Study for RASKIN Program Policy Reform

SurveyMETER in a collaboration with The Jameel Poverty Action Lab (J-PAL) and the National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction (TNP2K) conducted a study on the Indonesian Household Socio-Economic Survey (SUSETI) or more easily identified as the RASKIN Survey from September to December 2012.

The Raskin program is a government food subsidy in an effort to improve food security and provide protection for poor families. This program was started in January 2002 which is a continuation of the Special Market Operations (OPK) program through of state logistics agency (Bulog) in mid-1998. With the new program and the name 'Raskin', it is expected that it will be more precise in determining the target beneficiaries of the program, namely the poor. So this program is the implementation of the function and role of the government as a guarantor of people's food security by stabilizing rice prices.

It has been more than a decade since the Raskin program has been running. Various program evaluation studies have already been carried out by various independent research institutions, both universities including Gadjah Mada University (UGM) and University of Indonesia (UI) as well as research institutions such as LP3ES, and SMERU. The conclusions of various studies over the last 5 years were around: the subsidy leaks out of the target household that divided equally or was rotated; weak in program management, especially supervision, monitoring and evaluation, and handling of public complaints; the role of local governments was too dominant, starting from the determination of the area, the number of rice rations per region, as well as the distribution of rice from distribution points to target households (RTS). A substantial amount of rice intended for distribution disappeared before it reached people due to corruption, weak oversight, and inefficiencies. In 2012, eligible households received only about one-third of their entitled benefits. Various qualitative studies revealed three main challenges to ensuring that RTS could access the Raskin program, particularly program transparency, distribution monopoly, and conflict resolution.

Responding to the weakness of the mechanism for implementing the Raskin program, the Indonesian government is considering the introduction of Identity Cards for recipients of the Raskin program. The introduction of this identity card can improve distribution by providing transparency in the list of beneficiaries and/or they will receive stronger rights to the share of Raskin rice that should be received. However, this identification card system may not be fully implemented if: village leaders have a monopoly over distribution, or there is not enough transparent socialization about how identity cards can be used. Or, it is also possible to introduce a rigid identification card system without proper mechanisms that will allow conflicts and create social unrest. In order to prove these possibilities, SurveyMETER was assigned to conduct a research entitled the Indonesian Household Socio-Economic Survey (SUSETI).

It aims to provide insight into the possibility of national policy reform for the Raskin Program by examining whether increasing program transparency, involving community members in distribution, and creating flexibility will increase the effectiveness of the Raskin program. On the other hand, with leading instruments, it also intends to find out the description of household welfare and identify government programs and poor beneficiaries. The data from this study are expected to provide input for policymakers to develop new methods of identifying poor households that are eligible for various types of aid programs.

It was conducted in 572 rural/urban villages in 6 districts/cities in 3 provinces, i.e. South Sumatra, Lampung, and Central Java. It is an experimental study where data collection activities are divided into three survey stages, namely baseline, midline, and endline. In the baseline, 8 household respondents and 1 community character will be interviewed in each sampled rural/urban village, so a total of 5,148 household respondents will be interviewed. At the midline, 13 household respondents will be interviewed in each rural/urban village, so 7,436 households will be interviewed. Meanwhile, at the endline, 19 households will be interviewed in each rural/urban village, so 10,868 households will be interviewed.

In total, this study will be carried out over 15 months, from September 2012 to December 2013. In December 2012, the baseline survey (1st continuation survey) was successfully completed. The midline survey (2nd continuation survey) is scheduled for the week of April to July 2013, while the endline survey is planned for August to December 2013. Meanwhile, field research assistants were recruited from scholars in the sample area. This is important because it relates to knowledge and mastery of the local area and language in this study. [JF]