Tom Allard, arch 26, 2011
Photo: Kate Geraghty
Sarwata and his daughter Nur Afdah, aged 10, get dressed in the early moring in one of the many makeshift villages surrounding the Bantar Gebang rubbish dump in the Bekasi district of Jakarta.
INDONESIA is slowly but surely winning the war against its endemic poverty, with almost 10 million people lifted from the ranks of the most disadvantaged over the past five years.
Some 31 million Indonesians, or 13.3 per cent of the population, are still officially poverty-stricken, earning below about $1.50 a day. Another 70 million Indonesians survive on less than $2.50 a day and life is hardly less perilous for them.
It says much about the challenge faced by policymakers that even as 14.7 million people climbed out of poverty last year, another 13.5 million fell below the threshold.
Photo: Kate Geraghty
Poor villagers in Bantar Gebang, West Java.
A death in the family, a lost job, rising food prices, a poor harvest or a natural disaster will easily slide the ''near-poor'' down the ladder.
But the head of the Indonesian Project at the Australian National University, Chris Manning, says the commitment of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to eradicating poverty is under-appreciated. ''It is one of the areas [where] SBY [Dr Yudhoyono] has really made a concerted effort,'' said Professor Manning, who is editing a book on the subject. ''He's sought out quite a lot of national and international expertise, including from the World Bank, and put together a number of programs.
''If you put them all together, Indonesia has moved from a position of relying mainly on economic growth to reduce poverty, and doing very little directly to help the poor, to a point where it is doing a reasonably good job.''
All up, there are 57 different initiatives targeting poverty. They include cash payments for the poorest households, linked to school and clinic attendance; micro-credit for small businesses; and an innovative scheme known as the Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat (PNPM).
PNPM is worth close to $1.5 billion a year and involves subdistricts in rural and urban areas bidding for grants for small infrastructure projects. By circumventing Indonesia's graft-prone bureaucracies, the scheme means ''the community can dictate to the politicians'', said Sujana Royat, deputy minister for poverty alleviation and community empowerment.
Some 77 million people have been touched by PNPM since its inception, while 63 per cent of those participating in the projects are women, Mr Sujana said.
The fall in Indonesia's poverty rate - by between 0.6 and 0.9 percentage points each year - is the fastest in south-east Asia, but few in the Indonesian government are under the illusion that it is a simple task to reach its target of a poverty rate of between 8 and 10 per cent by 2014.
The country's poor are highly vulnerable to rising food prices, and Indonesians have seen the price of staples increase sharply in recent months. As a nation of 17,000 islands, the physical delivery of programs is a challenge and ''leakage'' through waste and corruption remains a problem, particularly with the devolution of power to regional governments.
Indeed, poverty declined faster when there was centralised control during the Suharto dictatorship. That success was predicated entirely on rapid economic expansion, rather than anti-poverty programs. But much of the growth was built on shaky foundations. When the Asian economic crisis came in the late 1990s, the number of Indonesians in poverty surged to almost 50 million.
One area in glaring need of reform, says Bambang Widianto, executive secretary of the national team to accelerate poverty reduction, is Indonesia's fuel subsidy scheme that fixes the price of petrol at about 55 cents a litre and costs more than the entire education budget.
It is supposed to help the poor, but in reality, about 45 per cent of the benefit goes to the top 10 per cent of households - those who can afford cars and drive them often.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/indonesia-makes-headway-in-long-march-to-beat-poverty-20110325-1ca3c.html
Photo: Kate GeraghtySarwata and his daughter Nur Afdah, aged 10, get dressed in the early moring in one of the many makeshift villages surrounding the Bantar Gebang rubbish dump in the Bekasi district of Jakarta.
INDONESIA is slowly but surely winning the war against its endemic poverty, with almost 10 million people lifted from the ranks of the most disadvantaged over the past five years.
Some 31 million Indonesians, or 13.3 per cent of the population, are still officially poverty-stricken, earning below about $1.50 a day. Another 70 million Indonesians survive on less than $2.50 a day and life is hardly less perilous for them.
It says much about the challenge faced by policymakers that even as 14.7 million people climbed out of poverty last year, another 13.5 million fell below the threshold.
Photo: Kate GeraghtyPoor villagers in Bantar Gebang, West Java.
A death in the family, a lost job, rising food prices, a poor harvest or a natural disaster will easily slide the ''near-poor'' down the ladder.
But the head of the Indonesian Project at the Australian National University, Chris Manning, says the commitment of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to eradicating poverty is under-appreciated. ''It is one of the areas [where] SBY [Dr Yudhoyono] has really made a concerted effort,'' said Professor Manning, who is editing a book on the subject. ''He's sought out quite a lot of national and international expertise, including from the World Bank, and put together a number of programs.
''If you put them all together, Indonesia has moved from a position of relying mainly on economic growth to reduce poverty, and doing very little directly to help the poor, to a point where it is doing a reasonably good job.''
All up, there are 57 different initiatives targeting poverty. They include cash payments for the poorest households, linked to school and clinic attendance; micro-credit for small businesses; and an innovative scheme known as the Program Nasional Pemberdayaan Masyarakat (PNPM).
PNPM is worth close to $1.5 billion a year and involves subdistricts in rural and urban areas bidding for grants for small infrastructure projects. By circumventing Indonesia's graft-prone bureaucracies, the scheme means ''the community can dictate to the politicians'', said Sujana Royat, deputy minister for poverty alleviation and community empowerment.
Some 77 million people have been touched by PNPM since its inception, while 63 per cent of those participating in the projects are women, Mr Sujana said.
The fall in Indonesia's poverty rate - by between 0.6 and 0.9 percentage points each year - is the fastest in south-east Asia, but few in the Indonesian government are under the illusion that it is a simple task to reach its target of a poverty rate of between 8 and 10 per cent by 2014.
The country's poor are highly vulnerable to rising food prices, and Indonesians have seen the price of staples increase sharply in recent months. As a nation of 17,000 islands, the physical delivery of programs is a challenge and ''leakage'' through waste and corruption remains a problem, particularly with the devolution of power to regional governments.
Indeed, poverty declined faster when there was centralised control during the Suharto dictatorship. That success was predicated entirely on rapid economic expansion, rather than anti-poverty programs. But much of the growth was built on shaky foundations. When the Asian economic crisis came in the late 1990s, the number of Indonesians in poverty surged to almost 50 million.
One area in glaring need of reform, says Bambang Widianto, executive secretary of the national team to accelerate poverty reduction, is Indonesia's fuel subsidy scheme that fixes the price of petrol at about 55 cents a litre and costs more than the entire education budget.
It is supposed to help the poor, but in reality, about 45 per cent of the benefit goes to the top 10 per cent of households - those who can afford cars and drive them often.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/indonesia-makes-headway-in-long-march-to-beat-poverty-20110325-1ca3c.html
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