WB offers RI funds for bird flu fight
WB offers RI funds for bird flu fight
Rendi A. Witular, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Amid concerns over Indonesia's shortcomings in dealing with the
bird flu outbreak, the World Bank (WB), one of the country's
major lenders, has offered financial assistance to the government
to overcome the virus.
The offer was conveyed during a telephone conversation between
the bank's president Paul Wolfowitz and President Susilo Bambang
Yudhoyono on Saturday, so the country could carry out a mass cull
of infected birds in a bid to reduce the number of human
infections.
"This is a new offer from the bank. President Susilo will
seriously follow up on it. For sure, international cooperation is
needed to combat this disease," presidential spokesman Dino Pati
Djalal said on Tuesday.
Dino said the amount and the form of the assistance would be
discussed later at ministerial level.
"Indonesia is not asking for financial assistance from the
bank. It is the initiative of the agency. The cooperation we need
is not limited to funds only, but also in technical matters and
in monitoring (the development of the disease)," he said.
The World Bank is currently seeking some US$1 billion from
rich nations around the world to prevent further outbreaks of the
disease and improve detection of human cases in Southeast Asia.
The bank's offer comes as the international community
shows concern over the government's slow response to
the outbreak here, amid fears the virus could mutate into
something more easily spread among humans.
The Ministry of Agriculture has conceded that killing all
birds within a three kilometer radius of affected areas is the
best way to combat the virus.
However, the ministry says it lacks sufficient funds, be it to
compensate poultry farmers whose birds are culled, or even to
slaughter the birds.
Currently, the ministry has only allocated Rp 134 billion
(US13.4 million), plus an additional Rp 107 billion, this year to
handle the issue.
Aside from budgetary constraints, bird flu containment in
Indonesia is made more difficult by the fact that many people in
cities and villages raise chickens in their backyards.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg reported from a bird flu conference in
Geneva that representatives from Indonesia, Laos and Cambodia
said they needed cash now to detect the earliest signs the avian
flu has become dangerous to humans.
Indonesian State Minister for National Development Planning
Sri Mulyani Indrawati said the country would need at least $130
million to control outbreaks among birds.
Minister of Agriculture Anton Apriyantono, who also attended
the conference, said that last year Indonesia spent only $55,000
of its $10 million annual agriculture budget to compensate
farmers for culling 450,000 birds.
He said Indonesia needed to double payments -- to 80 U.S.
cents a pound -- to encourage farmers to report sick birds.
The latest data from the ministry shows that as many as 16.2
million birds have been killed due to the virus, which has spread
to 22 of archipelago's 33 provinces since late 2003. It jumped
species to pigs earlier this year.