Family-Friendly Development Key to a Civilised Nation
Professor Euis Sunarti, a professor at the Faculty of Human Ecology at IPB University, asserts that family-friendly development is an absolute prerequisite for realising quality individuals, a civil society, and a civilised nation. This concept positions the family not merely as the smallest social unit, but as the main foundation in formulating cross-sectoral national development policies.
In the IPB Podcast programme on the IPB TV YouTube channel, Prof Euis explains that the idea of family-friendly development stems from a long academic journey. She highlights that ideally, development should culminate in resilient, prosperous, and quality families.
“However, in reality, there are still gaps. Indeed, there is still a gap there,” says Prof Euis, quoted on Sunday (5/4).
She identifies several latent factors that continue to threaten family resilience in Indonesia, ranging from economic pressures, poverty, social vulnerabilities, to threats against the growth and development of children and adolescents.
Prof Euis emphasises that every government policy, whether explicitly targeting families or not, certainly has an impact on the quality of domestic life. Tax policies, labour regulations, wage systems, education curricula, and industrial directions have direct or indirect implications.
Therefore, the integration of cross-sectoral policies becomes crucial to avoid overlaps or conflicts that could harm families.
“All parties must consider that their policies and programmes will impact families, so they must seek what is best for families to carry out their roles and functions,” she explains.
One crucial issue highlighted is the mental health of the younger generation. Based on the data she presented, there is a great urgency to carry out comprehensive interventions for Indonesian adolescents.
To realise this concept, Prof Euis proposes three pillars of implementation at the grassroots level, namely: [Note: Original text appears incomplete here, but context suggests pillars involving government regulation, academic contributions, and community involvement.]
In this regard, the government holds the role as the main actor through regulations and cross-ministerial coordination. Meanwhile, academics play a role through the Tridharma of Higher Education to produce data-based policy recommendations and supportive innovations.
Concluding her explanation, Prof Euis gives a special message to the younger generation as future family builders. She asks them to prepare holistic maturity, starting from physical, mental, social, emotional, to moral and spiritual aspects.
“Fulfil developmental achievements according to age, then enhance capacity. Insyaallah, it can build resilient families,” she concludes.