JakartaPost-Oct 22, 2022
The government’s goal of eliminating extreme poverty is likely out of reach in the near future, says the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), a government think tank, as policymakers’ efforts and resources remain uncoordinated. People who live on less than US$2.15 (Rp 33,020) a day are considered to be in extreme poverty, according to the widely used World Bank definition, and are unable to afford basic food expenses, let alone other primary needs. The TNP2K said the most optimistic scenario had extreme poverty in the country dropping to no lower than 0.76 percent by 2024 from 4 percent last year, thereby missing President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo’s target of eliminating extreme poverty that year. “If we really want to reduce [extreme poverty] to zero, we need social aid to be holistic,” TNP2K official Rissalwan Habdy Lubis told reporters on Oct. 12. Lubis added that social aid had been held back by data issues – including recipients without identity numbers and difficulties coordinating funding for programs. “Our social aid budget is split up among 22 ministries and 6 agencies, including the National Police and Indonesian Military [TNI],” Lubis said. He added that the group had only been able to convince four ministries to converge their efforts and funds for extreme poverty reduction. The think tank has encouraged the use data from the acceleration of the elimination of extreme poverty (P3KE) initiative, but ministries and agencies have tended to stick to their own disparate datasets and measures. Read more at: https://www.thejakartapost.com/paper/2022/10/24/government-unlikely-to-end-extreme-poverty-by-2024.html.
