There are eight development targets for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Those are alleviation of extreme poverty and hunger, primary education equity, gender equality and women empowering, decrease of child mortality, improved maternal health, resistance to HIV-AIDS, malaria and other diseases, ensure environmental support capacity, and developing a global partnership for development.
He also lamented the central government policy which always determines the price of food products with the reasons of food price stability. Yet, according to Maksum, this policy is not profitable for farmers. "There no hope that our farmer will become prosperous, if this still happens," he said.
On the same occasion, agro-industry observer from UB, Amal Santoso, asserted that if the government seriously fixes agro-industrial sector, it certainly would encourage the national economy. He also expects all stakeholders from universities, industry and banking to commit to promote agro-industry sector. "It is time for all stakeholders to cooperate to develop agro-industry," he said.
The Declaration of APTA conducted in the same time with the Seminar of Institutional and Scientific Reorientation of Agricultural Technology Studies in Indonesia Towards the Global Era. This seminar presents Chief of Logistic Affairs, Ir. Sutarto Alimoeso, and Director General of Processing and Marketing of Agricultural Products, Indonesian Ministry of Agriculture, Prof. Dr. Ir. Zaenal Bacharudin, M.Sc.
She conveys that the MDGs program has generated controversies for the achievement in 2015. In fact, researchers from the Center for Global Development, Benjamin Leon, was also pessimistic for the achievement in 2015 because up until today there is no data of any country showing a significant victory against poverty and seven other MDGs targets. "Of course, these MDGs will not be successful to fight against poverty as long as the policies issued are in favor of market interests, not the interests of the community," said the Head of the UGM Women’s Studies Center.
However the hope still remains, because from the recent seminar that was held by PSW UGM, participants are expected to learn much about poverty, hunger, and disease outbreaks. "In this forum, we are studying the development of the problem and most importantly, we learn to fight it," she said.
Therefore, Djoharwinarlien hoped the efforts to achieve the MDGs can be acknowledged by all parties. PSW UGM as one of the institution genuinely cares for the achievement. Various measures will be done by empowering many aspects, namely education, health, reproduction, and the equality of men and women.
Many factors become obstacles so that the MDGs have not been achieved, among others, the lack of mainstream in the education field thus most opportunities are given to men. "In fact, the female academicians are also competitive, some even smarter than men. Maybe it is because of cultural or economic factors which require women to give in," she explained.
The same thing applied with the health issue, particularly reproductive health. This field also appears to be ignored by the government. "The government has not seriously considered the reproductive health issuewhile the reproductive process is a very long process from pregnancy up until post-birth care. With that kind of attention given to infants, it can be expected that they will become an excellent and reliable generation for the nation," she added.
Dr. R. Ay. Siti Hariti Sastriyani, S.S., committee chairman of the seminar, says that one of the MDGs missions is gender equality which is an international mission and has the support of Indonesia. Therefore, academicians need to contribute in the form of research results related to gender.
In addition, all development roles always involve both men and women. Both are involved in education, culture, social and political aspects, and technology, as well as agriculture, health, and even studies related to infrastructure engineering and information technology. "All of this is gender perspective. Gender research from various disciplines have shown an increase in terms of quality and quantity. In the past the gender issues were considered as only women issues, but now people have started to understand that gender is the problem of inequality of men and women in development, and now all fields of science started to review this," she explained.