Who cares for our poor?

It is unfortunate, if not incomprehensible, that Indonesia paid scant attention to last week's UN Conference on Financing for Development in the Mexican city of Monterrey. This is an important issue in which Indonesia wants to make its voice heard. Not only did President Megawati stay away, she also failed to dispatch an official of significant stature to join the more than 50 other heads of state in Monterrey.

The "Monterrey Consensus" calls on wealthy nations to work towards allocating at least 0.7 percent of their gross national product for foreign aid, the promotion of investment in poor countries and to allow access to goods from developing countries. The poor countries were urged to promote good governance and democratic processes as they work to meet their challenges, particularly in tackling poverty. The consensus tallies with the UN Millennium Goal of halving the number of poor people by 2015.

Where was Indonesia while all these key deliberations among government leaders took place in Monterrey? The low-key representation suggests that the administration in Jakarta was aloof to the theme. Yet, foreign aid and how it is spent is important to us, more so these past four years in the midst of the economic crisis.

Indonesia is one of the world's largest recipients of foreign aid, to the tune of between $3 billion and $4 billion a year. It was the subject of a massive international bailout in 1998, and given the near state of bankruptcy, it will continue to count on the generosity of wealthy nations to help it stay afloat.

While Indonesia does not fall into the World Bank's classification of poorest countries, the absolute number of people in abject poverty dwarfs even some of the poorest countries in Africa simply because of the huge population.

The 15.2 percent of people classified by the government as living below the poverty line translates into 33 million. The 7.8 percent of people who live on less than $1 a day (the international measurement of poverty) translates into 17 million. And, 58 percent of the population, or 127 million, live on less than $2 a day and are therefore considered as "near poor", making them highly vulnerable to another economic crisis.

Indonesia's weak representation in Monterrey mirrors the prevailing attitude within the government towards the problem of poverty. The issue is not even on its radar screen. In the ongoing struggle to bring the economy back on its recovery path, poverty reduction is treated more as an after-thought, on the assumption that it would be taken care of automatically once the economy picks up again.

How long can the government really neglect the problem of poverty the way it has been doing all this time? Looking at some of the demands by aid donor countries in Monterrey, it won't be long before they require that Indonesia get serious on its poverty reduction campaign.