JAKARTA, KOMPAS – Poverty reduction is still below the government’s target. In the last two years, the number of people living in poverty was reduced only by an average of 500,000 persons a year. In fact, the number should have been reduced by at least 2 million people a year in order to meet the target of a 7 percent to 8 percent poverty rate by 2019.
According to a report of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), the slowing pace of reduction has occurred since 2007.
The reduction of poverty from 2005 to 2010 reached an average of 816,000 people a year. In 2010 to 2015, poverty reduction effected about 486,000 people a year, or nearly half of the poverty reduction in the 2005 to 2010 period. The trend continued in 2016.
In the National Mid-Term Development Plan (RPJMN) 2015-2019, the poverty rate was targeted to fall to 7 percent to 8 percent of the population. That means that the number of people living in poverty should be reduced at least by 2 million people a year.
The deputy of Bappenas for population and employment, Rahma Iryanti, said in Jakarta on Tuesday the slowdown occurred because the poverty rate had already reached its bottom.
Thus, it needs a specific program to further reduce the rate. The slowdown was also partly caused by relatively stagnant economic growth over the last 16 years.
Based on data from the Central Statistics Agency (BPS), the number of poor people in Indonesia in September 2016 was 27.76 million, 10.7 percent of the total population. This year, the government targets the poverty rate to fall slightly to 10.5 percent.
Next year, Bappenas is aiming for the poverty rate to fall to the range of 9 percent and 10 percent. "The target of 10.5 percent by the end 2017 can be achieved, given the low inflation. In 2018, it can possibly be reduced to below 10 percent," Rahma said.
During a plenary meeting of Cabinet on April 4, 2017, President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo gave nine directives for formulating the draft of the 2018 state budget.
One of the points was the need to focus on the reduction of the poverty rate to a single digit.
Difficult
Mayang Rizky, a researcher at Smeru Research Institute, said that it would be difficult for the government to make a significant reduction of the poverty rate if it only relied on the state budget to solve the poverty problem.
Social protection programs can merely help poor people meet basic needs, such as getting access to food, health care and education. In order to increase the income of the poor, Mayang said, poverty reduction programs by various parties, both within government, central and local, and non-government institutions should be integrated. The programs should be specifically formed to increase the income of the poor.
"One important prerequisite for the integration of the poverty reduction efforts is the availability of data on poverty in various aspects, whether monetary or non-monetary. It should be accurate and be accessed by all those involved in development," Mayang added.
For this purpose, the Smeru Research Institute recently launched a poverty map covering villages and subdistricts. Mayang hopes the data can complement existing data so that the poverty reduction programs will be more integrated.
The research, for example, indicated that the poverty rate at 58 percent of villages and subdistricts was above the national rate. The research was based on data in 2015 covering more than 75,000 villages and subdistricts.
The poverty map also shows data on the proportion of poor people and the diversity of social welfare in inter-regions and in villages to the subdistrict level.
(LAS)
