Oxfam GB in Indonesia In Action

Our long term development programme works, with others, towards eliminating poverty in Indonesia. It is a scandal that in Indonesia today, where there is great wealth, that more than 30% of the populating, about 70million people do not have the basic necessities that we all agree on: clean water, a home, a means to support themselves and their families and the ability to have a say in government decisions that affect everyone. 

We try to understand the root causes of the situation and rather than deal with the results of poverty and powerlessness. We believe that poverty exists because people are denied their basic rights.

We focus our work in Eastern Indonesia because in this area people are more marginalized and are poorer than in other areas.

The Indonesia Long term Development Programme

We have developed 3 area offices in Eastern Indonesia so that we can be more sensitive to the local context and to concerns of local people. This is particularly important since the decentralization of government planning, decision making and budgeting.  Local poor people need to understand of how decentralized government works,  how to have their voice heard, their needs understood and how to influence budget allocation so that they get a fair share at the local level.  These offices are in Makassar, for work in Sulawesi and Maluku;  in Kupang serving Nusa Tenggara Timur; and in Jayapura for Papua. We are focusing on supporting people to make a decent living so they can support themselves and their families in all three areas. 

In Sulawesi and Maluku, we are supporting marginalized people on small islands to develop agricultural and coastal resources in an environmentally sustainable way.  We call this project “Building Opportunities”. We discussed the priorities in Tanibar, Aru, Buton and Tunda islands with women and men who live there and supported a variety of livelihoods initiatives that they agreed were important. These include coral reef conservation and regeneration, seaweed farming, supply of fishing equipment, small credit schemes to start small businesses such as cake making and training in how to sell their products. This work is supported by advocacy work to the local government on the rights and needs of the people.  This is a two way process so we also support island people to understand how they can participate in government planning and budgeting processes so they can influence them.

The project called Driving Change worked across Eastern Indonesia with local organizations to develop their confidence, understanding and ability to engage with government processes.  National level advocacy organizations, based in Jakarta, took forward wider concerns that required national level advocacy such as an analysis of progress of the millennium development goals and of the effects of decentralization on the lives of the poor.

In Nusa Tenggara Timor,  food security is a major problem which has persisted for many years without change.  Many people do not have access to a regular supply of food throughout the year. These shortages do not happen not because there is a shortage of food, but because people do not have sufficient income to buy food.  We are working with villagers to grow vegetables to improve their nutrition and income.  We will also support advocacy to the local government to so that the issues around food security are better understood and that budgets and plans are made to improve the situation.

We are also working with ex-refugees from the conflict in Timor Laste following independence.  We are supporting women and men to resettle in areas where they can get land titles, build shelter and develop livelihoods. We have supported discussion and peace building between local people and ex-refugees.

Our Papua work followed successful emergency work after an earthquake in Nabire and a cholera outbreak in Wamena. We are starting longer term work in  small scale economic development  in one of the poorest areas of Eastern Indonesia by supporting Indigenous coffee farmers near Nabire to improve  coffee cultivation and process it in a way that it is suitable for the international specialist market. We are also supporting several small scale livelihoods initiatives such as fishery development on Sentani Lake and vegetable growing in the highlands of Nabire . This initial work which we are doing with Oxfam New Zealand is to see how we can best work in the isolated conditions of Papua where some of the most marginalized Indonesians live.

Gender inequality is a major cause of poverty and women suffer unequally from the effects of poverty.  Women find it more difficult than men to have their voice heard at every level, from the household to the central government, they suffer more from food insecurity. They are often responsible for agricultural production, but have unequal access to resources, education, training and credit.  In all our work we are ensuring that women benefit equally from any activities to ensure that women understand and claim their rights.