I

was in a class having a discussion with my students on Indonesia’s progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDG). We specifically discussed goal number one; “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger”, when in the middle of the discussion a student raised the question of whether or not we can end poverty.

He doubted that poverty could be eliminated and – to support his argument – cited various government poverty-alleviation programs which were designed to help poor people, but had so far not yet been able to lift them out of poverty.

For me his question is more than just a question, it is a reflection.

The Report on the Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals Indonesia 2010 indicates that there has been a decrease in the prevalence of poverty (National Development Planning Agency/Bappenas).

One of the targets of goal number one, “Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger”, is “halve, between 1990 and 2015, the proportion of people whose income is less than US$1 [PPP] a day.”

The report – quoting the World Bank and the Indonesian Statistical Agency — uses the 1990 data as a baseline which showed that 20.60 percent of the population in that year had a PPP below $1 per day. So the MDGs’ target of 2015 is 10.30 percent of the population with a PPP below $1, whereas the percentage in 2008 – as quoted in the report — was 5.90 percent, meaning that the target has already been achieved.

Data on poverty is varied as different institutions use different indicators. However, I am not going to discuss further the variation of poverty data. Instead, I will look at how poverty-alleviation programs have been implemented and why poverty remains.

In Indonesia, poverty-alleviation programs include among others the social safety net program, subsidized rice, credit for small-scale enterprises, health insurance for the poor, cash allowances, scholarships for poor students, etc. Under various names, these are the programs which have been applied for decades within the country.

There are various institutions in the national and regional governments, private sector and foreign agencies who work on poverty-alleviation programs. It is often the case that each institution focuses on its own “specialization” such as health, education, credit for small-scale enterprises, to name a few.

NGOs and charity organizations also have their own programs to help the poor, mainly at a local level.

At implementation level, overlaps of programs, lack of coordination among responsible parties and the “project-based” nature of some programs (which are prone to discontinuity of programs) explain why poverty remains.

Jeffrey Sachs (2005) in his book The End of Poverty – economic possibilities for our time, states that
the key to ending extreme poverty is to enable the poorest of the poor to get their foot on the ladder of development.

According to Sachs, the problem lies with poor societies’ lack of the minimum amount of various forms of capital necessary to get that foothold namely:

Human capital; health, nutrition and skills needed for each person to be economically productive.

Business capital; the machinery, facilities, motorized transport used in agriculture, industry and services.

Infrastructure; roads, power, water and sanitation, airports and seaports and telecommunications systems, that are critical inputs into business productivity.

Natural capital; arable land, healthy soil, biodiversity and well-functioning ecosystems that provide the environmental services needed by human society.

Public institutional capital; the commercial law, judicial systems, government services and policing that underpin the peaceful and prosperous division of labor.

Knowledge capital; the scientific and technological know-how that raises productivity in business output and the promotion of physical and natural capital.

All of the above factors relate to one another. For instance, my research indicates that lack of income in a poor family leads to poor nutrition of the children, which latter contributes to their poor performance at school (if they go to school).

Living in a slum area, the undernourished children are more prone to diseases due to lack of access to clean water and sanitation.

The situation may get worse because of the family’s limited access to affordable health services. On the parents’ side, lack of access to credit and their limited skills make it hard for them to increase their income. This will further trap the family into a vicious circle of poverty.

It is clear that poverty is beyond financial matters.

A comprehensive approach and good coordination among responsible parties are required to tackle the root of the problem as well as to avoid overlapping poverty-alleviation programs.

In doing so, it is important to include women in all stages of the programs as they are one of the key actors in combating poverty.

So we can end poverty.

From the sociological perspective, it is social stratification that attaches to any society.

While the latter cannot be eliminated, it is our moral responsibility to ensure that those at the bottom of the strata meet their basic needs and have an adequate standard of living.

The writer is a lecturer at Parahyangan Catholic University’s School of Social and Political Sciences in Bandung.