Moh. Khory Alfarizi, Jakarta – Executive Director of the Institute for Development of Economics and Finance (INDEF), Tauhid Ahmad, responded to the government's target of zero extreme poverty by 2024. He argued that the government must optimize the social assistance program to achieve the goal.
Tauhid explained that extreme poverty defines as people having an income per capita of Rp10,000-11,000 per day. For instance, a family of four to five people lives on Rp50,000-Rp60,000 per day, or at least their monthly income is Rp2 million.
"Yes, [the assistance must be optimized]. But the social assistance given by the government is only Rp500,000-Rp600,000 per month. It's not enough for them," said Tauhid to Tempo via a phone call on Tuesday, February 21.
He assessed that the social aid provided was not in accordance with the calculation of the income per capita, so extreme poverty still exists. Let alone several social assistance programs were not right on target.
Eradicating extreme poverty, the economist argued, must be through social aid because it would be difficult to ask people living below the poverty line to be entrepreneurs as they only depend on the government's help.
Thus, Tauhid acknowledged that the goal is not easy to be achieved. He mentioned that the extreme poverty rate in 2022 only dropped by 0.1 percent to 2.04 percent from 2.14 percent in 2021.
"The realistic target is 1.6 or 1.6 percent in 2024," he said, adding that there possibly be new people in extreme poverty that have not been registered due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
On Monday, February 20, Finance Minister Sri Mulyani stated that reducing extreme poverty to zero percent by 2024 would be the government's short-term focus.