined through a chain of desks, from a neighbourhood letter and sub-district records to tiered verification, which was often held up by personal connections or local politics. When data was kept tightly under wraps, suspicion flourished in the community.