Indonesia struggles to fight poverty

Indonesia struggles to fight poverty

Tony Hotland, Jakarta

Suryatin, 44, carried two fat suitcases belonging to a
passenger who was getting on a train at Gambir railway station.
He said he needed to wait for at least one more passenger to hire
him as a porter to get up to his average daily income of some Rp
30,000 (US$3.25).

"I'm not poor?" he asked confused on Saturday, after being
told by The Jakarta Post that he did not "qualify" as under the
state definition poor people are those with daily incomes of less
than $1.

"Well, the government needs to look at that definition again
because I'm the one living this kind of life. What do they know
about poverty?" Suryatin added, shrugging his shoulders.

The definition of poverty remains debatable as some agencies,
including the World Bank, put the poverty line at $2 per person
per day.

But apart from all the debate about how a person's standard of
living should be defined, poverty prevails as Indonesia's biggest
problem. And four years after the declaration of the Millenium
Development Goals, Indonesia is far from reaching these goals.

The Millenium Development Goals resulted from the United
Nations (UN) conference in September 2000 in Montreal, in which
Indonesia also took part.

They target a number of goals, such as halving the number of
people living in poverty and reducing the child mortality rate by
two thirds from its 1990 level, providing basic education for
all, and combating HIV/AIDS.

The government has set a deadline of 2015 for most of these
goals, including bringing down the number of poor people to 7.5
percent of the total population. In 2003, the percentage stood at
17.4.

Director of Macro Planning at the National Development
Planning Agency (Bappenas), Bambang Prijambodo, said that
achieving high economic growth was the main strategy for
achieving this goal. However, since the economy has been growing
slowly, Indonesia needed to curb its population growth because a
higher population would require the provision of more jobs and
basic needs.

"Without proper steps to control population growth, it will
likely grow to over 300 million, which is 45 percent higher than
in 2000. Such a big population will necessitate more food,
clothes, and housing," Bambang said in a discussion last week.

"Secondly, if the government continues to focus development on
Java, more people will live on the island. While the development
of other regions remain flat, Java's capacity to support the
livelihoods of its people will start diminishing. The number of
poor people will thus keep on growing," he warned.

The UN's Human Development Index released last month shows
that Indonesia ranks 111th out of 177 countries surveyed, below
Thailand and the Phillipines. Last year, it ranked 112th out of
175 countries. The Index, which gauges the public's access to
basic services like education and health, is seen as an indicator
of a government's progress in combating poverty.

Erna Witoelar, the UN Millenium Development Goals special
envoy to Asia Pacific, acknowledged that the country had the
necessary programs to minimize poverty, but the government's
priority had shifted to repaying its debt.

Law No. 25/2000 on the 2000-2004 National Development Program
lists three programs to reduce poverty: equitably providing basic
needs and services to poor families, developing small and medium
enterprises to enable them to work independently, and developing
a social security system that protects poor people.

"The problem is we cannot implement the programs maximally
given our mounting debts. Security problems and low investment
are making things worse," said Erna.