WB promises more support in fight against poverty
WB promises more support in fight against poverty
Fitri Wulandari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
The World Bank will intensify its support for the government's
effort to fight poverty by providing more loans for cities and
regencies in the future, the Bank's representative said.
World Bank Country Director for Indonesia Andrew Steer said
that for the past couple of years, the Bank had only been able to
provide a little money to fund poverty reduction, citing an
unclear policy on regional autonomy as the main reason.
"We had done little in the past couple of years because it was
hard to do things with the decentralization of authority until it
became clear now," Steer said on Tuesday on the sidelines of a
seminar.
"Next year, we want to do more. It is a very exciting time for
us. There are huge opportunities to help the poor and huge
needs," he added.
Steer stressed that the Bank's commitment to alleviate poverty
in Indonesia would remain strong even though the government might
no longer extend the current economic reform program with the
International Monetary Fund later this year.
"We have a lot going on, and (it's got) nothing to do with the
IMF," Steer said.
He said in the next two months, the Bank was going to approve
new major loans, including US$140 million for a power project,
$220 million for a poverty reduction project, $70 million for a
health project and $60 million for a water supply project.
Steer did not reveal how many loans the Bank would disburse to
the government this year or how much it would increase them next
year.
Poverty has declined significantly from 26.9 percent in 1999
to 16 percent in 2002. The Bank initially predicted it would
reduce poverty to 15 percent this year.
International funding agencies have encouraged the government
to shift gears to attain higher growth of more than 6 percent as
the current level of below 4 percent was not enough to provide
jobs.
From July 1996 to February 2003, the World Bank disbursed
$2.04 billion in loans for various projects, technical assistance
and programs dealing with the environment, education, poverty
reduction and the power sector.
With increasing financial and technical aid to fight poverty,
Steer said, the Bank would screen more than 100 of the 400 cities
and regencies in the country to receive World Bank loans.
The 100 cities and regencies eligible for receiving the Bank's
loans will be assessed by their performance in conducting good
governance.
Elsewhere, Steer applauded the government for its good
performance in maintaining macroeconomic stability.
Steer said Indonesia could be out of IMF tutelage, providing
it continued the current macroeconomic program.
After the IMF, Steer suggested that the government needed to
focus on having a good program to revive the investment climate.