The most pressing political-economic issue facing Indonesia is poverty reduction. The Department of Defense’s role in this regard is to provide support in enabling the government’s delivery system with regard to the numerous programs and projects administered or co-joined with various domestic and international agencies, both public as well as private.
Poverty in Indonesia, measured in income terms, affect 48% of Indonesia’s total population of 220 million. The government’s Medium Term Development Program (Rencana Jangka Menengah, RPJM) aims to reduce the poverty head count from 18.2 percent in 2004 to roughly 8.4 percent by 2009. When the plan was announced in the first cabinet meeting in late October 2004, no one foresaw the various domestic and international crises that would severely affect the trajectory of the poverty reduction programs.
Following the tsunami in late December 2004, there occurred earthquakes, mudflows, rice crises, the spike in international oil price rises and a host of residual social and ethnic conflicts throughout the archipelago arising from the crises of 7-8 years before. In addition, other natural and man-made disasters severely diverted the government’s resources to effectively alleviate poverty at the scope and speed that was originally targeted in late October 2004.
The World Bank’s Jakarta Office, in its outstanding report “Making the New Indonesia Work for The Poor” (November 2006) makes a clear case for the urgency that in addition to income-poverty, Indonesia still faces a long and difficult journey in pursuing programs to drastically reduce non-income poverty: malnutrition among a quarter of all children below the age of five; high maternal mortality rates (307 deaths in 100.00 births); education outcomes remain weak (among 16-18 year olds from the poorest quintile, only 55 percent completed junior high school (Sekolah Menengah Pertama, SMP); access to safe and clean water is slow (43 percent in rural areas, 78 percent in urban areas for the lowest quintile).
What do all these issues have to do with the Department of Defense and the Indonesian Defense Force (Tentara Nasional Indonesia,TNI)? The answer is starkly clear: plenty.
First, the Department of Defense and the TNI is committed to providing an effective and accountable delivery system in support of a still essentially weak civic governance and civil competence at all levels. Governmental capability __especially outside Java__still need the support of a carefully measured and calibrated role of the military in support of civic competence. Political crises, economic collapse and social unrest resulting from the financial crises in 1997-1998 led to incendiary violence among marginalised groups deprived of jobs, livelihood and of hope.
Throughout 1998-2003 overly drastic and immediate political openness in an environment of mass poverty, unemployment and fear of an uncertain future led to paroxysms of “the virility of violence” which gave rise to sectarian, ethnic and intra-regional enmity. The backlash against perceived heavy handedness of the military during the Soeharto years led to an exaggerated sense of “politically correct” but unrealistic notions of “democratic governance” among political parties, NGOs and other civic groups, all of whom remain too fragmented, too-disjointed and simply incompetent to provide ground-level work political stability.
Second, with respect to the TNI as a national force , as the people’s force, and as fighting defence force (tentara nasional, tentara rakyat, tentara kejuangan), the TNI has always been true to its commitment to assist those most deprived from access to basic human needs. The army, navy and air force has historically been engaged since the mid-1950s to initiate and support various people-centered projects at the ground level: building simple people’s housing, dams and irrigation channels; help set up affordable health care through the various medical units and battalions in villages, sub-districts, even at provincial level; non-coms have chipped in to stand in as teachers in Bahasa Indonesia and basic numeracy. In short, the TNI had preceded involvement in the very projects that the World Bank Jakarta Office Report focuses upon: non-income poverty, especially in the rural areas.
Finally, the Department of Defense and the TNI have pioneered policy and operational programs in attacking poverty as Indonesia’s version of the war on terror. Although poverty by itself do not correlated directly with acts of organized terrorism, the number of both income poor and non-income poor in Indonesia affects the our determination to wage war against the three main sources of terrorism world-wide.
First, inequities in development. With nearly half of our population living below the poverty line, there is urgent need to speed up programs that immediately mitigate disparities in income as well as distortions in access to basic human needs. Those who fall from the 2 dollar a day category to the 1,55 dollar a day category constitutes this margin of danger where young men or women disenfranchised economically may turn to desperate measures or attracted to radical ideologies.
