Giving priority to the poor

Siwage Dharma Negara, Economic Researcher, The National Institute of Sciences (LIPI), Jakarta

Indonesia will host a ministerial-level gathering of the Preparatory Committee Meeting of the World Summit on Sustainable Development from May 27 through June 7 in Nusa Dua, Bali.

The summit will review how far governments worldwide have come in promoting sustainable development and prepare extensive actions to deal with development related issues such as poverty, communal diseases and environmental destruction, all of which are perceived to be interrelated and need a comprehensive and focused strategy to cope with.

The ministerial-level meeting is very important and precedes the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa, from Aug. 26 to Sept. 4 this year. The meeting is not meant to be a talkfest but it is hoped it will be an action- oriented meeting, which is expected to yield political declarations, an action agenda and partnership documentation. The meeting itself will not merely concentrate on the environment, but will be an integrated meeting incorporating economic, social and environmental issues.

One striking fact is that the meeting will not be dominated by government officials but will include business leaders, civil society leaders, labor leaders, farmer leaders, academic leaders and other groups. Therefore, it can be predicted that the meeting will consist of various agenda proposed by each participant. Despite the variety of interests, there is one common similarity among them, at least on a moral basis, that they are all aware and willing to commit to sustainable development.

The term sustainable development has been a long consensus, since the Rio Earth Summit 10 years ago, that the environment and development are inextricably linked. Its birth came about because of concern that prevailing approaches to development are highly fragmented and piecemeal, and production and consumption patterns continue to overburden the world's ecosystems.

As UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan mentioned, our way of life has to change, and Agenda 21 has given us a clear picture of what the problem is and what principles must guide our response. But how to bring about the necessary changes and how to get things done are still being debated as various interests are involved. One thing is clear: that we have consumed much more than our share of the Earth's resources and have produced too much waste and pollution. This way of life cannot be sustained for much longer, particularly if we are concerned about the quality of life of the next generation.

It is clear that a sustainable development approach is one kind of development pattern that attempts to optimize the inter- generation's welfare. It implies that current generations must consider the stock of natural resources left for future generations in their development agenda.

However, there are numerous challenges for this development approach to be carried out. The ultimate challenge is how to change people's short-horizon mind-set given the high incidence of poverty. For the poor, it is almost impossible to think about future generations while they themselves are subject to survival hardships.

Realizing the possible adverse effects of poverty on sustainable development, one crucial issue that will be tackled during the meeting is poverty alleviation. We talk about poverty in a broader sense, which is not merely in terms of how much the poor earn but also how considerable is their access to basic needs such as water, energy, services, housing, education, sanitation and equal chances to participate in social and political life as well.

Based on a UN estimate, about 1.2 billion people can be classified as living in poverty, measured by an international poverty line of US$1 per day. Almost one billion people worldwide are undernourished and more than one billion people are without access to adequate water supplies. Around 2.4 billion people lack access to adequate sanitation.

In Indonesia, the incidence of poverty is very serious. Even though the World Bank does not classify Indonesia as one of the poorest countries, the absolute number of people in abject poverty dwarfs even some of the poorest countries in Africa given the huge population it has.

According to an official Indonesian estimate, 15.2 percent or around 33 million people live below the poverty line. Using the international measurement of poverty, 7.8 percent or 17 million people live on less than $1 a day. Even worse, 58 percent or more than half of the total population of 210 million live on less than $2 a day.

In fact, the monetary crisis has put considerable pressure on the state budget. As a consequence little room is left for development spending. The government is being tested on its seriousness in protecting spending on services to the poor such as health, education, sanitation, etc.

Unfortunately, the mind-set of the government remains unchanged. It is too busy bringing the economy onto the recovery path by targeting rapid economic growth. This is ironic, while the global perception about development has shifted, we still use the old paradigm in our development agenda. A high growth rate does not guarantee a fundamental difference in poverty reduction.

Cross-country studies have proven that economic growth, while necessary, does not always lead to widespread improvement in standards of human's well-being. Economic policies that prioritize growth alone always adversely affect the poor by diverting resources away from them.

Any effort to fight poverty and vulnerability will not only need economic growth, but more importantly needs pro-poor government policies and empowerment of the people. The first has to ensure that any economic policies do not inadvertently work against the poor and do not divert resources away from them. The latter has to give the poor the chance to shape the policies and programs that affect their lives and ensure efficient and effective implementation of any development program.

Given these facts, development should not be seen only to be related to increasing per capita real income but it also has to bring about change beyond simple economic growth. It means growth has to bring a desired result such as poverty reduction, distributional equity and environmental protection. If the goal is to take poverty alleviation seriously, the current paradigm must be shifted beyond chasing rapid economic growth alone.