Professor Euis Sunarti, Professor at the Faculty of Human Ecology, IPB University, emphasized that family friendly development is a key prerequisite for creating high-quality individuals, a civil society, and a civilized nation. This concept places the family at the center of cross sectoral national development policies.
In the IPB Podcast program on IPB TV’s YouTube channel, Prof Euis explained that family friendly development was born from a long academic journey that highlighted the importance of the family as the smallest social unit.
“Ideally, development should produce resilient families so that the output is prosperous and high quality families. However, in reality, there are still gaps. There is indeed still a gap there,” she said.
According to her, various pressures such as the economy, poverty, and social vulnerability, as well as threats to children and adolescents, are latent factors that affect the resilience of Indonesian families.
Prof Euis emphasized that all policies, whether labeled as family related or not, ultimately have an impact on families.
Policies on taxation, employment, wages, education, and industry have direct and indirect implications for family quality. Therefore, she emphasized the importance of integrating cross sectoral policies so that they do not conflict with each other.
“All parties must consider that their policies and programs will have an impact on families, so they must find the best ones so that families can carry out their roles and functions,” she explained.
She also highlighted the latest health survey which revealed high rates of depression among adolescents, but only about 10 percent of them received help. This condition shows the need for more comprehensive intervention.
Regarding implementation, Prof Euis said that family friendly development must be translated into the form of family friendly regional development, family friendly jobs, and family friendly villages.
Areas that bring workplaces closer to home, flexible output based work systems, and a caring social environment are considered to strengthen family functions.
She emphasized the role of the government as the main actor through regulation and inter-ministerial coordination. Academics also play a role through the three pillars of higher education, particularly in producing policy recommendations and supporting innovations.
Prof Euis advised the younger generation to prepare themselves by achieving physical, mental, social, emotional, moral, and spiritual maturity as a foundation for building resilient families.
“Fulfill their developmental milestones according to their age, then increase their capacity. God willing, they will be able to build resilient families,” she concluded. (dr) (IAAS/SSR)
