August 26, 2025 | 05:51 pm
TEMPO.CO, Jakarta - The Chairperson of the National Economic Council (DEN), Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan, projected that the digitalization of social assistance (bansos) could help lift up to 34 million Indonesians out of poverty during President Prabowo Subianto’s term.
“The reduction of poverty will be very significant if all of this goes well,” Luhut said at a press conference in Jakarta on Tuesday, August 26, 2025, as quoted by Antara.
The government, through the Government Digital Transformation Acceleration Committee, will begin rolling out digitalized social aid in Banyuwangi, East Java, this September. The program will later expand gradually to other regions.
According to Luhut, the initiative is part of three key agendas: digitizing social aid distribution, streamlining business permits, and strengthening Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) integration.
The system is designed to improve accuracy by minimizing inclusion and exclusion errors, while also boosting transparency and accountability. Beneficiaries will be able to verify their digital identities independently via an application. Meanwhile, backend processes will be automated and cross-checked with institutional data, including BPJS Kesehatan, BPJS Ketenagakerjaan, BI-Himbara, ATR/BPN, and Samsat.
Poverty Data and Projections
The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) recorded 23.85 million people living below the poverty line in March 2025, far fewer than the 34 million reduction DEN projects.
DEN member Arief Anshory Yusuf clarified that the figure represents potential reductions during Prabowo’s presidency, provided two conditions are met: strong economic growth and the successful implementation of pro-poor programs like bansos digitalization.
He also stressed the importance of updating Indonesia’s poverty measurement method, which has not been revised for 27 years.
“If the method is not improved, because it no longer reflects real economic conditions in communities, the estimated reduction will only be around 2 million,” Arief said.
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