The Women’s Leadership Festival and the Indonesian Women’s Coalition National Congress V Push for the Achievement of the SDGs

The Indonesian Women’s Coalition (KPI) hosted two major events at the beginning of 2020: ‘The Women’s Leadership Festival: Women & the SDGs’ and the ‘KPI National Congress V’.

The National Congress was held on 20-23 February 2020 in Semarang and opened by the Governor of East Java Khofifah Indar Parawansa and attended by the Minister of Women’s Empowerment and Child Protection Bintang Puspayoga. The festival was aimed at encouraging all elements of society to develop a sense of ownership over the SDGs by bringing the goals, targets and indicators down to earth in a way that could be understood by all. The two activities resulted in the creation of the Sukolilo Charter, which outlines KPI’s commitment to working to achieving the Goals. The events also led to the appointment of Mike Verawati Tangka as KPI’s Secretary General for the 2020-2025 period.

“This Women’s Leadership Festival: Women & the SDGs is a forum to develop strategies together to respond to various issues related to achieving the SDGs, such as the elimination of child marriage, life-long education, women’s and children’s health and the fulfilment of the rights to food, security, democracy and peace,” said KPI Secretary-General 2014-2019, Dian Kartikasari.

In her keynote speech, Govenor Khofifah Indar Parawansa said she hoped women from all corners of Indonesia would contribute their thoughts, advice and guidance to improve rural women’s skills.

“We often find inequality between cities and villages and women’s access [to services] in villages is relatively limited. How can we reach out to women in the villages to increase their access and improve their skills, health and economic well-being?” said Khofifah. In her speech titled ‘Women’s Leadership & Achieving the SDGs’, Khofifah also advised the government, parliament, civil society and the media to coordinate their work and cooperate to achieve the SGDs.

In line with Khofifah, Bintang Puspayoga also highlighted the importance of women’s leadership in her remarks. Bintang hopes that more women will be able to lead from the village level. KPPPA data shows that in 2019, only 5% of 78,000 villages across Indonesia had female village heads. This means that only one out of every 20 village heads were women. “There is plenty of room for women to take on important leadership roles, but this has not materialised optimally because of psychological, cultural and political barriers,” she said.

The women’s leadership festival was attended by more than 1,500 women KPI members from 1,100 villages and 205 districts and cities spread across 20 provinces. The strength, ideas, and hopes of KPI members throughout Indonesia were set out in the Sukolilo Charter, a commitment to working together to achieve the SDGs.

Good luck to the appointed KPI National Board for the 2020-2025 period!