TNP2K Secretariat Team Visits Kompas Daily's Office

02 September 2014

As part of a series of visits to major media outlets, the Secretariat of the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K) today (02/09/2014) visited the offices of Kompas newspaper to discuss the achievements and challenges facing poverty reduction. The TNP2K secretariat team discussed a series of topics, including the use of social assistance programmes to compensate for changes in national fuel subsidies.

Nazara Suahasil, TNP2K’s policy working group coordinator, described various improvements to poverty reduction policies, including efforts to enhance targeting. Helping meet these achievements is the Unified Database (BDT), a database containing the names and addresses of poor and vulnerable households, which was used as the basis for multiple social assistance programmes, including Cash Transfers for Poor Students (BSM), Subsidised Rice for Low Income Families (Raskin) and Unconditional Cash Transfers (BLSM).

BLSM cash transfers were given following the 2013 rise in fuel prices, thereby acting as compensation to those poor affected by subsequent price fluctuations. "From our analysis, BLSM has been quite effective in compensating for fuel price increases,” said Nazara.

He explained that the provision of cash transfers, such as for BLSM, is based on several considerations: beneficiaries are able to benefit from cash immediately; cash transfers help beneficiaries adjust their consumption needs; and cash is more efficient for implementation purposes and its distribution costs are lower.

Nazara added that due to its temporary nature, BLSM is not to be given over a long period of time (except when there is price volatility) and should not exceed 20 percent of total consumption of the poor. If these two conditions are met then fears that BLSM leads to laziness will not be met.

The TNP2K team said that targeted social assistance programs have made positive contributions to poverty reduction efforts over the past two years. Their implementation has helped boost average consumption levels among the poor (deciles 1 and 2) and led to a reduction in the poverty levels.

In attendance was Kompas Deputy Editor in Chief Ninuk Mardiana Pambudy, senior editors Pieter P. Gero and Diredja Tjahja Gunawan; Political, Justice and Human Rights Chief Sutta Dharmasaputra, as well as editorial staff Dewi Indriastuti and Benny Koestanto.

Click here to read the article on TNP2K’s visit to Tempo Magazine.