Tifa Asrianti, Jakarta – The government needs to evaluate its fight against poverty as three poverty reduction programs – direct cash assistance, rice for the poor and health security for the poor – missed their targets, slowing down poverty alleviation efforts, a World Bank official says.
The 2009 National Social and Economic Survey (Susenas) showed that the inclusion error, or the proportion of non-poor people receiving the aid, reached 56 percent for direct cash assistance, known as BLT, 67 percent for the rice-for-the-poor program and 64 percent for the healthcare-for-the-poor program, known as Jamkesmas.
The survey showed that only 31 percent of the nation's poor received all three aid packages, 44 percent received none or only one, while 51 percent of the non-poor population received at least one program and 12 percent of the non-poor receive all three.
World Bank senior economist Vivi Alatas said that targeting poverty in Indonesia was a complex issue due to the large population, geographic dispersion and decentralized structure. She said the missed targets hurt poverty reduction efforts, adding that every year, there were 15 percent newly poor people, or people who were not poor the previous year.
"To have effective poverty alleviation results, the programs must be well-designed and implemented, including the targets," Vivi said during the launching of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS) book Employment, Living Standards and Poverty in Contemporary Indonesia on Thursday.
She said the government needed to renew its data on the poor, suggesting four methods: proxy-means testing, community-based methods, geographic targeting and self targeting. The government will conduct a survey on the poor between July and November to renew its data on poverty, she said.
"To improve the 2011 survey, the government should improve the quality of the questionnaire, use macro poverty data, involve the community and mix methods to match the needs of different areas," Vivi said.
Asep Suryahadi from SMERU, an institute researching policy studies on socioeconomic and poverty issues, said it was possible the number of poor people would increase in the future as the near poor made up 36 percent of the population, compared to the 14.2 percent recorded as poor.
"This trend toward poverty will be more visible in urban areas due to urbanization," he said.
Asep said the most of the poor were people in the agriculture sector, but added that the government did not pay attention to developing the sector. "The government should start focusing on agriculture as the manufacturing sector slows down," he said.
Asep also called on the government to use economic growth as a tool to pull the poor out of poverty and widen the scope of existing programs such as the family empowerment program (PKH), that focused on health and education.
"Brazil has a program similar to the PKH, but conducted on a wider scale, which is why it's a success. Apart from adding more poor families to the program, the government should also increase the amount of aid given to them," he said.
Vivi Yulaswati from the National Development Planning Ministry said the government had created several poverty alleviation plans: education scholarships and health insurance, community empowerment programs and credit for small businesses. She said another initiative – housing, transportation and clean water – would be implemented soon.
The official rate of poverty in Indonesia fell from 16.7 percent to 14.2 percent between 2004 and 2009.