World Bank calls gives thumbs up to Indonesia's KIP

World Bank calls gives thumbs up to Indonesia's KIP

By T. Sima Gunawan

ISTANBUL, Turkey (JP): The World Bank hailed yesterday the
Kampong Improvement Program (KIP) as an "urban success story."

"The KIP is probably the most successful and widely known
program of this kind," the World Bank's Vice President for
Environmentally Sustainable Development, Ismail Serageldin, said
in a statement released in conjunction with the UN Conference on
Human Settlements II. The Conference is also known as Habitat II.

The urban renewal program began in Jakarta and Surabaya and
was then institutionalized and replicated across the country with
the support of the World Bank.

In Jakarta, it is called the MHT (Muhamad Husni Thamrin)
program, after the renowned Jakarta independence hero. Jakarta
started the program in 1969 to upgrade kampungs, the urban
residential areas which are generally poorly serviced and
occupied predominantly by poorer people. The city administration,
realizing that it could not provide resources to rebuild the
kampongs, decided to concentrate its resources on improving those
elements of physical infrastructure that people found difficult
to organize and construct themselves.

The KIP is one of 600 programs submitted by more than 100
countries to the Habitat II's Best Practices Awards. Best
Practices are initiatives of governments, local authorities, or
grassroots organizations which are effective in solving problems.

Even though the KIP did not win a prize, it was recognized by
the World Bank as useful.

According to the World Bank, the KIP has now reached nearly 15
million people across the country at a cost of between US$23 and
$118 per person.

"The benefits were improved health and productivity of the
kampong population. Residents used their own resources to improve
their housing and property," the Serageldin said.

He said the worst slums in the world can be turned into
livable communities with the combination of community
involvement, the right government policies and an investment of
about $100 per person.

"Community involvement in both the planning and maintenance of
urban projects is the key to their success," he said. "That is
the best way to ensure that the poor have a voice in their own
future."

Urban areas globally are expected to double to between four
and five billion people by 2025, some 80 percent of them in
developing countries.

The UN predicts that Jakarta's population will reach 21.2
million in 2015, while the Jakarta administration optimistically
puts the number at 15.2 million. Today, there are more than 9
million people living in the city.

The government estimates that there will be 15 new urban areas
with populations of more than one million, four of which will
have a population of more than five million each. Around 50 and
60 percent of the Indonesian population will live in urban areas,

According to the World Bank, some 220 million poor people have
no access to safe drinking water in developing world cities, and
an estimated 420 million have no basic sanitation services.
Today's backlog, plus future demand, would raise the total of
urban population without basic services to 1.4 billion by 2010.

"The rapid growth in developing world cities is making living
intolerable for the urban poor and threatening the economic,
social and economic progress of these cities," he said.

The World bank's total lending for urban-oriented projects
totals some $25 billion in more than 5,000 cities and towns. The
Bank plans to lend an additional $15 billion over the next five
years, an increasing part of it directed towards programs that
involve community-based organizations (CBOs) and Non-Government
Organizations (NGOs).