Poverty Rate Rises Due To Pandemic, Vice President Ma'ruf: Increases Both Chronic And Extreme

JAKARTA - Vice President Ma'ruf Amin said the COVID-19 pandemic had an impact on increasing the number of extreme poverty in Indonesia so that the government tried to reduce the number to zero percent.

"Yes, that's right, there is an increase in poverty, both chronic and extreme," said the Vice President at Bentara Budaya Jakarta, reported by Antara, Thursday, September 23.

The vice president said the government would continue to tackle extreme poverty in Indonesia to reach zero percent by the end of 2024.

According to the Vice President, the government prioritizes solving extreme poverty, which reaches 10.4 million nationally.

"If the total poverty is more than 27 million, while the extreme (poor) is around 10 million more, now what we want to solve is 10 million by 2024," he added.

By the end of 2021, the government targets to solve 2.1 million extreme poor in 35 districts and cities located in seven provinces, namely West Java, Central Java, East Java, Maluku, East Nusa Tenggara, Papua, and West Papua.

Based on identification by the Secretariat of the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K), the budget for poverty reduction, including the extreme poor in 2021, will reach IDR 170 trillion.

The budget is used for empowerment programs and activities in order to reduce poverty, such as assistance for micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs), training, vocational, and labor intensive.

"TNP2K plans according to the target given for 2021, around 20 percent, two million more, and this is indeed the most difficult because the time is only a short time away," said the Vice President.

The World Bank also predicts that the extreme poverty rate in the world will increase from 88 million to 115 million people in 2021 due to economic contraction in various countries as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Meanwhile, in 2020, the World Bank recorded an increase in extreme poverty in the world as the largest in the last 20 years.

The World Bank defines extreme poverty as people living on 1.9 US dollars or IDR 27,000 per day.