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No more extreme poverty by 2024: Airlangga
The government is planning to reduce the share of Indonesians living in extreme poverty to 3.8 percent this year and eradicate it altogether by 2024.
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Long journey ahead: People in a low-income area relax near railway tracks at Pintu Air Karet, Tanah Abang, Central Jakarta. According to the World Bank, more and more poor people across the globe, including Indonesia, will fall into extreme poverty as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. It is expected that the world could see 150 million people in extreme poverty by the end of 2021. (JP/P.J. Leo)
T
he government wants to eradicate extreme poverty by 2024 with a mix of additional spending on social assistance and spurring corporate social responsibility (CSR) outside Jakarta.
The percentage of Indonesians living in extreme poverty, those living on less than US$1.90 at purchasing power parity a day, was estimated at 4 percent, according to the National Team for Accelerated Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), quoting Statistics Indonesia (BPS).
This year, the government aims to reduce the share to 3.8 percent by lifting people out of extreme poverty in 35 cities and regencies in West Java, Central Java, East Java, East Nusa Tenggara, Maluku, West Papua and Papua. Some one-fifth of the population in such a condition live in these cities and regencies, according to TNP2K.
“If possible, extreme poverty should be eradicated in those 35 cities and regencies,” Coordinating Economic Minister Airlangga Hartarto said in an online event on Wednesday. “We will create programs, [including] additional Staple Food Cards or village funds.”
In March, the pandemic-induced economic downturn pushed 1.12 million people into poverty, defined as those who spend less than Rp 472,525 ($33.07) per month, BPS data show. The pandemic thus led the poverty rate to rise to 10.14 percent, undoing three-years of progress.
Read also: Poverty rate hits three-year high
The World Bank estimated that global extreme poverty rose for the first time in 20 years in 2020 as the pandemic led between 88 million and 115 million people into such conditions.
