Dr. Surya Chandra Surapaty was officially inaugurated as the new head of the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN) in Jakarta on 26 May 2015.

The National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN) officially inaugurated Dr. Surya Chandra Surapaty as the new head of the agency in Jakarta on Tuesday.

UNFPA Indonesia welcomed the appointment of the former legislator from the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-P) to lead the organization, emphasizing the agency’s commitment to continue working together with BKKBN to strengthen population and family planning programmes in Indonesia.

“UNFPA looks forward to working with Dr. Surya Chandra to strengthen our partnership with BKKBN to support the country’s population and family planning programmes to enhance the health and wellbeing of Indonesians,” said Mr. Jose Ferraris, UNFPA Representative, after the inauguration ceremony.

Dr. Surya Chandra, who served as a House of Representatives’ member for Commission IX – which oversees health, population, labor and transmigration affairs— replaces his predecessor Prof. Fasli Jalal who retired in September 2014.  

Health Minister Dr. Nila Moeloek officiated the ceremony at the BKKBN headquarters in Jakarta, in the presence of distinguished representatives from the Government, including Social Affairs Minister Khofifah Indar Parawansa, Minister of State Apparatus and Bureaucratic Reform Yuddy Chrisnandi, civil-society organizations, academia, development partners and BKKBN staff. As the position had been left vacant for eight months, Dr. Nila told media after the ceremony that a lot of work needed to be done to accelerate progress towards achieving Indonesia’s family planning and population management targets, including updating family development programmes.

Dr. Surya Chandra, a medical doctor by training, completed his Masters in Public Health from the University of Hawaii before completing his PhD on Demography and Population Studies at the University of Michigan with his dissertation topic on “Modernity and Family Planning Begaviour in Urban Indonesia”. Having started his career as a professor in the Faculty of Medicine at Sriwijaya University in Palembang, he went on to become the head of the Population Studies Centre at the university in his hometown in South Sumatra.

During his political career, Dr. Surya Chandra led the special committee, known as Pansus, which was involved in deliberating several bills including the National Social Security System (SJSN) as well as several laws on domestic violence, medicine, labor protection and child protection. Dr. Surya Chandra also played an instrumental part as one of the initiators of the amendment draft bill of Law No.23/1992 on Health and the amendment draft bill of Law No.10/1992 on Population and Family Development.