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.