Soeharto gets UNDP award

JAKARTA (JP): The United Nations Development Program's (UNDP) administrator, James Gustave Speth, awarded a Special Citation to President Soeharto yesterday for the country's extraordinary achievements in alleviating poverty.

Speth said that in the 1970s, 60 percent of Indonesia's 70 million people were poor. Today, the figure had dropped to about 15 percent of the country's 200 million people.

"This award is a recognition of Soeharto's and Indonesia's outstanding accomplishment and commitment to significant reduction and continued eradication of poverty," Speth said.

Citing U.N. statistics, Soeharto said in his acceptance speech there were more than 1.3 billion poor people in the world and that the number was increasing by 25 million a year.

"Our hearts feel pain because this figure shows the number of our fellow human beings who are poor is increasing by 47 people every minute," he said.

"The figures show that while the number of the poor in the world continues to rise every year, in Indonesia, conversely, the number of poor people keeps declining," he said.

The President expressed his hope last week that by 2004 there would be no one below the poverty line in Indonesia.

"The number of the poor has significantly reduced from 26 million in 1993 to 22 million in 1996," he said.

Strategy

He said the strategy of his accelerated poverty alleviation program was to focus on the country's poorest groups.

The government-sponsored program called Instruksi President Desa Tertinggal (Presidential Decree for Least Developed Villages) was launched in 1994 for about 28,000 poor villages, or 43 percent of all villages.

Each village has received Rp 60 million (US$20,338) paid in stages over three fiscal years.

A poverty alleviation foundation, chaired by Soeharto, has collected more than Rp 1.3 trillion including donations from rich people and taxpayers since January 1996.

The decree urges individuals and companies with after-tax incomes or profits of more than Rp 100 million a year to donate up to two percent of their income to the program.

The fund was used to help the poor liberate themselves from poverty through productive means.

"The assistance from the strong to the weak is not only in the form of capital, but also through business partnership program," Soeharto said.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF), in its latest survey released last month, said Indonesia's strong economic performance over the past 30 years had resulted in rapid income growth, a substantial reduction in poverty and a marked improvement in many health and social indicators.

"The government had persistently addressed poverty and income distribution problems through targeted measures within a framework of stable macroeconomic policies," it said.

State Minister of National Development Planning Ginandjar Karsasmita said yesterday the UNDP award was only one of several awards the President had received.

Soeharto's most memorable award came from the Food and Agriculture Organization in 1985 for his success in leading the country to becoming self sufficient in rice.

In 1989 the United Nations Fund for Population Activities presented an award for the county's family planning achievements.

In 1993, UNESCO presented the Avicenna Golden Medal for Indonesia's achievement in education development.

"These awards demonstrate the world's appreciation of our development achievements," Ginandjar said.

Also yesterday Soeharto opened a regional conference on poverty eradication.

Representatives from 15 Asia Pacific countries are attending the seminar. (prb)

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