Poverty Alleviation Objectives Research Articles

Socio‑Economic Progress In Indonesia Under The New Order: An Assessment

It is commonly agreed that Indonesia under the New Order (that is, since 1965) has enjoyed rapid economic growth, providing a marked contrast to the disruptive years of the mid-sixties when per capita real income growth was slightly negative. Per capita real GDP growth peaked in the mid-seventies to an impressive 6 per cent per annum. Since then, aggregate growth has moderated somewhat, but a rate of 5 per cent per annum ? averaged over 1975-80 ? is still a respectable performance. All the major sectors ? including agriculture, which employs 56 per cent of the Indonesian labour force ? have shared in this aggregate growth.1 Despite this impressive macro-economic record, there is a well-entrenched view that the benefits of such growth have not been shared widely. The general drift of the argument appears to be that given the overall thrust of a development strategy in which military leaders and technocrats have free rein, in which there is ? or at least until quite recendy used to be ? active discrimination in favour of private foreign enterprise, in which there is a dependence on the oil sector and in which corruption and conspicuous consumption by the rich are rife, one would only expect government indifference towards the objectives of income redistribution and poverty alleviation ? the two fundamental ingredients of socio-economic progress.2 The primary purpose of this paper is to argue that such a view has probably paid too litde attention to the efforts of policy-makers towards socio-economic development. In order to substanriate this argument, the discussion will be organized as follows. Firsdy, the various development plans will be briefly analysed since they represent a readily accessible source of information on state policy towards socio-economic progress. Secondly, a concise assessment will be made of the impact of specific policy measures on income redistribution and poverty alleviation.

Agroforestry practices in leasehold forests in Tanahun, a Mid-hill district of Western Nepal

(Author of this paper, S Khanal was omitted in error - added on 29-3-2010)Leasehold forestry in Nepal has sought to address both poverty alleviation and environmental conservation. The major agroforestry practices observed in the leasehold forests were silvopasture, hortisilviculture and Non Timber Forest Product (NTFP) cultivation. The most prominent problem to the users in adopting agroforestry practices was the lack of technical information. Some successful insights observed suggest that agroforestry has a notable potential to address dual objectives of poverty alleviation and conservation. The need to evolve sustainable mechanism for promoting agrofrorestry in degraded lands through the dissemination of useful traditional knowledge, innovative practices and improved technologies was identified. Key words: Leasehold forest; agroforestry; silvopasture; hortisilviculture; NTFP Banko Janakari Vol.16(2) 2006 pp.45-49