Improving Population Data the East Sentani Way
Villages in East Sentani, Jayapura regency, use information technology applications to manage their population data. The ultimate goal is to improve public services.
East Sentani SAID data manager Jesica Ohee inputs data into East Sentani District Information and Administration System (SAID) in Jayapura regency on Tuesday (27/2).
Villages in East Sentani, Jayapura regency, use information technology applications to manage their population data. The ultimate goal is to improve public services.
Ones Puhili, 25, of Nolokla village, East Sentani district, Jayapura regency, Papua, visited Carola Wefma’s home in neighborhood unit (RT) 001, community unit (RW) 003, Nolokla one Tuesday morning in late February.
Ones, a member of the Village Administration and Information System (SAIK) team, was visiting to update the population data for Carola’s family. After explaining about his work, Ones interviewed Carola to obtain the most up-to-date information on Carola’s family.
The young man diligently noted down the information on a two-page population data form. The interview went smoothly and in a familial atmosphere as Ones was also a Nolokla resident and many locals knew him well.
The form has dozens of blank spaces to be filled with information on family members’ names, status of residence, home ownership status, job status, personal skills, disabilities and history of illnesses and vaccinations.
After finishing the interview, Ones continued his work in other houses in Nolokla. The information obtained is then input into the SAIK application. The process takes about 15 minutes.
Ones also copied the updated SAIK data onto an external hard disk. He then brought the compiled data to the District Administration and Information System (SAID) management center, also called the Data House, behind the East Sentani district office. “I have been an active SAIK volunteer since mid-2015. I gather data by visiting people’s homes in Nolokla,” Ones said.
Started in seven villages
The SAID and SAIK applications were created under the “Landasan” program developed by Community Collaboration and Services for Welfare (Kompak), an Australian-Indonesian government partnership. The two applications were created by Mitra Turatea, an institution based in South Sulawesi.
In the program, volunteers in each village, usually youths, interview locals and update population data in SAIK. Each volunteer is given a laptop by the local village administration. SAIK was first established in 2015.
After population data in seven villages in East Sentani was compiled, SAID was developed last year. The seven villages in East Sentani were Ayapo, Nendali, Asei Kecil, Asei Besar, Puay, Yokiwa and Nolokla where Ones lives.
That Tuesday, two officials, namely SAID data manager Jesica Moni Ohee and SAID East Sentani coordinator Anastasia Samberi, were in the Data House, which is equipped with computers and laptops serving as the SAID database. Both were receiving and processing SAIK data compiled by 16 volunteers in East Sentani.
“There is information on around 3,000 residents in SAID. Data-gathering is ongoing in the seven villages as we have yet to gather the data of all residents,” Jesica said.
In the SAID application, accuracy and information thoroughness are important as this will help improve numerous basic services. The solution is provided by SAID, an innovation in technology-based data-gathering that was implemented in East Sentani in September 2017.
East Sentani is the first district in Papua and West Papua with such a web-based population data application. SAID is made up of data gathered from several SAIK applications. Like SAID, SAIK is also web-based.
Jesica, Anastasia and village volunteers work on a meager budget from village administrations to gather residents’ data. The number of volunteers in each village is adjusted to local geographical conditions. One village has only one volunteer but another has five volunteers due to its vast area.
“We work voluntarily out of love for our villages. Development in our villages is not properly targeted as we have no accurate supporting data,” Ones said.
A view of the early data input activities in the East Sentani District Information and Administration System (SAID) at a local resident’s house in Jayapura regency, Papua on Tuesday (27/2).
Effective
Anastasia said SAID was great in a number of ways. It is free to use and highly effective in managing population data. The application can be used both offline and online.
Anastasia explained that data contained in SAID included residents’ identities, number of schools, number of community health centers (Puskesmas), number of teachers and number of dominant illnesses. SAID also has data on local roads and bridges, number of cattle, total plantation area and village fund availability in seven villages.
Apart from volunteers, schools and Puskesmas managers in East Sentani can also enter data into SAID. The goal is to enable the government and the people to monitor the quality of health and education in the district.
“Many government institutions come to us to seek data. College students also sometimes come to obtain data for their research,” Anastasia said.
East Sentani district head Steven Ohee said that, based on information gathered in SAID, it was found that hundreds of locals had yet to record their personal data for ID cards and had no family card or birth certificate.
The district then informed the Jayapura regency population and civil records agency of this finding.
The agency followed up the report by visiting East Sentani district and processing ID cards for 256 locals and issuing 177 family cards and 166 birth certificates. “This is all thanks to SAID,” Steven said.
He added that SAID was also important to monitor village fund use in East Sentani. Data from SAID is used as a reference in development and budget planning talks in the seven villages.
“SAID data can also be synchronized with the central government’s programs, such as welfare rice and school operational aid,” Steven said.
Head of East Sentani’s Puskemas Harapan, Adi Kurniawan, said that SAID had helped him to understand how village funds were used, especially in the health service. The distribution of healthcare professionals in local villages can also be found in the application.
“We also include information on prevalent illnesses in SAID. These include respiratory tract infection, malaria and diarrhea. This can be used by the regional government to take preventive action,” Adi said.
Australian Embassy minister-counsellor for development cooperation Fleur Davies said the Australian government was happy to support Papua and West Papua along with other provinces in Indonesia to improve basic services such as health and education through Kompak’s “Landasan” program.
“Papua and West Papua suffer from significant development hurdles. We know that the two provinces have a special autonomy fund. Through Kompak’s program, we wish to work together with local governments to ensure that the fund can improve basic services and reduce poverty,” Davies said.
