POVERTY REDUCTION
Poverty goes beyond mere economic issues. It deals with imbalance of access to information and of power relations, lack of justice and social discrimination. For this reason, the appropriate term is structural poverty. The struggle for poverty reduction is to improve the accessibility of all citizens to economic resources, good quality of public services and information, and the power relations between decision makers and the citizens. The Institute considers that the strategy to tackle poverty demands broad and creative approaches in policy—not single policy for all, broad-based collaboration among the citizens, and global commitment.
The financial crisis that hit this country in the middle of 1997 worsened the elite-people socio-economic gap. The New Order’s fundamental structure of economy has driven into monopolistic practices that benefited the powerful, rich elites and well-connected businesspeople. The economic recovery takes much longer than it is in other Asian countries that were also hit by the monetary crisis. The poor and marginalized put a lot of expectation that democracy and economic recovery will improve their socio-economic life.
It is very common in the democratic society that voice of citizen should be heard regardless their social and economic status. The Institute concern on this issues by driving citizens to involve in all phases of policy process. The rational and responsive social policy both at national and local levels are unable to be implemented without people’s participation. To make the voice of the poor and marginalized heard needs tremendous efforts. Collaboration among civil society organizations is just one step forward to provide an arena for marginalized and minority to speak up. The Institute put its own expertise to build the people’s capacity to engage in all phases of policy process. At the same time, the Institute takes part in any forum that struggling for poverty alleviation efforts.
Since the poverty is not only Indonesian problem, exchange of experience with global alliance will provide a novel perspective for tackling the root of poverty. Otherwise, there will be a lack of coordination in the poverty elimination strategy. It is believed that the global open market impoverishes the vulnerable families around the world, while the global richest countries have their own agenda in poverty reduction.
Various international seminars and workshops had held to find the root of poverty as well as the strategy to tackle it. Many social experiments or policy instruments had been disseminated through various media and seminars for us to learn. Poverty reduction scheme needs simple methods such as score-card, and dialogue forum for the voice of the poor and marginalized to be considered.
GENDER ISSUES
Women accounts for more than half of Indonesia’s population. However, in a social system with strong patriarchal values, women bear the heaviest burden in existing poverty, violence and injustice. Limitations—both formally and culturally—to women’s rights in socio-economic and socio-political lives are still widespread. Although the number of women leaders in the non-governmental and informal sectors has risen dramatically, the same cannot be said in political sector.
Under extreme poverty, families are often forced to choose which children can go to school. And the choice often goes to the sons. The daughters will have to work to support the family. Worse, they are often sold to become underpaid workers or sex workers. This adds up to the severe gender discrimination.
Women are vulnerable to harassment in public spaces that cause reluctance among them to develop their potentials and take active roles in the society. In violent social conflict or war, women are often the main victims in whom they are target of sexual violence and harassment. This leads to long term physical and mental trauma, which in turn hamper the development of their potentials.
CIVIL SOCIETY AND DEVELOPMENT
Under the 30-years New Order rule showed incredible achievements. Indonesia was considered to be one of the Asian countries with high economic growth throughout the 1970-1980’s. It was for the first time ever in its history, this country achieved food self sufficiency, which recognized by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO). Population growth of the world’s fourth most populated (after the Soviet Union collapse) could be controlled by sound family planning strategy. This birth control strategy was recommended to be applied in many developing countries. Indonesia acquired the international recognition for establishing wider access for its people to health services through the development of thousands of public health centers (Pusat Kesehatan Masyarakat/Puskesmas) across the country.
However, on the other side of those achievements there were delicate, severe problems, which gradually undermined the nation. Regional gaps between Java and Outer Java, between urban and rural areas, and between western and eastern part of the country grew rapidly and uncontrollable. Industrial sector growth could not be caught up by agricultural sectors’. Only well-connected people had access to economic resources and information. These led to widening gap between the rich and the poor, and destruction of environment.
Many concluded that those problems were caused by the total exclusion of the people in development planning, implementation and monitoring, and the centralization of decision making. Hence, the people demanded democracy that opens the opportunity to have their interests served and their voices heard. This is the challenge for CSO’s to play their role to make the democracy meaningful in which the people’s rights fulfilled.
BUSINESS & POLITICS
Politics basically doesn’t mean with power but also as resources. Resources in politics included society, government and business. In Indonesia’s politics, businessmen have a big contribution on democratization.
During the New Era, the businessmen have special privilege to walk side by side with bureaucracy. This situation influenced the power constellation in policymaking process. Military has large scale to dominant the government, and follows to the business sector. The small budget for military sector always comes up as the great reason for the military personnel to invade the business sector. There is a thin limitation to describe the government, whether as bureaucrat and as businessmen. Then people come up with their own opinion that military dominancy in government and business sector constitutes interdependency relation, meanwhile, they keep the distance with society as marginalized “exploited” group
The lack of interrelation between these groups caused impact on democratization. It is followed after Soeharto’s regime, business community still have their domination in state. We can find that in policies product by the government. Where most of the government policies product tent to accommodate dominating groups.
ANTI CORRUPTION
Corruption in Indonesia is wide spreading so that it undermines political and economic structures. Possible anti corruption program consist of system building for corruption prevention, legal action against corruption, and amnesty to those committed corruption in exchange of illegal funds repatriation.
Focusing on political system building and good governance, the Institute conducted studies, discussions, and dissemination on corruption. We encourage clean government and good governance in state sectors including military business, public management, and improvement of public services quality particularly in formulating public services standard.