Second, poverty eradication. As the people’s defense force, the TNI is obliged to be engaged in all government related poverty eradication schemes, to prove that the notion of a vigilant defense force can only credible if it true to its motion of caring and sharing with those who have yet to be lifted from abject poverty. Equally important, because the defense force realises that in the overall notion of defense in the wider sense, a just and equal society is the best defense.
Finally, anti-corruption. The Defense Department have completed a two-year program in transferring assets of all units of cooperatives, foundation and businesses to an inter-agency panel from the Departments of Defense, Finance, State Enterprises and Law & Human Rights.
A Presidential Decree establishing a National Agency to assess these assets and reconfigure all manners of “military businesses” is pending. Past military businesses have been identified with large-scale corruption abuses of human rights and pervasive repression. Having successfully pioneered an anti-corruption drive within is own house, the Department of Defense and the TNI have in fact deprived critics of the decades old ammunition of “an octopus-like” military-business complex.
Indonesia’s war on poverty and terrorism has along way to go. There will be glitches and crashing of social gears over the next ten to fifteen years. But the overall trajectory will remain on course and positive. There are even firmer grounds for optimism that Indonesia’s war against poverty will give substance to the notion: “Be tough against terrorism, but be tougher still against the sources of terrorism”. The Department of Defense has led the way.
No doubt that poverty is an intractable problem in Indonesia. War on poverty has been initiated long way back since the New Order regime. A variety of alleviation programs have been implemented, but the way to prosperity is still a long way to go. The policy as prescribed by the World Bank should work in combating poverty in Indonesia along with the support of the Department of Defense as you suggested. One more aspect that I wanted to share here is spatial dimension of poverty alleviation policy. Urban area as an area with high population concentration is also a growth machine that accelerates the economic growth of the region and eventually alleviates poverty.
Unlike China and India that in last decade have been experiencing a robust economic growth, Indonesia has not been fully recovered from the 1997 Asian economic crisis and the natural disasters in the last few years has complicated Indonesia’s effort to escape from poverty. One thing about China and India is that they have a lot of urban agglomerations accelerating the economic growth. The growth machines of China and India are not only their capitals –Beijing and New Delhi respectively. Both capitals are neither the center of commercial, industry nor the transportation hub of the nations.
On the contrary, Jakarta is the center of everything for Indonesia. Not only is Jakarta the capital of Indonesia, it is also the center of economic, commercial and transportation hub of the nation. When the recent floods hit Jakarta, it did not only paralyze the traffic in Jakarta but also retard Indonesia’s economy. The floods hit Indonesia’s primary growth machine. Indonesia needs to emulate China and India to have more urban agglomerations that are able to accelerate economic growth and then alleviate the poverty. Indonesia needs to redistribute the growth from Jakarta to other parts of the nation and create more urban agglomerations to combat the poverty.
Hi Mr Juwono. It is a very interesting blog you have here, congratulations! I used to love TNI when I was a kid. During the history class, TNI was always my favorite subject. I believe a lot of kids look at them as heroes in the history books.
I think it’s time for us as adults to once again meet our childhood heroes.
Why not expose more our TNI activities in building this country. I think Indonesia still needs that kind of propaganda style used in old America, Europe and China.
Show the citizens their activities. We need to see the governments are building this country through them. Maybe this can regain our faith back to this country.
Please show us what they’re capable of doing. Maybe through magazines, photo journalism, tv programs, posters, any media. We’re sick of looking disasters and poverty on tv. Please show us some progress in our country development.
I think that’s what our people need instead of stupid celebrity news.
War against poverty, needs a consistency & persistence in implementing the related programs to tackle the issue, the thing I feared most is when regime change happens, those blue-print rolled by the predecessor will become obsolete and changed to another, which would be counter-productive. Continuity matters.
war against poverty, or against the poor?
There are a lot of researches regarding the poverty in Indonesia, from the point of view of mentality of the people to the distribution of capital and wealth. So far I notice there is one element which is forgotten by most researchers, the structure of street or road development in Indonesia.
