Indonesia is the world's fourth largest population with over 265 million people and, according to the World Bank, an unemployment rate of around 5.6%. Unemployment in the country has been declining since 2005 when it was over 11%, and job creation is an acutely important issue the Jokowi Administration intends to remedy.

One initiative attempting to address this, at least in part, is the Irrigation System Accelerated Program (P3-TGAI), which was formed in 2013 and employed tens of thousands of workers last year.

Public Works and Housing Minister Basuki Hadimuljono on a recent visit to Central Java with President Jokowi said that, "P3-TGAI targets 5,000 spots in 34 provinces to build new irrigation systems or repair existing ones." And this creates more jobs for grassroots communities in country areas.

Jokowi's Administration has almost doubled this year's budget for the programme from IDR 600 billion (around USD 45 million) in 2017 to IDR 1.1 trillion (around USD 90 million) for 2018, which in turn is expected to create over 62,000 jobs.

The Jakarta Globe reports that Jokowi believes the P3-TGAI programme minimizes purchasing power parity in Indonesia's under-developed regions and is an important factor when considering the national drive to improve the country's infrastructure, evidence of which dominates news wires in the country.

The Public Works and Housing Ministry has allocated some IDR 11.28 trillion this year for labor-intensive infrastructure programmes. Aside from P3-TGAI, the ministry also has programmes to build houses for the poor, protect the environment in residential areas and repair public infrastructures including bridges and roads.

In total these programmes are expected to create 263,000 jobs in 2018.

Source: Jakarta Globe, World Bank

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