Poverty programs have 'little impact'

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The many poverty reduction programs the government implemented in 2005 took only a million people out of absolute poverty, a survey reveals.

Data collected by the Office of the Coordinating Minister for Social Welfare made available to The Jakarta Post on Friday, said 19 ministries and government agencies implemented 55 poverty reduction programs worth a total of Rp 23.1 trillion (US$2.34 billion).

The programs succeeded reducing the number of people classed as extremely poor in the country from 36.1 million in 2004 to 35.1 million in 2005, the data says.

Despite the minor reduction in the overall number of people in poverty, the number of people in urban centers classed as poor increased by 14 million in 2005, the data says.

An official from the Office of the Coordinating Minister for Social Welfare said many of the programs were unable to reach their targets.

"We are now reviewing which programs failed and which succeeded. We will announce the results in June," welfare ministry deputy Sujana Royat, said.

Sujana said 10 programs would be dropped and another 10 would win more support after the review, to be overseen by chief welfare minister Aburizal Bakrie. "This is to show that we are serious in reducing poverty." Infrastructure projects targeting the poor had the least effect, Sujana said.

Of all government agencies tasked with implementing poverty reduction programs in 2005, the education, health and public works ministries and the State Logistics Agency (Bulog) received the most funding -- a total of Rp 18 trillion.

After his election in 2004, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said the government planned to halve poverty in the nation by 2009.

State Minister of National Development Planning head Paskah Suzzetta recently told Antara in Makassar that Indonesia aimed at achieving "zero poverty" by 2015 as part of its United Nation's Millennium Development Goals.

The government's critics say the targets are highly unrealistic, and point to increasing unemployment and a rising cost of living as likely reasons the poor will stay poor here.

Neither would the projected economic growth rate, a modest 6 percent per annum, be enough to create sufficient jobs for the two to three million people entering the workforce every year, they said.

Welfare ministry statistics show there are still 28,000 "disadvantaged villages" in over 199 regencies throughout the country.

The lingering economic crisis, underfunding, official mismanagement and corruption and a lack of coordination among state welfare agencies are frequently blamed for a succession of governments' failures to reduce the nation's poverty rate.***