The Jakarta Post reported that the World Bank has committed to channel the eighth development policy loan worth USD 400 million to support Indonesia's three reform priorities: improving investment climate, strengthening public budget management and enhancing poverty alleviation.

The bank said in a press statement released that "Indonesia's main challenge right now is not so much the design of appropriate policies or the raising of financing, but rather strengthening the institutions in charge of implementing those policies in order to enhance their developmental impact."

To improve investment climate, a dedicated team has been established under the trade ministry to formulate non tariff measures that are designed in a transparent way, meet their objectives and are consistent with international trade agreements.

Meanwhile, the ultimate objective of the public financial management reforms is to create a set of guidelines to separate treatments of baselines and new initiatives, procedures to propose and scrutinize new initiatives and make consistent plans and budgets.

The last agenda, poverty reduction, is expected to be achieved through the same unified beneficiary database used by agencies that are implementing antipoverty programs to increase synergies across programs, enhance their targeting and ultimately increase their impact on the poor.

(Sourced from www.thejakartapost.com)