Third World seeks aid for resettlement
Third World seeks aid for resettlement
JAKARTA (JP): Eighteen developing countries led by Indonesia appealed to the international community yesterday to extend aid for human resettlement programs which, they say, are crucial in to their efforts to alleviate poverty.
Participants in a three-day seminar reviewing resettlement programs agreed on the need to approach the international community, particularly multilateral institutions, to finance such programs.
The seminar, attended by 250 officials and experts from 18 developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, was closed by Indonesia's Minister of Transmigration Siswono Yudohusodo.
Siswono said international mechanisms should be developed to give less-developed and developing countries access to humanitarian and financial assistance to finance their resettlement programs.
"The concept of population resettlement has been widely accepted, but it cannot be implemented in full because of a shortage of funds and technical assistance," he said, adding that the international community should share responsibility in the social development of developing countries.
Indonesia's own transmigration program has been the target of widespread criticisms amid allegations of the use of coercion and ecological damage to the settlement areas. Because of such criticisms, many traditional aid donor countries and institutions have become reluctant to fund the program.
Indonesia hopes to use this week's seminar to showcase the positive impacts results of its transmigration program in reducing poverty, proving its critics wrong. Today, some of the delegates to the seminar will make a field visit to one of the most successful transmigration sites in West Kalimantan.
Cambodian Minister of Rural Development Hong Sun Hot told The Jakarta Post that he had learned many things from many countries during the three-day seminar. "Such meetings in which participants can share their own experience and information will be useful. We want to host the next meeting," he said.
Ngo The Dan, Vietnam's vice minister of agriculture and rural development, said his country is also keen to host the next meeting. "We will lobby with all participating countries in the seminar to win their support for such a meeting in Vietnam," he said.
P.J. Van Dooren, a Dutch expert who once worked as consultant at the Ministry of Transmigration, said that, for resettlement programs to be successful, a number of preconditions must be met.
"All social and construction facilities, such as housing, land, clean water, should be made available in resettlement areas before transmigrants are resettled," he said.
He said the government should promote social harmony between transmigrants and local people living near resettlement sites.
"The program should not raise resentment or social jealousy from local people," he said. (rms)