Jembrana seeks to improve people's living standard

After being elected in 2000, Jembrana Regent Winasa vowed to enhance his people's living standards by providing, among other things, free education and health care. The regent has set an example for other regencies, many of which are still plagued by corruption and substandard governance. The Jakarta Post's Wahjoe Boediwardhana shares the Jembrana experience through this special report.

If you get sick, you don't have to pay for health care. There are no headaches at the start of the new school year as children attend school for free. Farmers are subsidized for their produce.

This seems to good too be true, especially for the 221,616 people, most of whom are poor, living in Jembrana, some 100 kilometers west of Denpasar, one of the most impoverished regencies on the tourist island of Bali.

"This is not a dream. It is the yield of hard work -- a perfect combination of strong political will to create innovative programs with a strong commitment to making the program a reality," concluded a study.

The Jakarta-based Tifa Foundation in cooperation with the University of Indonesia's Urban and Rural Development Study Center conducted a comprehensive study on the success story of Jembrana in properly implementing its programs.

The study reveals encouraging developments.

In 2001, when the program started, the number of poor families reached 19 percent of the total population. By the end of 2003, the number of the poor families dropped to only 10.9 percent. Infant mortality also dropped from 15.5 percent in 2001 to 8.39 percent in 2003.

School dropouts also fell from 0.08 percent in 2001 to 0.02 percent in 2003..

Despite its meager regional budget (Rp 131.1 billion in 2001; Rp 171.7 billion in 2002 and Rp 193.1 billion in 2003), Jembrana regional administration was able to implement programs in a number of vital sectors, including education, health care. It also offers tax incentives and agriculture subsidies in the form of incentives and financial support.

Regent Winasa was well aware of the needs of his people. "Education, health care, human resources development and economic empowerment are the key to the improvement of the living conditions of people in Jembrana, many of whom still live under the poverty line," the regent explained.

Before the program was implemented, the local administration carried out a study between 2000 and 2001 that revealed that one out of five elementary school graduates did not continue their education. The same was true of junior and high school graduates. Most of the dropouts were unable to continue their schooling because their parents were too poor to support their education.

Each elementary school class had only 21 students. Half of the area's elementary schools (200) were dilapidated, and school teachers' welfare was being neglected.

Members of the community could have participated in various school renovation projects but were never asked to lend a hand. Most importantly, Winasa and his team discovered that so much money had been misused in various sectors that could have been allocated to improve education.

Winasa took immediate and drastic action in 2001. The regent merged a number of elementary schools and reduced the number to create better quality schools in terms of the number of students to a class and required teachers, effective fund allocations and better school management systems. By applying these measures, Winasa's administration saved Rp 3.3 billion per year, which was consequently used to provide scholarships and subsidies for educational purposes.

In the last four years, Jembrana has allocated Rp 14.7 billion (or Rp 3.7 billion per year) to make education free for all. There are approximately 44,000 school students from elementary to high school. This number comprises an estimated 19 percent of the total population.

The result of the program is quite impressive. Currently, there are almost 8,000 high school students compared to 7,432 in 2001.

"What we need to do is find out the core of the problem and never introduce quick-fix programs with temporary solutions," Winasa explained.

Long before he was appointed regent of Jembrana, he realized that the government could only improve the living conditions of the people through providing basic needs, including health care and education. Winasa is a medical professor at the Udayana University in Denpasar. He is also a dentist by profession.

The majority of Jembrana residents value the programs as they have had a direct impact on their daily lives. Sending children to school or health care centers was not a priority for most poor families in the regency. Thanks to the programs, they can envision brighter futures for their children.

The community health care system was also overhauled. "You can't make any progress in development when your people are unhealthy and lack education. A healthy society is our first target to creating better human resources," the regent said.

Winasa canceled all subsidies for the procurement of medicine and medical equipment for community health centers and state hospitals. The funds, which amounted to Rp 4.5 billion in 2004, were instead used to pay health insurance for all natives of Jembrana.

Through the health insurance system, people holding Jembrana ID cards and their families are entitled to free health care at community health centers and local state hospitals.

In the economic sector, the local administration introduced a revolving fund program to provide loans for farmers, fishermen, handicraft producers and other small-scale businesspeople using a profit-sharing system. Since 2001, the local government has allocated around Rp 20 billion that has benefited 581 out of 1550 community groups.