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Getting to the roots of poverty in Indonesia's forests
22nd May 2007
Around 36 million people in Indonesia - about one-fifth of the population –
exist
on $1 a day or less. Those who live in or near forests, and so
depend upon the forests for their livelihoods, are often the very worst-off. The
main goal of the
Multistakeholder Forestry Programme
(MFP), which was co-funded by DFID, was
to alleviate poverty in rural areas by encouraging policy reforms, solving
conflicts over the use of land and ensuring that forest resources were well used
and protected. Although the six-year programme came to an end in 2006, the momentum for
reform that MFP set in motion looks set to continue, and looks set to continue
helping the poor. There are strong signs that the foundations have been laid in
Indonesia for a prosperous forest economy.
Securing the right to work
Making
state land available to farmers was a huge part of MFP. By granting licenses to
land that was formerly out of bounds, MFP allowed more use to be made of
Indonesia's rich forest resources. Where licences for state land have been
issued, there has nearly always been an increase in local incomes.
When the villagers of Anrang, in Sulawesi’s Bulukumba District, were granted secure rights to a formerly contested block of forest, they began to plant profitable cash tree-crops like cloves, teak and coffee. “We can now afford to send our children to school, and if we are sick we can pay to visit hospital,” explains local farmer Rakmatiah. “We couldn’t do that before, because we never had any money.” In Anrang as in other villages, greater land security means farmers are now able to plan for the long term, which is good for nature as well as good for profits, with more care being taken over the preservation of forest land. A law of January 2007, inspired by MFP, will result in state land being made available to hundreds of thousands more forest dwellers.
Learning from expert knowledge
MFP has also opened up whole new markets for rural people. In Batadulang, Sumbawa, a workshop invited local farmers to learn from marketing experts from Java. Now the villagers are selling their produce not just locally, but to the more profitable markets of Java. “We’re selling larger quantities and getting higher prices,” explains the treasurer of the local co-operative, whose income rose 50% in just 18 months. “Some people in the village are even going to university now,” he adds. “That never happened before.”
Encouraging new skills
Communities
have also seen their standard of living raised as a result of MFP-funded
research exercises. In the village of Gading Kembar in Java, over 1200 families
were surveyed as part of Participatory Poverty Analysis (PPA). According to the
villagers, the exercise taught them new skills, strengthened their farmers’
organisation and, crucially, enabled them to come up with new ways to give the
poorest families better access to land.
The significance of these gains has been confirmed by an independent study of
MFP. According to the Poverty Impact Assessment, the programme has had “profound” and “positive”
effects on the livelihoods of many Indonesians, with local governments now
showing greater commitment to the needs of forest dwellers, and many people
enjoying improved security, more freedom of choice and better incomes.
But there is even more work to do in the future to ensure that more people are
able to lift themselves out of poverty. Although it achieved notable successes,
the study concluded that MFP projects could have been more inclusive towards
groups such as widows, the disabled and the very poor. Special attention must be
paid to these groups in the future, so that the benefits of similar
programmes are open to all.
Key Facts
- PPA is a branch of Participatory Research Analysis, a research process involving a range of organisations and individuals, including the communities which are the subjects of the study. PPA provides participants with training in how to assess poverty in cooperation with local communities.
- MFP established local trust funds, which it provided with 'seed money' of £100,000 for each region, to ensure that funding would be available post-2006 for the continuation of the processes and organisations it had supported. MFP's regional facilitators sought the involvement of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), local businesses and other donors in the setting up and running of the trust funds.
- Local trust funds will respond to the priorities of their particular region. Activities will include the provision of grants to farmers' organisations and individual farmers, and towards improving the capacity of NGOs and community organisations.