VOI - Voice of Indonesia | RRI - Radio Republik Indonesia

Home Affairs Minister Tito Karnavian has proposed incentives for local governments that manage to eliminate extreme poverty in their respective regions.

"We have proposed this to the Vice President: to give a reward as motivation. It can be a reward from the President or the Vice President, or incentive fund, which is usually provided for top achiever regions," he informed.

The reward would be given based on an evaluation by the central government on regions' efforts to reduce extreme poverty, he said after attending a working meeting on the acceleration of extreme poverty eradication with Vice President Ma'ruf Amin in Bandung, West Java on Wednesday.

"The Vice President said we will conduct a final evaluation and also monthly evaluations. We will see which region makes progress," he added.

Meanwhile, Vice President Amin said the target to eradicate extreme poverty in seven provinces in 2021 would be a tough challenge as the government only has three months left this year.

"The challenge is that we only have three months left to end the year 2021. While we have to handle 35 districts and cities in 7 provinces. It means that we have to reduce (the number of extreme poverty cases) by more than two million," he noted.

The seven priority provinces for extreme poverty alleviation in 2021 are West Java, Central Java, East Java, Maluku, East Nusa Tenggara, Papua, and West Papua, he said.

From each province, five districts and cities representing 20 percent of the national extreme poverty rate would be selected, he added.

In West Java, the five priority districts for extreme poverty eradication are Cianjur, Bandung, Kuningan, Indramayu, and Karawang, with a total of 460,327 people living under the extreme poverty line, he informed.

The National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K) is aiming to reduce extreme poverty by 20 percent in 2021 by lifting around 2.1 million of the total 10.86 million poor people from extreme poverty in Indonesia, he said.

The extreme poverty rate would be further reduced by 35 percent in 2022 and 2023, and 10 percent in 2024.

According to Statistics Indonesia (BPS), the extreme poverty rate in the country has reached four percent of the population, or around 10.86 million. However, the poverty rate, in general, reached 10.14 percent, or around 27.54 million, as of March 2021, it said.

According to the World Bank's standard for poverty, people earning less than US$1.91 per day can be classified as living under the extreme poverty line.

The World Bank projects global extreme poverty to increase by 88 million to 115 million in 2021 due to economic contraction seen in several countries due to the COVID-9 pandemic.

In 2020, the global extreme poverty rate reached its highest record in the past two decades, the World Bank stated. (Antaranews)