The Australian Government has today confirmed a strengthened five year development partnership with Indonesia to help tackle poverty and promote regional peace, stability and prosperity.
The first program to be funded under this strengthened development partnership is a $49 million maternal and neonatal health program.
This four year program will make pregnancy and childbirth safer for women in Indonesia's poorest areas by funding programs such as:
* Increased access to trained midwives during pregnancy and childbirth;
* Improved management of maternal and neonatal health services; and
* Increased funding for community level support structures for new and expecting mothers.
The program will be targeted to help mothers in Indonesia's poorest areas such as Nusa Tenggara Timur and other eastern Indonesian provinces.
The aim of this program is to significantly reduce the number of women who die needlessly during pregnancy and childbirth by ensuring that in target areas 75 per cent of women and newborns with complications receive appropriate care.
The Australian Government will also today sign new partnership agreements with Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama.
Muhammadiyah and Nahdlatul Ulama are Indonesia's two largest faith based Muslim community organisations focused on providing practical assistance such as basic health, education, and disaster response services.
These community based services play a practical and important role in the continuing development of Indonesia.
The Australian Government is today announcing additional funding of $900,000 for Nahdlatul Ulama and $1.5 million for Muhammadiyah to progress their important work in disaster preparedness.
Under the strengthened five year development partnership with Indonesia announced today Australia will provide up to an expected $2.5 billion in development assistance to Indonesia between 2009 and 2013.
This funding commitment to assist with the development of Indonesia follows the $1 billion Australia Indonesia Partnership for Reconstruction and Development forged after the 2004 tsunami.
This increased commitment to the development of Indonesia is consistent with my Government's commitment to a significant overall increase in international development assistance.
This is Australia's largest development assistance program and will be implemented in line with Indonesia's Medium Term Development Plan and Australia's budgetary process.
Australia and Indonesia are determined to work in partnership to create a better life for around 100 million people who live in poverty on less than US$2 a day.
Together, we have identified the long-term priorities for development assistance to Indonesia and our Governments will jointly manage implementation.
Australia works at the national, provincial and district levels to help improve service delivery and systems. We will target assistance to the poorest provinces across Indonesia, including Aceh and Papua.
Australia will help Indonesia to make faster progress towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals, particularly to improve the health of mothers and children and increase access to clean water and sanitation.
Australia will work more closely with multilateral organisations, like the World Bank and the United Nations, to tackle major development issues. For example, we will support a World Bank program to improve access to safe water supply and sanitation services for up to 10 million people in 5,000 villages over the next three years.
Climate change is one of the greatest global development challenges of our time and Australia and Indonesia will progress our partnership to address this issue.
Australia will also continue to support Indonesia's efforts to strengthen governance, democracy, human rights and disaster preparedness through Indonesian institutions and civil society and further enhance our people-to-people links.
This commitment to Indonesia is another step forward in a partnership that is important to us both and to peace and prosperity in our region.