Launching of Joint Programmes on Social Protection and Jobs - Resident Coordinator's Speech, Gita Sabharwal

Your Excellency, Febrian Ruddyard, Vice Minister Bappenas

Your Excellency Francisco Aranda, Ambassador of Spain

Representatives from Bappenas, Line Ministries, and Trade Unions

Member States, UN and World Bank colleagues 

Selamat Pagi.

It is an honour to welcome you all to the launch of two SDG Joint Programmes — led by Bappenas, the United Nations, and the World Bank — with the aim to accelerate Indonesia’s transition to the next level of economic resilience and prosperity.

Indonesia has set ambitious development priorities to achieve food and energy, security while accelerating economic growth through strategic investments in human capital.

This clarity of its development vision is the foundation on which Indonesia’s development partners can mobilize a coherent course of action.

For the UN, it allows us to integrate our expertise and financial assistance to maximise the impact of our contribution, aligned to the national plan.

This has included leveraging the headquarters-led Joint SDG Fund, which benefits from contributions from Member States joining us today including Spain, Germany and Belgium. 

Through competitive processes, UN Indonesia has mobilized over $12m from the Joint SDG Fund across critical areas including food systems transformation, innovative finance, and social protection, which have been leveraged to secure over $5 billion in additional SDG financing in country.

The key to this success has been Bappenas’ leadership in co-developing cutting-edge solutions together with the UN and the WB, serving as models for other countries.

This includes building a modern, adaptive social protection system integrated with industry-led skills development through digitization and integration of social assistance delivery with enhanced targeting of those most at risk. 

By working to close the disability gap in social protection and employment, we aim to improve access to employment services and make social protection more inclusive across the life cycle.

These two initiatives are a strategic step forward - not just for short-term results, but for long-term, system-level transformation. 

Improved job opportunities and expanded social protection matter.

More than half of Indonesian workers are still in the informal sector, and a similar proportion remain uncovered by adequate social protection, with those living with disabilities even more excluded.

With 2.5 million young Indonesians entering the workforce each year, the demand for quality, future-ready jobs has never been greater.

The President’s ambition to reach 8% growth can only be achieved by realizing the potential of the youth bulge by ensuring that the growing workforce secures productive employment.

Opportunities in new sectors with high growth potential from critical minerals to green manufacturing, to the blue economy also need to be seized. 

The Joint SDG Fund is a valuable enabler of this, allowing us to take smart risks, for example in developing innovative financing instruments that multiply the impact of our investments.

With our work on jobs and social protection, we are now seeking to use this flexibility to leverage big data for real-time monitoring of labour markets to better understand unemployment and household vulnerabilities.

We aim to leverage the private sector to scale up vocational training and apprenticeships to future-proof the workforce.

This can be achieved through a coordinated approach by the UN, bringing to bear the best expertise from across the system.

Under the new Indonesia-UN Cooperation Framework this is the kind of integrated one-UN initiatives that we will prioritize to address the most strategic development issues.

Our colleagues – Bapak Maliki, Ibu Maniza and Ibu Simrin will speak to the features of these programmes in more detail, so let me close by thanking our partners in making this possible.

Let me thank you Bapak Febrian Ruddyard, in particular, for your vision, commitment and leadership, and to those that support the Joint SDG Fund, which allows us to undertake strategic work such as this.

We look forward to continuing this journey together — toward a more competitive, inclusive, and future-ready economy for Indonesia. 

Terima kasih.