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.