Poverty shadows 120m Indonesians: Who cares?

Poverty shadows 120m Indonesians: Who cares?

Fitri Wulandari and Israr Ardiansyah, The Jakarta Post,
Jakarta/Yogyakarta

A new World Bank report says that as many as 120 million
Indonesians are either living in abject poverty or are staring
poverty in the face. But does any one really care?

You would be forgiven for thinking that the nation's political
elite are either ignorant or simply cannot be bothered with the
issue. Poverty was hardly mentioned in the recently concluded
meeting of the People's Consultative Assembly.

It took the World Bank to remind our political leaders this
week about the dire situation facing Indonesia. The bank chose
poverty as the main theme for the annual meeting between the
Indonesian government and its main aid donors in Jakarta.

Activists who work in the field to help the poor could not
agree more with the warning of the dire consequences for
Indonesia if poverty was not addressed thoroughly and
immediately.

Wardah Hafidz, chief coordinator of the Urban Poor Consortium,
describes poverty in terms of lack of access to basic education
and health services, and malnutrition.

Many poor children will simply not develop to their fullest
potential, physically as well as mentally, she says.

"Indonesia will lose two generations," says Wardah, whose
battle to help the poor has often pitted her against the
government.

Khofifah Indar Parawansa, chairperson of the National Family
Planning Coordination Board (BKKBN), the government agency at the
front line in the war against poverty, concurs.

"Lack of education and health services make poor people
unproductive. Indonesia as a nation won't be able to compete in
the global era," Khofifah says.

The World Bank report says Indonesia's economic recovery and
long-term sustainability ultimately hinge on its ability to lift
millions of people out of poverty.

This is a contrast to the World Bank's approach in the 1970s,
which saw economic growth as the key to attacking poverty.

Officially, 15.2 percent, or 32 million of Indonesia's 210
million people, are poor. But the World Bank says that as many as
58 percent, or 121 million people, are considered as "near poor"
and are highly vulnerable if another economic crisis hits
Indonesia, which is increasingly becoming a likely prospect.

Experts lament that, within government circles, poverty has
been treated more as a "project", which essentially means fat
commissions for them, rather than as a serious problem.

A case in point was the government's "social safety net" (JPS)
program, launched in 1998 with massive funds from the World Bank,
aimed at cushioning the poor from the effects of the economic
crisis.

The money rarely reached the intended recipients in full.

"The JPS program opened the door for more corruption," recalls
Mubyarto, who has spent his academic career as a professor of
economics at Gadjah Mada University studying poverty.

"There were transportation fees, there were abnormal
commissions for the officials involved in the projects," he says.

Many people who were not poor filed official claims saying
that they were poor and got a slice of the pie, he adds.

Mubyarto and Wardah say the government has no real strategy on
how it wants to tackle the long-term problem of poverty, with
most of its programs, like the JPS, seen more as charitable acts
instead of tackling the problem at its roots.

Programs like cheap rice, cheap medicines and education
subsidies may be well intentioned, but they have led to abuses
where people who are not poor are abusing the government
assistance.

The JPS program has virtually destroyed the efforts made under
the earlier Inpres Desa Tertinggal (IDT) program -- launched in
1993 -- which sought to empower the poor by providing them with
seed capital, Mubyarto says.

Mubyarto, who was involved in the IDT program, recalls that
between 1994 and 1997 the poverty rate dramatically dropped
thanks to the program, which had a philosophy to "trust the
poor".

"Don't ever say that poor people are lazy or stupid," he said.

Khofifah, however, said that programs like IDT crumbled under
the weight of the economic crisis in 1997 because villagers were
not getting the support they needed from the government, such as
training and management skills for running small enterprises.

Wardah concurs with the World Bank's suggestion that
government policies should be more "pro-poor", instead of working
against the interests of the poor.

She cited the practice of evicting poor people and street
vendors by the Jakarta city administration as an example of
policies that are "anti-poor".

It is not that the poor people have been completely neglected.
Thousands of grassroots organizations are working quietly to deal
with the problem, mostly away from the glare of media publicity.

The problem is that recognition of the problem from the top
echelons of the government is severely lacking.

"Our leaders must start to talk about the poor people, about
poverty," Mubyarto says.

"Let's start talking about the marhaen without being afraid of
being labeled a socialist," he says, using the term that
Indonesia's first president, Sukarno, the late father of
President Megawati Soekarnoputri, coined for the "little people".

Mubyarto says few people in the political elite today speak
for the poor people. In contrast, many of the nation's top
economists have spoken out on behalf of the conglomerates, whose
interests are also being threatened by the economic crisis.

Khofifah says that politicians will only turn their attention
to the poor people come election time in 2004.

"Politicians can buy their votes," she says of the rampant
practice of money politics in Indonesia.

It is not only the economy that is being endangered by
poverty. The national reform agenda, including the march toward
democracy and civil society, are also at risk.

Poor people tend to have a short fuse, Wardah says.

"Because they are easily provoked, they can be exploited to
become subservient to the interests of political groups and
provoked into acts of violence," she says, citing the
establishment of new civil militias in many areas as an example.

Khofifah, who retains her BKKBN job in spite of losing her
Cabinet post as state minister for women's affairs in August,
warns that prolonged poverty could break down the people's
spirit, not only to work, but also, eventually, to look for jobs.

"Crime rates will rise, internal security will become worse.
New investors will avoid Indonesia, and existing ones will take
their money elsewhere," she says

Somehow, some people here would argue that her prophecy has
already been fulfilled.