Poverty and Inequality Analysis
The Indonesian experience of implementing social protection programs during the economic crisis of the late 1990s and also during the post-crisis period shows that targeting in programs of this kind is always difficult. As a consequence, social protection programs always suffer from the problems of undercoverage and leakage at the same time.
The economic crisis that began in mid-1997 had an overwhelming social impact on the Indonesian population, whose living standards deteriorated as the krismon increasingly affected their incomes. In examining this social impact, the present chapter focuses on changes in real household consumption expenditures, as they reflect actual changes in living standards and form a measurable proxy for income changes due to the crisis.
The global economic recession hit developing country economies less hard than initially expected but, despite positive macroeconomic indicators, there are few reasons to feel optimistic about the impacts on poverty and wellbeing. Based on original research, this article outlines three reasons to believe that the impacts are likely to have been severe for those in poverty.
For the past few months the position of fuel subsidies has been one of the most prominent issues in many discussions about the national economy as the Indonesian government considers the pros and cons of a signifi cant reduction or the complete removal of these measures. What will be the likely reaction of the wider community if these subsidies are removed?
In this edition, we invite our readers to broaden their understanding of the multi-dimensional character of poverty in Indonesia as well as relating some of the efforts to engage in more effective poverty reduction.
