Dig for clues behind E. Sumba poverty

Dig for clues behind E. Sumba poverty

Friedhelm Betke, Advisor, Central Statistics Agency, Jakarta

The district government of East Sumba, on Sumba island in East
Nusa Tenggara province, invited the Central Statistics Agency
(BPS) to take a fresh look at the poverty figures calculated for
that district. According to the BPS, some 27 percent of
households in East Sumba were living in poverty in 1999, two
years after the onslaught of the Asian economic crisis.

Though almost 5 percent higher than the average figure for the
whole of Indonesia in the same year, this estimate was still far
below the corresponding number provided by the National Family
Planning Board (BKKBN). The latter classified more than 84
percent of families in East Sumba as "poor". The local government
was confused.

Which of these figures was correct? Could both the BPS and the
BKKBN be mistaken? Were the national agencies, as some local
officials felt, perhaps neglecting aspects of poverty linked to
the particular social and economic conditions of the island?

Without going further into the complicated technicalities, it
should be noted that the BKKBN and the BPS approaches in
measuring poverty -- at the family or household level -- were
developed for different purposes and cannot easily be compared.
However, both approaches were conceived at the national level and
thus apply uniform sets of indicators all over the archipelago.

From a macro-perspective, this has indeed one very significant
advantage: comparability. Districts and provinces can be ranked
and subsequent poverty reduction efforts can focus on those most
in need of assistance. Or so it seems. What if the underlying
assumptions of current top-down and uniform poverty measurement
do not apply in certain areas of Indonesia?

BPS, supported by UNICEF and the German Agency for Technical
Cooperation (GTZ), is currently pursuing this question and
attempts to identify options for more local-specific poverty
monitoring in collaboration with the government of East Sumba.

First results from this endeavor indicate that poverty and
inequality in East Sumba seem to be "hidden" within the
household, which is generally a more complicated unit than that
of the nuclear family. Statistics generated from household
figures, as defined by national standards, cannot reveal the
amazing survival strategies developed by the Sumbanese over time,
who migrated to this dry and barren island many generations ago.

To survive under such harsh conditions migrants were required
to adapt, inducing the development of social mechanisms apt to
ensure sustained livelihood for the entire populace. To date,
Sumbanese social life -- particularly among the majority of rural
inhabitants -- is organized in such a way that risks of crop
failure, shortages of food, and other social and economic
misfortunes are shared across larger social units, thus,
lessening the hardships of individuals.

Rules and norms governing everyday life in rural Sumba still
seem to enforce mutual help among relatives and neighbors, in
sharing staple food and exchanging unpaid agricultural labor.
These indigenous "social security nets" cover large sections of
the populace, which is spread out thinly over many individual and
often fairly remote dwellings.

Apparently the units of survival and prosperity in East Sumba
extend far beyond the household level. Networks of solidarity
that are organized in large corporate groups -- defining their
membership through recognition of kinship relations derived from
common male ancestors (patrilineages) -- evolved over time.

Based on their forefathers' claims over land where they first
settled in ancient times, these groups (clans, locally referred
to as kabihu) continue to control tana (large terrains) normally
exceeding the average size of the modern Indonesian desa
(administrative village), introduced to Sumba only in the last
century.

Relationships between these groups have since evolved,
further complicating the picture. Being principally autonomous
and economically competitive, each kabihu has sought to further
extend and secure its resource base -- either through marriage
alliances with other kabihu or war with those not affiliated.

Over time, control over the networks' reproductive and labor
potential was seized by an emerging nobility -- the maramba --
who had acquired a sizable number of slaves during times of war.
They also controlled large herds of livestock, which were
valuable in the course of marriage negotiations. Certain maramba
families and associated kabihu networks accumulated wealth and
distanced themselves economically from commoners and less
privileged kabihu groups.

Even in contemporary Indonesia this rigid social structure
appears to persist in East Sumba. The population is still divided
into common kabihu members and slave descendants, while both are
subdued to the influence of the ever-powerful elite. The numbers
and proportions, however, of these different categories of
inhabitants are not known, as national surveys and censuses are
oblivious of such local specificities.

The same is true for information on relationships between
different kabihu networks and their potential wealth
differential. However, would such information not be vital in the
development of a poverty alleviation policy? Without
understanding the information "hidden" in the system of
relationships among families, comprising of traditional social
strata and kabihu membership, it would seem impossible to judge
who controls whose resources, who can or cannot borrow from whom
and to whom a credit would eventually go, when given to a
seemingly "poor family".

The seemingly "exotic" example of East Sumba shows that
uniform approaches to poverty measurement may miss important
aspects of poverty in areas affected by remnants of traditions
that interfere with market economic rules. In view of increasing
demands for information truly serving local autonomy in policy
development, the time has come for a change in paradigm featuring
a greater sensitivity toward local social conditions.

This would not mean, however, that each district would
eventually approach the local-specific aspects of poverty in a
unique and completely incomparable fashion. On the contrary,
innovative efforts at all levels should lead to new standards for
identification of core variables, allowing for more meaningful
comparisons across areas inhabited by socially and culturally
different communities.

Such an endeavor, however, would exceed present institutional
capacities by far. A reformed social-information policy would
need to question current assumptions on macroeconomic poverty
critically and encourage sociological and anthropological views.
This would contribute toward a better understand of the diversity
of poverty in Indonesia which -- as the example of Sumba shows --
is still poorly understood.