A ripple in development? - Channel Research

In 2005 prior to the peace agreement in August 2006, (the former)
GAM stronghold districts in the east coast received little aid amounting
to less than 10% of total aid. But this has improved over time where
both tsunami affected and conflict affected populations are receiving
aid. Still when looking at the findings from our quantitative survey, it
can be noted that there is a consistent perception (both in 2005 and in
2008) that conflict affected populations are receiving less aid than tsunami
affected populations. As indicated in the Tsunami Recovery Indicators
for Aceh and Nias in table 6, 12 districts lag behind, many of
which were not directly affected by the tsunami.
Based on full freedom of movement after the signing of the peace
agreement, it could be expected that the population would move from
one district to another in search of better livelihood opportunities. However
our survey statistics show that communities tend not to move from
their original sub-districts. Contrary to expectation, individuals from
poor households were not moving from their areas which had few income
generating opportunities to areas where there were better opportunities.
Non-individual movement from one sub-district to another, or one
district to another, may be explained by the low level of skills that individuals
have. In labour market studies carried out by the Central Bank
of Indonesia and the MDF, it was found that unskilled or low skilled
labour did not have any incentive to move from their places of origin as
there were few jobs for unskilled workers in the areas with higher economic
development. Given the labour market behaviour, it is argued
that the targeted distribution of aid becomes more crucial for households
in order to promote livelihoods of any description.
While foreign aid was initially mandated for tsunami recovery and
reconstruction, policy arguments concerning aid for the long term poor
should eventually have resulted in increased aid for Nias. While Nias did
not suffer from long term conflict, it is clearly underdeveloped compared
to Aceh with a primarily subsistence based economy. There is
very little trade between Nias and other parts of Sumatera Utara province
and its contribution to the provincial economy is very small 42 .
Possible reasons as cited by BRR (2007) for this poor prioritisation
in aid flows include the absence of a master plan, limited access to devastated
subdistricts, limited transportation networks and slow disbursement
of foreign aid (public and private). However, the National Development
Planning Board of Indonesia has classified Nias as being one of
the underdeveloped Outer Islands in the archipelago and as such, a
separate development policy applies to Nias. Given such a policy pronouncement,
and the previous statistics on targeting of aid, foreign aid
donors have failed to demonstrate that they can override policy in favour
of seriously addressing poverty alleviation.
42
Asian Development Bank, 2006 and BPS Kabupaten Nias, 2005
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