There is a strong relationship between the road development and poverty. In Indonesia there are many roads that are not planned properly, such as gang ways. These gang ways tend to accumulate and maintain poverty. In gang ways area people can find houses or rooms with lower price to rent . Upper class people tend to avoid that area. On the other hand, government thinks with this standard people still can live and they make is as national standard such as for minimum wage (UMR). This condition create a structural poverty in this area.
I explored this topic more detail in my article on http://www.overseasthinktankforindonesia.com/?p=30 which I related to the road development in the United States.
Dear Mr. Juwono,
Great blog you have.
Poverty will always be a big issue in this country and we all must work together to decrease the poverty level, not just the government but all the people.
I agree that TNI should be one of the supporting elements to sovle this big problem, as TNI is also part of the people themselves. My opinion is to let TNI be even closer to the people. At the moment, it seems there is quite a big gap between TNI and the people, I think it should be dramatically reduced.
And I know we can do it, because we have a great Minister of Defense like you, Sir.
Best wishes for you and for this country.
Hai Pak Juwono….
Sori saya menulis dengan bahasa indonesia,
saya mau komentar surat balasan anda di surat pembaca KOMPAS (saya lupa tanggal berapa) tentang tentang kejadian bus Dephan di Lenteng Agung yang pengemudinya merugikan pengendara lain…anda membalas surat dengan atas nama anda itu dengan bijak dan anda menyampaikan maaf terhadap apa yg di buat bawahan anda…saya salut dan memberi hormat kepada BAPAK karena termasuk jarang pejabat publik mau mengambil inisiatif itu….SALUT UNTUK BAPAK
Pak Juwono,
The puzzling thing is that GDP is not a good indicator of the health of a country’s economy due to the “manipulatable” parameters used. And more interestingly, a high GDP is not a good indicator of a more “makmur” society.
Current GDP is 6.3% with forecasted next year’s as 7%, yet the poverty rate has increased considerably from year to year. According to 2007’s World Bank data, half of Indonesian population is below the poverty line, but according to BPS is only 39.1 million. The paramaters and assumptions used would create different results.
Poverty, thus, is also a relative thing. What standards are we using? I’ve questioned this mind-boggling phenomenon here: http://www.thejakartapost.com/yesterdaydetail.asp?fileid=20071112.E02
Thank you for listening, Pak Juwono. More success to you and yours.
Salam mindset sukses,
Jennie S. Bev
http://www.jenniesbev.com
http://www.jennieforindonesia.com
What For Award Democrasi Indonesia ?
Begini luas wilayah indonesia terbentang dari sabang sampai merauke……..pasca reformasi menurut Bank Indonesia (BI) dasar indikator pembangunan melalui neraca pembayaran arus kas masuk transaksi perbankan memang sangat memuaskan…..namun pembangunan secara visual belum juga keluar potret seperti halnya di negara 2 maju……tertata rapi, tidak ada pengemis, tidak ada pedagang kumuh kaki lima, pendidikan terjangkau, …dsb..
Mengutip Pada buku Stainer pada diktat Pasca sarjana materi lingkungan bisnis ,bahwa maju tidaknya negara pertumbuhannya terjadi pada 3 komponen yaitu Pemerintah (goverment), Masyarakat (Society ) serta pelaku bisnis swasta (Bussines)……
Yang pertama,Mulai dari Pemerintah (goverment) mulai dari Aparatur sampai DPR/MPR pemegang keputusan kearah mana Uang negara ini berhasil efektif atau menguap begitu saja…, Presiden (seperti soekarno, pak harto ….sampai Pak Yudhoyono) dengan ratusan kegiatan seremonial nya tidak akan sanggup menahan / mengendalikan perilaku biaya dilingkungan pemerintah dari sabang sampai merauke……contoh kongkret di Amerika bahwa hanya pabrik senjata yang dikuasai negara …lain – lain milik publik melalui pasar modal
Yang Kedua,..Kemudian Masyarakat (society) mulai adat/kebiasaan/budaya yang terjadi di Indonesia…..contoh praktis seperti di Amerika masyarakat di sana dengan kesadaran penuh hanya memproduksi 2 (dua) partai besar…jadi bisa disimpulkan angka ketertarikan pada kegiatan politik praktis kecil…..peluang polemik, peluang perbedaan kecil…..jadi dapat dijadikan modal untuk stabilitas nasional ….yang sangat berpengaruh pada iklim investasi….
