Australia pledges A$14m to RI

JAKARTA (JP): The Australian government pledged here yesterday to give Indonesia a A$12 million (US$8.4 million) grant to help reduce the high maternal mortality rate and another A$2 million in an assistance program to the National Commission on Human Rights.

Ambassador John McCarthy said the $12 million grant would be spent in three provinces -- Irian Jaya, Maluku and West Java, and that the fund would be administered by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) here.

It would be given over three years by the Australian Agency for International Aid (AusAID).

The $2 million human rights assistance program would be spent to help the commission train its staff in human rights principles and law, management, good governance and English language.

One of the priorities of the assistance program will be the establishment of a computerized complaints database and standardized complaints handling procedures.

"The project is the culmination of a lot of work and underlines the fact that Australia is very supportive of the work of the commission," McCarthy said.

It was the commission's organizational weaknesses as well as its lack of appropriately trained staff that led the Australian government to provide the assistance, he said.

The Memorandum of Understanding for the assistance was signed by McCarthy and the rights commission's secretary-general, Baharuddin Lopa, here yesterday.

McCarthy, also signed yesterday the memorandum for the $12 million grant with Unicef Indonesia Representative Stephen Woodhouse and Coordinating Minister for People's Welfare Haryono Suyono.

The grant, the largest given to Indonesia after the World Bank and Unicef for health programs that target mothers and children, would be used by Unicef/AusAID to improve health care services to women in poor villages in the three designated provinces.

According to Haryono, the selection of the three provinces to receive the assistance was "well-targeted" because the percentage of poor people in each province was high.

McCarthy said the aid was given to help protect the lives of Indonesian women during pregnancy and in childbirth.

At present the country's national maternal mortality rate is 390 per 100,000 live births, one of the worst in Asia. (aan)