Poverty Exposure of Tual Municipality in 2023

The problem of poverty is one of the fundamental issues that is at the center of the government's attention in any country. One important aspect to support poverty reduction strategies is the availability of accurate poverty data. Reliable poverty measurement is a powerful instrument for policy makers in focusing attention on the living conditions of the poor. Good poverty data can be used to evaluate government policies towards poverty, compare poverty across time and regions, and target the poor with the aim of improving their conditions.

Located in the Tual Mayor's Office Hall, the Head of Tual City BPS, Richard Thenu presented the Poverty Rate of Tual City in 2023. The activity was attended by the Acting Secretary of Tual City, Ahil Staff, Assistants and all SKPD Leaders of Tual City (13/12/2023).

In his presentation, Richard Thenu said that BPS uses the concept of the ability to fulfill basic needs (basic needs approach) in measuring poverty. With this approach, poverty is seen as an economic inability to meet basic food and non-food needs measured in terms of expenditure. The poor are those who have per capita expenditure per month less than the poverty line. The data source used to calculate poverty at the district/city level in 2023 is the March 2023 Susenas Consumption Expenditure data.

The Head of BPS Kota Tual elaborated on the current poverty conditions in Kota Tual, including the number of poor people in Kota Tual in 2023 amounting to 16.41 thousand people (up 0.4 thousand people compared to 2022), ranked 10th in Maluku Province, then the percentage of poor people in Kota Tual in 2023 amounting to 20.68 (up 0.12 percent compared to 2022), ranked 7th in Maluku Province.

At the end of his presentation, Richard Thenu conveyed 3 recommendations in poverty alleviation, namely sustainable assistance to MSMEs to help small household incomes, comprehensive planning, assistance, monitoring and evaluation, and the 1 OPD 1 Village program.

The struggle is not over yet, we are all still carrying out historical tasks to make Indonesia a developed country that is free from poverty and becomes a winning nation. -Joko Widodo