T

he Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has just revealed that the poverty rate increased by 0.86 million people from 27.73 million (10.96 percent) in September last year to 28.59 million (11.22 percent) in March 2015.

The BPS also noted that the poverty depth index had increased by 0.22 points from 1.75 in September 2014 to 1.97 in March 2015, coupled with the rising poverty severity index, from 0.44 to 0.54 during the same period.

The rise in these two indices, respectively, denotes that the poor'€™s average expenditure is getting further distant from the national poverty line of Rp 330,776 (US$22.59) per capita per month in March 2015 and the gap of the poor'€™s expenditure is widening.

This is not to mention the sizable number of people who just live above the poverty line, remaining highly vulnerable to economic shocks or other crises and who are at risk of becoming poor. It is predicted that this number is no less than 70 million people. To make things worse over 100 million individuals are estimated to live with less than $2 a day.

Several reasons have been given to explain the rising poverty rate during the six month period between September 2014 and March 2015. Among these are the high inflation rate of 4.03 percent, the rising price of rice by an average of 14.48 percent from Rp 11,433 per kilogram in September 2014 to Rp 13,089 per kilogram in March 2015, and the rise in the price of other commodities such as chilies and sugar, by 26.28 percent and 1.92 percent, respectively.

Certainly, the fuel price increase in November last year that fueled inflation rate to reach 4.03 percent in March 2015 played an important role in this year'€™s surge in the number of the poor.

The high inflation rate has made the plight of the poor even worse as inflation experienced by the poor is relatively higher than that of the non-poor, the middle and high income earners.

In order to compensate those most affected by the fuel price increase, namely the poor and vulnerable, the government has rebranded and expanded social assistance compensation packages.

The government implemented the Prosperous Family Savings Program (PSKS), which gives direct assistance to the poorest 25 percent of the Indonesian population. This program is implemented through the Prosperous Family Card (KKS), the Indonesia Smart Card (KIP) and the Indonesia Health Card (KIS). The government also continued implementing other social assistance programs including subsidized rice for the poor (Raskin) and the conditional cash transfer program (PKH).

Despite all these efforts, the number of poor people still rose and the poor experienced worsening socioeconomic conditions.

All this may lead one to question the effectiveness of the multiple social protection programs meant to alleviate poverty and help the poor and vulnerable to meet their basic unmet needs as well as protect them from the adverse impact of shocks.

The lack of program effectiveness may stem from various factors such as limited scope, funding and quality. While these are all important determinants in explaining the limited effectiveness of social protection programs, there is an equally fundamental factor, namely high fragmentation.

The different social protection programs potentially overlap and create confusion among stakeholders and program beneficiaries. They do not necessarily target common beneficiaries while poverty is a multi-dimensional phenomenon that cannot be addressed with the action of separate and individual programs.

Some estimate that only one third of eligible poor beneficiaries receive three or more national programs. The 2014 World Bank Study also states that only 2.2 percent of the poorest 10 percent of the Indonesian population receive four national programs.

The horizontal fragmentation at the national level, also true at the local level, is made worse by the fact that social protection programs are highly vertically fragmented in many ways. National and local programs do not conform to each other.

Targeting mechanisms are not standardized, resulting in the unnecessary overlap of target beneficiaries and inefficiency of resources.

The use of a single unified database for targeting is still limited to a few national social protection programs.

At the local level, the program targeting is mainly based on locally collected and managed data of which the quality is highly questionable.

The targeting issue is coupled with the limited capacity outreach of national and local programs
and scattered complaints handling at all levels.

All of the above provide a great opportunity for integration. At the national level, there are at least two options for integration.

The first is that national programs continue operating as currently but they be given to a common target group, i.e. the bottom 10 percent, 20 percent or 30 percent of the population, depending on fiscal capacity and political decisions.

The second, being much less politically feasible, is to merge all the main social assistance programs into one household conditional cash transfer, given to the common target group as defined in the first option.

It is then required to define the institutional setup for one agency to manage the new program.

Both options require defining the institutional mechanism for coordination at the central and local level around social assistance services delivery to the common target group.

To address the fragmentation of national and local social protection programs, an integrated referral and service, or a sort of single window service, at the local level with the outreach capacity extended to the village level and linked to the centrally managed data and program could be instrumental.

The integrated system would allow local social workers to counsel families on where to seek assistance and what to do, depending on the current programs they receive, their unmet needs and the supply of programs available at national and local levels. It could also be a conduit for people to present complaints and grievances about the different programs, and those complaints would be tracked and monitored to make sure that complainants received timely responses.

Furthermore, the integrated system would have the capacity to inform national and local agencies about budget needs and priority programs to address gaps in social protection of poor and vulnerable people including abandoned women and children, disabled persons, elderly poor with no social assistance and others.

The integration would not only result in a higher impact on poverty reduction and generate savings in administration costs that could be used to increase coverage, but also help address waste and corruption through a transparent mechanism.

Equally important is that the integration could generate public satisfaction with the government'€™s service delivery performance.
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The writer is board chairperson of the Institute for Democracy Education (IDE).