Coordinating Minister For Human Development And Culture Claims Extreme Poverty Decreases In All Provinces

Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture Muhadjir Effendy during a dialogue with Vice President Ma'ruf Amin (ANTARA/HO-Secretariat Vice President).

Coordinating Minister for Human Development and Culture (Menko PMK) Muhadjir Effendy said the extreme poverty rate had decreased in all provinces in Indonesia in 2023.

"Based on the calculation of the Task Force for the Targeting the Acceleration of Extreme Poverty Elimination (P3KE), the results of extreme poverty levels estimation in districts/cities in 2023, there are 432 districts/cities experiencing a decline, 75 districts experiencing an increase, and seven districts being stagnant," said Coordinating Minister MuhadjirEffendy at a ministerial level meeting related to poverty reduction at the Vice Presidential Palace in Jakarta, reported by ANTARA, Thursday, February 22.

He said the calculation results of the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) stated that the current reduction in extreme poverty rate reached 1.12 percent as of March 2023, down 0.9 percent compared to March 2022.

The decline was faster, he said, compared to the decline in the period March 2022 to March 2021 which was only 0.1 percent.

Coordinating Minister Muhadjir said that the regions of Papua, West Papua, and East Nusa Tenggara are the provinces with the largest number of extreme poverty reductions. He is optimistic that the target of reducing the extreme poverty rate to close to zero percent by the end of 2024 will be realized.

If the downward trend continues, we are optimistic that by 2024 at least it can be close to zero percent. Our target is at least 2024 to be below 0.5 percent," he said.

According to him, various special efforts have been made to overcome poverty, ranging from providing additional social assistance, government food reserves assistance, El Nino BLT, housing assistance, clean water supply, cash assistance for farmers to crop failure, to improving sanitation in poverty bags.

"In addition, fiscal incentives are also given to regions related to regional achievements in the implementation of P3KE 2023 and the plan is also given in 2024," said Coordinating Minister MuhadjirEffendy.

On the same agenda, Minister of Finance (Menkeu) Sri Mulyani said fiscal incentives would be given to regions that could significantly reduce poverty.

"For 2024, the allocation is the same as 2023 of IDR 4 trillion, there is for the handling of stunting, inflation, and the elimination of extreme poverty," he said.

Sri Mulyani reported that the realization of the budget for the elimination of extreme poverty in 2023 reached Rp388.6 trillion, while this year's ceiling of Rp403.9 trillion will be realized through various programs in related ministries/agencies.

"There are three strategies for eliminating poverty, namely reducing the burden of spending on poor families, increasing income, and reducing the number of poverty bags," said Sri Mulyani.