MDGs for Poverty Problem in Indonesia

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Millenium DevelopmentGoals (MDGs) is a goal set up and agreed by 193 countries in United Nations to be achieved by 2015. There are eight points of MDGs. This article willfocus on the first point, which is “Eradicating extreme poverty and hunger.” Not only as a grand program from United Nations, MDGs will be seen as a program to get over poverty in Indonesia.

Developed countries and developing countries will tend to look upon this issue differently, as the characteristic of poverty itself is different in every country. Most of European countries have full responsibility to provide the primary need of their citizens. Meanwhile, developing countries are still struggling to fulfill their primary needs and can not give the primary needs for free. For example, let us take a look at Indonesia. An individual can be categorized as “poor”, if he/she can earn only 1 dollar per day to herself/himself. This standard is adopted from World Bank standard of poverty. With this kind of standard, government states that the number of poverty has been decreased. The question appearing is ‘can a person earning more than 1 dollar/day be categorized directly as not poor or free from poverty?’

There are four kinds of poverty, according to Sociologist, they are absolute poverty, relative poverty, cultural poverty, and structural poverty. Absolute poverty is what our government measured with 1 dollar/day standard. This kind of poverty can be eradicated only by the help of government, because the people have no ability at all to raise up their living standard. Relative poverty is caused by uneven development in a country. Cultural poverty is related to the culture, custom and effort from the people to raise up their live or not. The latter one, structural poverty, is related to access of social, political and cultural needs that people can get. Government can not only demand the poor to work so that they can raise up their living standard. In every aspect , government is supposed to give their aid and encouragement.

Though MDGs have global aim, this is not a global mechanism that strictly need to be followed by the countries. Each country has rights to establish their own specific rules to achieve the goals. As a global goal, countries need to work hand in hand for there are many developing countries still struggling for their basic needs. International organization is supposed to be utilized by countries the most in need. World Bank, for example, provides Poverty Aid for developing countries with less conditionalities.

Indonesia, with the standard of poverty used, is predicted to be able achieve the goals of MDGs quantitavely, not qualitatively, by 2015. Government needs to manage an effective sustainable development plan in every province and distribute the aid for poor at the right aim. Approach to traditional area is needed, as Indonesia has number of cultures and ethnicities. Undoubtedly, Indonesia must strive more to alleviate the poverty problem.

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Summarized from ISAFIS Biweekly Discussion 12/05/2012 by Elda Claudia, staff of Division of Researh and Development