On being poor

Poor

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono when commemorating the National Health Day on Wednesday revealed two interesting data. The first is about the life expectancy in this country which has increased from 66.2 years three years ago to 69.4 years this year.

The second was about the poverty rate. He acknowledged that Indonesia’s poor today still totaled no less than 37.1 million, a high rate indeed by any standard.

The president was clearly proud when he talked about the increasing life expectancy, saying that it reflected the improvement of the health and nutrition status of the population especially because at the same time infant mortality rate (IMR) also decreased from 36/1,000 live births in 2003 to 32/1,000 live births in 2006.

Unlike when he talked about the life expectancy and the IMR, he was clearly defensive when talking about the poverty problem.

He even blamed some analysts who said that the number of poor people in the country today totaled 76.4 million, saying that the figure apparently was based on the number of people covered by the health insurance scheme known as the Askeskin.

Askeskin, he said, was not aimed at providing basic health services and treatments to the poor only. It was also aimed at those belonging to the category of “almost poor” and “less-privileged.” Together with those categorized as poor, the almost poor and the less-privileged indeed totaled 76.4 million.

For us—and we believe also for the government—actually it does not really matter whether the 76.4 million people are the poor, the almost poor or the less-privileged because they all must have access to the necessary supports to lead decent life.

The sooner they get them, the better because the success of the Yudhoyono administration will mostly be measured by its ability to improve the welfare of these 76.4 million people.

Surely it cannot stop at making new definitions only, otherwise the future will remain bleak for many Indonesians.

For the record: poverty, according to the government, is less money than is needed to afford a diet of 2,100 calories a day or Rp152,847 (US$16.80) a month, an amount which is well below the more widely used benchmark of US$1 a day.