Minister Suharso Explains Alternative Development Programs at BNN Webinar

Jakarta, Djava Pos - Minister of National Development Planning was a speaker at the 2021 BNN Level II National Leadership Training with the theme "Alternative Development Program National Policy", Tuesday (22/06/2021).

On that occasion the Minister explained the handling of narcotics abuse, that can be overcome with demand and supply side. From demand side, among others, by preventing narcotics abuse, improving rehabilitation services and strengthening crime reduction through community empowerment in vulnerable areas.

Meanwhile, from supply side include strengthening regulations and law enforcement for narcotics handling, confiscation of TPPU assets resulting from narcotics crime, handling Hawala System Mode (Cuckoo Smurfing), and reducing supply of marijuana, kratom and other drug substances by replacing plants or other drugs. other economic activities that have higher added value (Alternative Development)

In addition, the Minister also explained  Alternative Development Program. This program is an effort to reduce the cultivation of prohibited plants and improve people's life quality in the forbidden plant areas.

Three main pillars of this program are institutional building, community building, and monitoring/evaluation. In institutional building, the focus is synergy of stakeholders at the central and local levels in order to achieve national priority targets.

Community building must include community empowerment, environmental conservation, and community participation.

The Minister also said that implementation of this program also needs consistent evaluation and monitoring to obtain data as a basis for policy making.

The Minister assessed, if the program is implemented, it is necessary to assess effectiveness of  Alternative Development program, taking into account several factors.

First, community welfare, training and empowerment of the community need to pay attention to economic security. So that this program can really replace the position of forbidden plants in the community.

Second, the rate of recurrence or relapse, needs to be focused on meeting the standards and quality life of farmers and communities in vulnerable areas, so farmer will not return being cultivators of prohibited plants.

Third, the regulation of prohibited plants needs to be encouraged by regulations of prohibited plants with supervision and restriction.

Fourth, tracking narcotics circulation. The downstream aspect of narcotics trafficking needs to be studied to ensure this alternative development program has broken the drug supply chain.