URGENT:  The latest wave of Covid-19 in Indonesia

Indonesia’s Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB) province is ranked 6th lowest on the Human Development Index out of 34 provinces in Indonesia. 97% of its population live under the poverty line of 1.5 USD/day. This number is far higher than the national rate of poverty of 9.78%.

The latest wave of Covid-19 in Indonesia has not helped the situation.  Indonesia surpassed India and Brazil to become the country reporting the world’s highest number of daily cases.  Hospitals are deluged, particularly on the densely populated island of Java and on Bali, where oxygen supplies are scarce.  The country has had more than 3 million coronavirus infections and 83,000 deaths. The latest spread, driven by the highly contagious Delta variant, shows no signs of slowing.  The daily death toll has been consistently above 1,000 since July 16th.

40% of poverty in NTB is found around the forest and its vicinity. The communities are living in the forest border.  Unfortunately, most of the land in Bima city and district and Dompu district is dry-land, sloppy, and infertile. Thus, communities are entering the forest to make a living.  Utilizing the government program of maize export, the communities are cultivating sloped land and forest land for maize cultivation.

To increase maize production, the central government provides incentives including subsiding fertilizers and seeds. Meanwhile, the members of house representatives use their ‘aspiration budget’ to build a road to the forest, with the aim of supporting maize production.  On the market side, around six corn processing plants have been installed in the Dompu district to absorb the community’s maize production. Islamic Relief is working with the forestry and agricultural agency to jointly work to rehabilitate barren land.

Islamic Relief is committed to increase agriculture production of families living in dryland and barren forests to escape poverty traps. Reduce climate risk in communities to fulfill their basic needs. With your support we can improve agroforestry mechanisms, through Sloping Agricultural Land Technique (SALT) and home yard business among communities living in the barren forest, dryland agriculture in Nusa Tenggara Barat (NTB) province.

We Need YOUR Help

As much as we’ve been able to accomplish, there is still so much more to do. If we work together—with YOU—we can make the vision of better Indonesia a reality for so many more of our sisters and brothers in need.

$100 can provide food aid for a family 

$225 can deliver items like blankets and more to survivors

$500 can support life-saving medical aid and emergency relief

$1,000 can help build innovative water and sanitation facilities