Yang ketiga, Pelaku Pengusaha (bussines) ….komponen yang ini menderita……susah2 bergelimang resiko, biaya pajak, biaya koordinasi….masih susah payah menunggu ketidak pastian…..sangat butuh stabilitas untuk berkembang (going concern)…alhasil pasca reformasi tidak sedikit menutup usahanya atau hengkang dari negara kita….
Jadi Demokrasi apakah kita ini….demokrasi yang pernah di sebut Pak harto pada bukunya tahun 1989 yang membatasi Rakyat dalam mengurusi negara atau membiarkan rakyat dengan ragam kemampuannya ikut rame – rame mengurusi negara melalui politik praktisnya……………………..
Kita menjadi tega kalau mengungkapkan perlu belajar, perlu proses, perlu belajar demokrasi….padahal kemiskinan makin merajarela mengotori martabat bangsa kita….
Jadi rapatkan iklan media untuk segera bentuk dua partai besar,
Partai Nusa dan Partai Bangsa….
(someone di Trenggalek, 31 Tahun, Pengusaha Pabrik Software, Musisi Jazz)
Dear Mr Juwono,
One of the most problematic but a key factor is corruption. How corrupt our country is? Let’s have a look our behaviors. We are bit lucky that President SBY is not (may not). How corrupt our MPs, Politicians, Governors, Bupati, and our bureaucracy. How corrupt our Polices, Judges, Laywers, Auditors who (paradoxically) responsible for combating corruption.
Mr Juwono, I know you knew all this behaviors. Even you just covered the behavior in your office few days ago. And we all know that, of course not only in the Department of Defense, but in all Departments.
With that context, can we combat poverty? I think that why how difficult our journey is.
I hope, and I really hope that you should not stop saying any corrupt indications at least in your office. I know that it would threat you personally (carrier, life probably), but by saying that, it could give a sort of warning to the corruptors to do so, in your office.
the only way to win the war againts poverty is through education. Higher education doesnt’t mean winning the war but increases the probability to win the war.
Ass.Wr.Wb.
Pak Juwono Sudarsono, Indonesia adalah secuplik tanah surga yang ada di Dunia. Coba Bapak baca buku Atlantis, Lost Continent Finnaly Found, karya Prof. Arysio Nunes dos Santos.
Indonesia, the site of eden
http://www.atlan.org/articles/true_history/
Indonesia negara yang kaya akan aneka ragam hayati dan kandungan mineral bumi, didukung 2 musim oleh angin muson. Kecepatan udara maksimal 7 mil dan tidak ada jalur angin siklon besar. Daerah yang tentram sedikit bencana dan diberkahi qJJ 1.
Sebatas pengetahuan saya, kemiskinan terjadi karena ketimpangan ekonomi. Gaji tertinggi dan terendah sangat jomplang. Gaji 100.000.000 perbulan dan Gaji 100.000 perbulan ada di Jakarta. Pengemudi Jaguar dengan megah berjalan di Pasar Senen sementara di bis sekitar senen ada yang minta sedekah untuk makan siang karena dari pagi belum makan.
Perbandingan 1:1000 gaji, sementara di Amerika perbedaan gaji hanya 2,5 kali.
http://www.overseasthinktankforindonesia.com/?p=30
Ironi ini berlanjut dengan terpusatnya ekonomi dan bisnis di Jakarta. Harga tanah di Jakarta sedemikian mahal menyebabkan urban komuter yang menyebabkan terbentuk efek rumah kaca polusi CO2 pada 700 meter dpl Jakarta. Alhamdulilah lapisan ini kini hilang 170108, sesudah liburan natal, tahun baru Masehi, dan tahun baru Hijriah. Semoga langit Jakarta terus terpelihara.
qJJ 1 menurunkan hujan dengan ukuran.
Sebagai makhluk kita berikhtiar menabung air di permukaan bumi dan membendung air untuk cadangan di musim kemarau.
