Limited budget for poverty goals: Govt
Limited budget for poverty goals: Govt
A'an Suryana, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The government said on Tuesday a lack of funds would prevent it
from halving the number of poor people in the country by 2015, as
contained in the Millennium Development Goals.
"In the funding aspect, the government budget will remain
limited. In 2004, for example, we will still face a 1 percent
deficit in the gross domestic product," Syahrial Loetan, a senior
official at the National Development Planning Body (Bappenas),
said.
Syahrial was speaking at a seminar jointly held by the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the United Nations Development
Program (UNDP).
He said budget problems would impede the government's ability
to fund activities and programs that could enable it to meet the
Millennium Development Goals.
These development goals are humanitarian targets pledged by
leaders worldwide in the late 1990s.
The eight goals include halving the number of poor people by
2015 and the number of people suffering from hunger, ensuring all
boys and girls can complete primary school and reducing by two-
thirds the mortality rate of children under the age of five.
Apart from budget woes there also are problems related to the
messy implementation of regional autonomy and the security
instability plaguing some regions, said Syahril.
"The implementation of regional autonomy, which has failed to
live up to its original objectives, casts doubt over the ability
to achieve the millennium goals," he said.
Citing an example, he said the distribution of social safety
net funds often missed the target partly because of the inability
of regional governments to implement the program properly.
Communal conflicts and separatist movements across the country
are the other major obstacles to Indonesia's efforts to meet the
millennium goals.
Bo Asplund, the UNDP resident representative for Indonesia,
voiced similar concerns.
"While a few provinces in Indonesia are already well on track
to reach the targets, many are not and will likely reach them way
beyond 2015," Asplund said in his keynote speech.
He said a number of provinces were on course to reach the
poverty reduction target by 2015, with Yogyakarta projected to
reach the target in 2004, East Java, Jambi and East Kalimantan in
2006 and Central Sulawesi in 2008.
"However, the 17 others, or the majority, will not obtain it
by 2015," said Asplund.
North Sumatra, Aceh and West Nusa Tenggara might even reach
the target in the next century, Asplund said.
He said the UNDP and the Indonesian government were working
out a road map to help the government attain the Millennium
Development Goals on time.