"Bina Swadaya is the oldest Indonesian NGO and has contributed to developing local communities
and eradicating the poverty of farmers for 47 years since 1967."

Bina Swadaya is located in Depok, Indonesia, and the name means self-reliance and developing human resources. In keeping with its name, the NGO is focused on helping those in need to become self-reliant.

The founder Bambang Ismawan (78) said that ‘for the eradication of poverty in the rural areas, not only the role of the government, but the role of social enterprises is also important.’ He suggested a new paradigm for developing rural areas to maximize the strength of the respective areas and to develop the potential of the people.

At present, Bina Swadaya has 14 social corporations with about 800 staff, and all those corporations provide jobs for the socially discriminated such as the homeless. The NGO is working for the eradication of poverty and the establishment of a foundation for the self-reliance of farmers through various activities such as the development of consumer goods based on local communities, the self-reliance systems of local communities, microfinance, the publication of the agricultural magazine Trubus, and the production and sales of agricultural goods.

As Bina Swadaya has been operating steadily for over 50 years despite the unstable political and economic situations in Indonesia, it is considered a leading social enterprise in the Asian region.