Assessment of Existing Economic Skills-oriented Program for Former-Terrorist Convicts with Policy Recommendation on Economic Empowerment for Former-Terrorist Convicts and Support for Best Practices

This is a descriptive research of which purpose it is to obtain an overview of the impacts economic interventions have had. The research applies an ex-post facto approach wherein data as an analytical unit (respondents’ characteristics) have been in place before the research is conducted. Data collecting employed both quantitative and qualitative approaches by means of questionnaires, interviews, and observations. Interviews were held with beneficiaries of economic programs and with program implementing organisations. The sample size of beneficiaries was 38 former terrorist convicts and former combatants who at one time received economic assistance, and who hailed from three territories: Greater Jakarta, Lamongan, and Poso. The assessment shows that nearly across the board in terms of program implementation a fundamental weakness can be identified that causes programming to deviate from the set course. This key weakness is due to the fact that no proper baseline and final measurements are made of the beneficiaries of economic assistance. The study did not identify a correlation to exist between the number of purely economic training courses and the degree of radicalisation. This means that the quantity of training courses delivered does not have a bearing on the increasing or decreasing of the participants’ degree of radicalisation. On the other hand, a negative correlation was identified to exist between the number of economic training courses delivered and the delivery of cash assistance combined with deradicalisation material, with the degree of radicalisation. A majority of participants have yet to successfully transform the cash and the in-kind assistance into productive capital.

Geographical Scope: National

Region: UNDP Asia and the Pacific

Country: Indonesia

Theme of Research: Education Faith-based

Year Published: 2018

Responsible Entity: UNDP Indonesia