Peta kemiskinan di kota terletak di bantaran sungai, karena air dapat gratis di peroleh, tidak memperdulikan hieginies dan kesehatan. Bila sungai-sungai di kota besar bisa seperti Sungai Rhein yang menjadi berkah di Eropa sebagai sumber PAM, tampaknya kesejahteraan lebih mudah tercapai.
Waallahu Alam B.
Wass.Wr.Wb.
A U G I
War on poverty? To win, first we must fine corrupt officials (one perfect example – Indonesian diplomats overseas that are spending too much of unnecessary Government money) and put them where they belong. jail.
Second, better the education – make it accessible and affordable to every single citizen of Indonesia.
Third, implement a better and more transparent taxation system in Indonesia, maybe somewhere along the lines of those of the Western European countries – to subsidize education and health-care – that is famous for taxing high-earners deservedly.
Fourth, better health-care, affordable and humane – doctors who will work on people with AND without money.
Fifth, create some kind of a social security system for all citizens. This is also good for self-confidence and sense of safety among Indonesians in general.
Sixth, educating Indonesians in general in a sense of worth of being Indonesian, teach them to be proud of “produk buatan dalam negeri” (to lessen unnecessary imports from other countries) and “manusia dalam negeri” instead of running and idolizing “the great white (sic!) hype”
Seventh, separate politics and governance from religions. Dirty politics and religion does not mix well. It just creates nothing but disgrace and fundamentalism leading to radicalism and terrorism, which is something that Indonesia definitely do not need now, or ever.
And many more, but these are the points that are in my mind right now.
I hope that with very well educated ministers like you, our country will rise up and become once again the tiger of asia, and one day perhaps, the world.
@Jennie
“The puzzling thing is that GDP is not a good indicator of the health of a country’s economy due to the “manipulatable” parameters used. And more interestingly, a high GDP is not a good indicator of a more “makmur” society.”
Saya pikir sangat benar karena ada kondisi “sangat kaya” dan “sangat miskin” jadi nilai average keduanya ngga bisa dijadikan tolak ukur.
ada berpenghasilan jutaan perhari dilain pihak ada yang berpenghasilan sampai 5000-an perhari.
you’re very well educated person, would you mind share(here in this blog), not only the bold line of policy, but, a practical one, as well as you manage our country..
regards,
Andy Achmad Sampurna Jaya
Bapak Menteri yang Terhormat.
Saya tertarik membaca artikel Bapak, tetapi bahasa Inggris saya minim sekali.
Mohon dalam blogger Bapak ada pilihan untuk versi bahasa Indonesia (Bahasa Nasional Kita yang kita junjung tinggi)
Atau barangkali sudah ada pilihan bahasa Indonesia tersebut, tetapi karena kebodohan saya sehingga saya tidak tahu….
Tolong dibantu ya Bapak Menteri.
Terima kasih.
Hi Mr. Minister, I am proud to have a minister like you. Thats why I used this media to raise a serious question to you ? is the teritorial structure of the army really efective for the national unity ? Or it is actually a destructive component of it ? Please pay attention on people resistency or rejection for a new Korem in Flores Island. It will be very serious if the army push it by neglecting the people aspiration in this region.
Thanks
War Against Poverty – Some Critical Comments
I coincidently found this blog when I searched some information on the net for my position paper on the ‘Gender Dimension of Indonesian Poverty’ that I am currently writing on. The idea of having a war against poverty is great! To me it has much deeper insight than the war for humanity launched by the US when they attacked Iraq. It also echoes the (hopefuly genuine) political will of the Department of Defence to, not only reform but also, make major radical changes within them. Holding the belief that critiques are beautiful, I am offering my personal critical comments for this writing as follows.
