ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF
TRAINING PROGRAM FOR STRENGTHENING OF
FACILATORS' SKILL OF DEVELOPMENT RELATED PROGRAMS
FOR POVERTY ALLEVIATION OF ASEAN COUNTRIES
Jakarta, 11 June 2001.
- H.E. The Ambassadors/Representative of the Government of ASEAN Countries;
- Director of Bureau of Economic and Functional Cooperation of ASEAN Secretariat;
- Chairperson of Poverty Alleviation Coordinating Body;
- Representative of Foreign Ministry of the Rep. of Indonesia;
- Representative of Cabinet Secretariat of the Rep. of Indonesia;
- My Colleague from Ministry of Women Empowerment and BKKBN;
- Distinguished program participants; and
- Ladies and Gentlemen;
Assalamua'alaikum Warrahmatullahi Wabarakatuh,
May I, on behalf of the Government of the Republic Indonesia, take this opportunity to warmly welcome you all to Indonesia, particularly to the complex of the National Family Planning Coordinating Board. Also, it is my pleasure to invite us all to say grace to Allah the Almighty for His abundant blessings allowing us all to gather on this momentous event . It is indeed a part of numerous collaborative efforts which we have been promoting for years in the context of ASEAN collaboration, " the sharing experiences in the field of development related programs for poverty alleviation" through an Observation Study Tour (OST) .
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is a quite a honor and a great pleasure to us to host this OST on the poverty alleviation, though Indonesia , at present, does not yet succeed in overcoming its economic problems as also felt by other ASEAN countries due to currency crisis. In some countries, including Indonesia this has developed unto multi dimension crisis. The social impact of the crisis has been substantial and it is still felt until now. The crisis has resulted in the widespread of malnutrition, unemployment, children dropping out of schools and poverty. Etc.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Prior to this Asian economic crisis, Indonesia had achieved considerable progress in improving social conditions as the result of a rapid economic growth coupled with investments in social and agricultural infrastructures. Poverty - by any standard fell down dramatically. For example, between 1970 and 1996.. the proportion of population living below poverty line decreased from 60 percent to 11 percent. There was also substantial educational and health improvements which occurred in the two decades prior to the late 1990s. Similarly, infant mortality rate fell down, and provision of basic infrastructure facilities - water supply, roads and electricity - expanded significantly.
Distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen,
The crisis outbreak in mid 1997 forced Indonesian families to adjust the first serious economic contraction in decades. Throughout 1998 real economic growth was - 13.7%, a sharp turn off from the high growth in the previous decades of in average over 7%. The Indonesian people witnesses the value of the currency fell down up to 15% in less than one year compared to that of before crisis value, while domestic prices of consumption goods increased sharply up to the level of beyond the people purchasing power.
National poverty rate increased from 15.7 % in 1996 to 27.1 in 1999. During that period, the number of urban poor doubled, while the rural poor increased by 75%.
In fact, poverty in Indonesia is caused not only by that crisis, but mainly by the deep-rooted inequity of socio-economic structure of the Indonesian community. Income disparity between rural-urban, agricultural-industry, the disparity of earning assets between large number of poor population and number of wealthy population, etc are few among causes of poverty. It was found in a survey in Java for instance, in 1973 in agricultural sector, 55% of farmers were those who were categorized as poor farmers, and they owned only 22.4% of agricultural land, while 4.8% of well-off farmers were those who owned 24.5% of agricultural land. It is estimated that the unbalance structure has been continuously going on until recently.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
In order to prepare a direct intervention to the target audience of poverty alleviation programs, BKKBN along with several related institutions both government and non governments, develop a program applying a concept of family approach. In the approach, the program efforts are focussed on providing supports aimed at empowering the poor families to become self reliance. A micro-credit scheme called KUKESRA was introduced to give the opportunity to the poor families organized in group to run a small scale productive business under the UPPKS (Income Generating Activity for Prosperous Family). With sufficient, continuous support and guidance provided to the groups by relevant government and non government institutions, the UPPKS whose members are the pre-prosperous family and prosperous family stage l , has become a family-group-based effective and productive economic activity which has significantly been instrumental improving the income to family.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
To monitor the progress made by the poor families in exercising themselves to become self reliance, a family enumeration is conducted annually. By using 23 family socio-economic indicators, the data collected through this enumeration have been able to provide information on the prosperity level of every family. Poor families are those who are categorized under the Pre-prosperous and Prosperous family stage I category. It is found out that the categorization of families has been very useful for target audience identification needed by poverty alleviation program. The data have been also used by various institutions in planning the other program interventions to minimize the impact of the economic crisis under the Social Safety Net program.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
Though it is very challenging, BKKBN in cooperation with other institutions responds positively the request of the ASEAN Secretariat in organizing such a program course. It is a golden opportunity to each country through an open mind inter-action and mutual respect dialogue to learn the relevant method of poverty alleviation. The experiences teach us that poverty alleviation issue is not that simple. It is not merely related to problem of the earning assets by the poor to help them generate income. But, it is closely related to the rural economic development strategy, land reform policy, production control policy, development policy on financial institution such as rural bank, micro credit scheme, etc. Without any effort to develop an integrated approach to poverty eradication, it is very difficult to sustain the poverty alleviation efforts in a long run.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
It is my sincere hope that your experiences here will provide you with the opportunity to sit back, look at the poverty alleviation program which is both similar to and different from yours, and think what would work best in your country. Of course, it is neither possible nor desirable to try to copy our program approaches uncritically.
Before I officially close my remark, may I express my special thanks to the ASEAN Secretariat and UNDP that have made this course possible.
And by saying "Bismillahhirrahmanirrahim", may I declare the Training Program for Strengthening of Facilitators' skill of Development Related Programs for Poverty Alleviation for ASEAN Countries, officially open.
Thank you
Jakarta, 11 June 2001
State Minister for Women Empowerment,
Chairperson of BKKBN,
Dra. Khofifah Indar Parawansa