Eleven poor provinces need urgent action

YOGYAKARTA (JP): An expert says the future poverty alleviation program should concentrate on areas with the poorest communities in eleven provinces.

According to Mubyarto, the assistant to the State Minister of National Development Planning, the provinces include seven in eastern Indonesia -- West Kalimantan, South Kalimantan, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, East Timor, Maluku and Irian Jaya -- and four in western Indonesia, namely West Java, Central Java, Yogyakarta and East Java.

An average of 20 percent of the population, or 3.8 million people, in eastern Indonesia is poor.

"These regions need special support, and social and physical infrastructure development," said Mubyarto.

He said in West Kalimantan 21.99 percent of the population, or 820,500 people, are poor; in South Kalimantan 14.33 percent or 424,300 people; West Nusa Tenggara 17.62 percent or 653,000 people; East Nusa Tenggara 20.57 percent or 749,000 people; East Timor 31.15 percent or 267,000 people; Maluku 19.47 percent or 417,000 and Irian Jaya 21.17 percent, or 427,800 people.

In a discussion at Hotel Garuda here Monday, Mubyarto said the poorest provinces in Java needed special monitoring because although the percentage is lower -- 12 percent of the population -- the absolute number is higher, 12.5 million people or 56 percent of the total number of poor people in the country.

Central Java has the highest number of poor people with 4.16 million people or 13.91 percent of its population; East Java has four million or 11.86 percent; West Java 3.96 million or 9.87 percent; and Yogyakarta has 303,800 poor people or 10.42 percent of the population.

Mubyarto, who is also a professor of rural economics at the Gadjah Mada University, said the number of poor people in Indonesia had been decreasing by 1.1 million annually from 1993 to 1996 through government aid for the least-developed villages, known as IDT.

He predicted that in eight years the number of poor people would decrease by two million annually.

Separately, in a discussion in Jakarta Tuesday, researcher Juni Thamrin from the Center for Social Analysis said the government should help instill a feeling of security for activists working for poverty alleviation at the grassroots.

He also called for dialogs on equal footing between the government and activists of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) working for the same cause.

Thamrin was speaking at a seminar held by the Indonesian Institute of Science's Center for Economic and Development Studies in cooperation with the UN-ESCAP in Bangkok.

The director of the Center for Economic and Development Studies, Carunia Mulya Firdausy, said that allowing NGOs to maintain their independence in their operations and avoid turning them into agents of the government would promote genuine cooperation between the government and NGOs.

"NGOs should be viewed as partners in promoting the poverty alleviation policy and not as instruments of the government for the implementation of the poverty program," Carunia said. (23/09)