First, the idea of perceiving the war against poverty as the war against terrorrism, as suggested in the notion:”Be tough against terrorism, but be tougher still against the sources of terrorism”, is too risky. Embedded in this notion is the main premise of ‘poverty breeds terrorism.’ This premise certainly requires a careful re-visit. It may be worth to find out how many of those committed terrorism were actually coming from poor family. Yes indeed it is true that poverty may produce crime, but terrorism does not necessarily a crime. Terrorism contains certain ideology that cannot be simply encountered by an anti poverty program. Someone’s terrorist can be somebody else’s heroe. The Dutch colonial government used to call us ‘extremist’ and my father used to be one of those extremists with him joining the guerilla fighters as child soldier, but to me my father is my hero!. No one can remove that from me as the idea is firmly planted in my heart and mind. By and large, I would like to say that attacking an ideology requires another ideology, a counter ideology, and not an anti-poverty program.
Second, Indonesian poverty has three important feature. The first feature is multidimensionality, i.e. the interlinked between spatial economy (rural/urban, center/periphery), sectoral (industrial/agriculture/service), and geographic area (western Indonesia/java/eastern Indonesia). The second feature is Vulnerability, especially relating to fragile economy and social structure that hardly can cope with shocks (that can be economical, political, social, and natural). The fact that Indonesia’s food security depends on import makes Indonesia vulnerable to the global increase of food price. The other fact that Indonesia is located at the ‘ring of fire’ results in the country’s vulnerability towards disaster. Adding to this is the vulnerability of social unrests. The third feature is gender inequality. Statistics reveal that women’s literacy rate is still less than men’s literacy rate. This may as well become one of several other explaining factors for the lower women’s labour participation, especially at reproductive age, compare to their male counterparts’.
Third, Several studies, with using tatistical data, show that the Indonesia’s success story in reducing number of poverty in 1976-1996 is due to three reasons: Economic growth that favours the poor, stability that allows economy to grow, and equity that eliminates gaps (some scholars, however, still debate on whether or not equity was reached along with growth and stability). It may be worth to learn from the history. As now Indonesia adopts the pro-poor growth, the remaining homework would be how to ensure stability (without neglecting the values of democracy) and equity to happen alongside the growth. The Ministry of Defence, to my understanding, plays a vital role in ensuring a ‘stability with a human face’. A national stability that does not negate the right to be heard of the people.
Fourth, looking at my personal story of coming from a poor family but managed to escaped from the poverty trap because of education, I would strongly supports the idea of paying a particular and seriouse attention on education sector. Education is a fundamental rights for every citizens. The State has the main mandate to ensure that everybody, no matter what, to have a proper education. There should be no administrative requirement that hampers children to go to school. Some street children I met, for example, could not go to school because they do not have their birth certificate. This should not be happened if we understand that it is their RIGHT to go to school. Not having a birth certificate should not hinders them to obtain education. We may also need to reconsider to strengthen the existing scholarship scheme and building a better scheme if, for some reasons, we prefer not to use the old and existing scheme. Education will open the door for moving out of poverty. Neglecting education sector, will only make poverty breeds poverty.
Fifth, I am personally tired of politicians who sell nothing but themselves, who fight for noone but themselves. I bet the resources that is allocated for these politicians can be used to send hundreds of children to school or to feed thousands of the poor with a day meal. Perhaps, it is about the time to take some measurements for letting only those who are not only well qualified but fully committed to the poor.
Lastly, as someone who was born and grew up in this country, I would like to thank you for putting the effort. It is very much appreciated. It would be more meaningful, however, if we can do it appropriately, starting from its conceptual framework to its practical dimension.
With best regards.
Yulia
Bp.Yuwono Sudarsono yth
Mungkin bapak sudah lupa waktu saya dan bapak satu kamar di PUSDIKKES kramat jati pada th 1967 latihan kemiliteran dosen .maaf bahasa indonesia aja ya pak MENHAN karena lebih akrab dan sekalian nostalgia waktu bapak masih sama2 belia mengikuti LKD 1967 .mengenai komentar pertahanan bukan bidang saya ,hanya saya doakan semoga dibawah kepemimpinan bapak negara INDONESIA aman dan makmur (baldatun thoyibbatun warobbun ghofur) amin
Today, continued economic development is constrained by the lack of economic freedoms. Economic liberalization includes extending property rights, especially to land, to the poor, and making financial services, notably savings, accessible. Inefficient institutions, corruption and political instability can also discourage investment. Aid and government support in health, education and infrastructure helps growth by increasing human and physical capital.