Ismira Lutfia – The number of Indonesians living in poverty is set to reach more than 28 million by March 2009, National Development Planning Minister Paskah Suzetta said on Wednesday.

That number is expected to climb even higher mid-year when mass layoffs are expected to peak due to the global financial crisis, he said. The government projected 13 percent of the country's 222 million population would fall below the poverty line by March, when a direct cash aid program to 18.5 million poor households was due to expire.

The government's Central Statistics Bureau defines someone as poor if they do not have a daily minimum of 2,100 calories plus access to requirements such as clothing, schooling, transportation, household necessities and other basic needs.

Speaking at an event marking the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Paskah said the government planned a poverty alleviation program to anticipate the rising jobless rate. "The government is going to prepare a food scheme program to provide basic food commodities to the poor," Paskah said. The basic items would be rice, flour, sugar and cooking oil.

Paskah, who is also head of the National Development Planning Board, said the government would as part of the program also introduce subsidies to anticipate the rising costs of food. He said the scheme, for which a budget had not yet been set, was planned to support poor people's decreasing purchasing power once the direct cash aid was no longer available and to anticipate the expected peak of layoffs by the middle of next year.

Currently 18.5 million Indonesian households, identified as poor in a Central Statistics Bureau survey in September, receive direct cash aid, Paskah said.

In speeding up poverty alleviation, he said, it was also vital to empower people to understand that their rights as children, women, the elderly and disabled were prone to the violation.

"The development policies of Bappenas should be pro-poor and touch the lives of people. It is important to act affirmatively in order to promote [the poor's] dignity through legal empowerment. As citizens, everybody has the right to access justice," he said.

United Nations Development Program country director Hakan Bjorkman, speaking at the same event, said human rights were not always about civil and political rights but also economic rights and the right to secure employment.

Poor people have been denied and marginalized in their housing and welfare rights, and they have little access to the legal and justice system, he said. "For poor people, the denial of human rights is very real," Bjorkman said.