Foreign Minister Carr visits Australian aid programs in Indonesia
15 July, 2012
Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Bob Carr visits a PNPM project supported by Australian Aid in the village of Umbulharjo in Yogjakarta, Indonesia on July 14, 2012. Senator Carr saw local livelihood activities, spoke with people from the local community and saw a bridge built by the community.
Photos by Josh Estey/AusAID
Foreign Minister Bob Carr has seen at first hand Australian supported aid programs in Yogyakarta in his first official ministerial visit to Indonesia.
Senator Carr visited an HIV testing and prevention facility at Gedong Tengen Clinic, one of 95 community health clinics across Indonesia support by AusAID. At the clinic, Senator Carr met with several methadone clients and health care workers.
Australian aid has contributed to a 10 per cent decline since 2007 in HIV among people who inject drugs, thanks to the HIV prevention services - needles and syringes, condoms, methadone maintenance therapy and HIV testing - offered at these clinics.
Senator Carr travelled to Umbulharjo village, an area that was just two years ago covered by deadly ash following the 2010 Mount Merapi eruptions that killed more than 350 people.
Umbulharjo has benefited from Indonesia’s nation-wide poverty alleviation initiative that empowers poor communities to apply for grants based on local needs. The program reaches around 80,000 villages across Indonesia; Australia has allocated $215 million to this initiative.
In Umbulharjo he met with women’s groups using microfinance loans to cultivate and process food and viewed a reconstructed bridge destroyed by the disaster.
'I think every Australian should be proud to have helped a village like this recover from volcano damage by developing little industries and diversifying income,' Senator Carr said.
'This opens up opportunities for people, lifts the community above rural poverty. And there's nothing like building a bridge because the bridge means access to markets and more money flowing into a village. That's the key to it - it means them being able to get products to market and get more money to invest in their own little vulnerable community.'
Senator Carr also visited the 9th Century Buddhist temple Borobudur, one of Indonesia’s greatest cultural and historical icons, and announced $215,000 to support villagers vulnerable to poverty living around the World Heritage Site.
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Last Reviewed: 15 July, 2012