Soeharto gets UNDP award

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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