Kampong Improvement Program: Providing basic services

Kampong Improvement Program: Providing basic services

By Dean Carignan

JAKARTA (JP): Call it growing pains. Indonesia's cities, among the most rapidly expanding in Asia, are attracting new residents at a dizzying pace. The influx of residents has far outrun the ability of cities to expand in a planned and organized manner. The result: a proliferation of unplanned, low-income neighborhoods, commonly called urban kampongs.

Urban kampongs are home to over half of Indonesia's city dwellers, or some 24 million people. In Jakarta alone, the kampong population is estimated at three million. Because these neighborhoods tend to develop in an unplanned, haphazard fashion, they often lack such essential services as a clean water supply and public sanitation facilities. The absence of these services exacts a high toll on the health and well-being of kampong residents. The lack of clean water systems, for example, is accompanied by a high prevalence of water-borne disease, especially among the young. Infant mortality rates are particularly high in urban kampongs. In some areas, local water sources are so polluted that residents resort to purchasing bottled water at very high prices.

The environmental impact of unplanned neighborhoods is equally distressing, as limited groundwater supplies in urban areas become polluted from inadequate disposal of household wastes.

As early as the 1960s, the government recognized the need to confront the sub-standard conditions in the country's urban kampongs. It was agreed that servicing these densely populated, fast-growing neighborhoods would require a community-based approach. In 1969 the government launched the Kampong Improvement Program (KIP). The program began in Jakarta, and has since spread nationwide.

KIP seeks to develop basic infrastructure in the kampong with minimum disturbance to the residents and with maximum community involvement. When a neighborhood is selected for the KIP program, a committee of local residents is consulted to determine which services are most urgently needed. The most common improvements include potable water supply, sewage disposal, solid waste collection, drainage systems, and roads and footpaths.

Success stories

One of KIP's many success stories is Pasar Manggis, South Jakarta. Before the KIP program arrived, Pasar Manggis had no central source of clean water. Residents had to dig wells or use hand pumps to access groundwater, which often disappeared during the dry season.

Under the KIP program, Pasar Manggis has received several crucial improvements, including a clean water system which brings running water directly into the resident's homes. Access to clean water has had a marked effect on the health of local residents.

"We used to pump water from the ground, but it was often unpure", explains Husnah, a local mother. "The water from the new system is much cleaner. Now we use this water for cooking and drinking, and use our old pump for washing. My family is much healthier now".

"Before the clean water system was installed, skin diseases and diarrhea caused by unpure water were a major problem in the neighborhood", explains Dr. Kenny Zairendra Amir, who runs the local health clinic. "Now these illness are only a very minor concern."

The local clinic, or puskesmas, is also part of the government's efforts to upgrade living conditions in the Pasar Manggis.

The KIP program also provided Pasar Manggis with a much-needed drainage system to keep rainwater from collecting on local streets.

"During the rainy season, the water could reach waist-high in the streets", recalls Maemunah, a local resident. "Often we could not leave our houses, even to visit the market." The new drainage system keeps the roads passable year-round.

Pasar Manggis got a chance to showcase these improvements when America's First Lady Hillary Clinton visited the neighborhood as part of a tour of the KIP program during her November visit to Indonesia. After the visit to Pasar Manggis, Mrs. Clinton praised the KIP program, describing it as "something the world should know about."

Mrs. Clinton also praised KIP for an innovative source of funding: the U.S. Agency for International Development's Housing Guaranty Program. Under this program, the U.S. Government guaranties loans from private U.S. firms to the Government of Indonesia. These loans, which are repaid over a period of 30 years, are used to support urban infrastructure programs, including KIP, throughout the country. Since 1988 the program has provided US$145 million in guaranteed loans to Indonesia. The KIP program also receives funding from the Government of Indonesia, the World Bank and other donors.

Community participation

A strong emphasis on community participation underlies KIP's success. The program engages local residents in the planning, construction and maintenance of neighborhood improvements, thus giving them a sense of ownership and pride in the new services.

"My husband donated land for the water system", explains Muhani, a resident of Pasar Manggis, "and we all worked to clean and prepare the ground for the installation. When the neighboring village saw how well the system worked, they arranged to have one installed too."

Community involvement also increases the sustainability of infrastructure improvements.

"Residents are better able and more willing to maintain projects they had a hand in planning and implementing," says William Frej of the U.S. Agency for International Development.

An unexpected, but highly welcomed, aspect of KIP is a stimulus effect on private home improvements. The introduction of basic services into the kampong brings a sense of pride to the neighborhood, encouraging residents to invest their own resources in improving their homes.

"When the area looks nice, the people want their houses to look nice", says Dr. Kenny of Pasar Manggis. It is estimated that every Rp 10,000 invested through the KIP program generates an additional Rp 20,000 in private improvements. Better infrastructure also means better local industry. The provision of basic services allows local enterprises to operate more effectively, generating jobs and economic growth in the kampong.

KIP has received acclaim as Indonesia's most successful effort at poverty alleviation. To date, the program has been implemented in over 300 cities across the archipelago, bringing essential services to more than six million urban residents. Recently, urban development experts have recognized the program as one of the most successful neighborhood revitalization programs in the world. Officials from many developing nations have visited Indonesia to study and the program in hopes of emulating it at home.

The KIP program is part of a larger effort by the government to ameliorate urban living conditions by working at the local level. This decentralized approach is becoming crucial, as rapid industrialization draws more and more people to Indonesia's cities. Experts estimate that by the year 2000 the urban population in Indonesia will exceed 90 million, roughly 44% of the country's total population.

Among the government's efforts to decentralized urban planning is the Municipal Finance for Environmental Infrastructure Program. This program seeks to enhance the management and financial capabilities of local governments, thus improving their ability to develop and maintain urban infrastructure. Such decentralized measures will prove a critical step in easing the "growing pains" as Indonesia matures into an industrialized nation.