120 million on the poverty line. Who cares?<\/p>\n
Fitri Wulandari
\nand Israr Ardiansyah
\nThe Jakarta Post
\nJakarta\/Yogyakarta<\/p>\n
A new World Bank report says that as many as 120 million
\nIndonesians are either living in abject poverty or are staring
\npoverty in the face. But does any one really care?<\/p>\n
You would be forgiven for thinking that the nation's political
\nelite are either ignorant or simply cannot be bothered with the
\nissue. Poverty was hardly mentioned in the recently concluded
\nmeeting of the People's Consultative Assembly.<\/p>\n
It took the World Bank to remind our political leaders this
\nweek about the dire situation facing Indonesia. The bank chose
\npoverty as the main theme for the annual meeting between the
\nIndonesian government and its main aid donors in Jakarta.<\/p>\n
Activists who work in the field to help the poor could not
\nagree more with the warning of the dire consequences for
\nIndonesia if poverty was not addressed thoroughly and
\nimmediately.<\/p>\n
Wardah Hafidz, chief coordinator of the Urban Poor Consortium,
\ndescribes poverty in terms of lack of access to basic education
\nand health services, and malnutrition.<\/p>\n
Many poor children will simply not develop to their fullest
\npotential, physically as well as mentally, she says.<\/p>\n
\"Indonesia will lose two generations,\" says Wardah, whose
\nbattle to help the poor has often pitted her against the
\ngovernment.<\/p>\n
Khofifah Indar Parawansa, chairperson of the National Family
\nPlanning Coordination Board (BKKBN), the government agency at the
\nfront line in the war against poverty, concurs.<\/p>\n
\"Lack of education and health services make poor people
\nunproductive. Indonesia as a nation won't be able to compete in
\nthe global era,\" Khofifah says.<\/p>\n
The World Bank report says Indonesia's economic recovery and
\nlong-term sustainability ultimately hinge on its ability to lift
\nmillions of people out of poverty.<\/p>\n
This is a contrast to the World Bank's approach in the 1970s,
\nwhich saw economic growth as the key to attacking poverty.<\/p>\n
Officially, 15.2 percent, or 32 million of Indonesia's 210
\nmillion people, are poor. But the World Bank says that as many as
\n58 percent, or 121 million people, are considered as \"near poor\"
\nand are highly vulnerable if another economic crisis hits
\nIndonesia, which is increasingly becoming a likely prospect.<\/p>\n
Experts lament that, within government circles, poverty has
\nbeen treated more as a \"project\", which essentially means fat
\ncommissions for them, rather than as a serious problem.<\/p>\n
A case in point was the government's \"social safety net\" (JPS)
\nprogram, launched in 1998 with massive funds from the World Bank,
\naimed at cushioning the poor from the effects of the economic
\ncrisis.<\/p>\n
The money rarely reached the intended recipients in full.<\/p>\n
\"The JPS program opened the door for more corruption,\" recalls
\nMubyarto, who has spent his academic career as a professor of
\neconomics at Gadjah Mada University studying poverty.<\/p>\n
\"There were transportation fees, there were abnormal
\ncommissions for the officials involved in the projects,\" he says.<\/p>\n
Many people who were not poor filed official claims saying
\nthat they were poor and got a slice of the pie, he adds.<\/p>\n
Mubyarto and Wardah say the government has no real strategy on
\nhow it wants to tackle the long-term problem of poverty, with
\nmost of its programs, like the JPS, seen more as charitable acts
\ninstead of tackling the problem at its roots.<\/p>\n
Programs like cheap rice, cheap medicines and education
\nsubsidies may be well intentioned, but they have led to abuses
\nwhere people who are not poor are abusing the government
\nassistance.<\/p>\n
The JPS program has virtually destroyed the efforts made under
\nthe earlier Inpres Desa Tertinggal (IDT) program -- launched in
\n1993 -- which sought to empower the poor by providing them with
\nseed capital, Mubyarto says.<\/p>\n
Mubyarto, who was involved in the IDT program, recalls that
\nbetween 1994 and 1997 the poverty rate dramatically dropped
\nthanks to the program, which had a philosophy to \"trust the
\npoor\".<\/p>\n
\"Don't ever say that poor people are lazy or stupid,\" he said.<\/p>\n
Khofifah, however, said that programs like IDT crumbled under
\nthe weight of the economic crisis in 1997 because villagers were
\nnot getting the support they needed from the government, such as
\ntraining and management skills for running small enterprises.<\/p>\n
Wardah concurs with the World Bank's suggestion that
\ngovernment policies should be more \"pro-poor\", instead of working
\nagainst the interests of the poor.<\/p>\n
She cited the practice of evicting poor people and street
\nvendors by the Jakarta city administration as an example of
\npolicies that are \"anti-poor\".<\/p>\n
It is not that the poor people have been completely neglected.
\nThousands of grassroots organizations are working quietly to deal
\nwith the problem, mostly away from the glare of media publicity.<\/p>\n
The problem is that recognition of the problem from the top
\nechelons of the government is severely lacking.<\/p>\n
\"Our leaders must start to talk about the poor people, about
\npoverty,\" Mubyarto says.<\/p>\n
\"Let's start talking about the marhaen without being afraid of
\nbeing labeled a socialist,\" he says, using the term that
\nIndonesia's first president, Sukarno, the late father of
\nPresident Megawati Soekarnoputri, coined for the \"little people\".<\/p>\n
Mubyarto says few people in the political elite today speak
\nfor the poor people. In contrast, many of the nation's top
\neconomists have spoken out on behalf of the conglomerates, whose
\ninterests are also being threatened by the economic crisis.<\/p>\n
Khofifah says that politicians will only turn their attention
\nto the poor people come election time in 2004.<\/p>\n
\"Politicians can buy their votes,\" she says of the rampant
\npractice of money politics in Indonesia.<\/p>\n
It is not only the economy that is being endangered by
\npoverty. The national reform agenda, including the march toward
\ndemocracy and civil society, are also at risk.<\/p>\n
Poor people tend to have a short fuse, Wardah says.<\/p>\n
\"Because they are easily provoked, they can be exploited to
\nbecome subservient to the interests of political groups and
\nprovoked into acts of violence,\" she says, citing the
\nestablishment of new civil militias in many areas as an example.<\/p>\n
Khofifah, who retains her BKKBN job in spite of losing her
\nCabinet post as state minister for women's affairs in August,
\nwarns that prolonged poverty could break down the people's
\nspirit, not only to work, but also, eventually, to look for jobs.<\/p>\n
\"Crime rates will rise, internal security will become worse.
\nNew investors will avoid Indonesia, and existing ones will take
\ntheir money elsewhere,\" she says<\/p>\n
Somehow, some people here would argue that her prophecy has
\nalready been fulfilled.<\/p>",
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