Evaluation

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Evaluation of the Social Protection Sector Development Program in Indonesia
Completed: 2007

The Social Protection Sector Development Program was a combination of two loans-a program loan of $100 million designed to support reforms in the provision of basic social services; and a project loan of $200 million to fund specific interventions in selected provinces in education, health, family planning, nutrition, and support to street children. The primary objective of the SPSDP was to alleviate the socioeconomic distress caused by the 1997 Asian economic crisis, while launching sector reforms to strengthen social services delivery in anticipation of decentralization. Overall, the Program was rated successful.

Key Issues

• While the extension of block grants was a successful innovation, insufficient directives were available for the use of these funds and hence they lack transparency and accountability. This is currently a problem as the Government continues this innovation in distributing fuel compensation subsidies to schools to provide free basic education for all.



• The data on the use of health centers by poor families or households are conflicting. While health centers claim more than 90% utilization rates by poor families, independent survey data recorded only around 55% of health cardholders are poor, belonging to the lowest 40%. This raises the question of the effectiveness of health centers to provide services for the poor as they do not generally actively provide outreach to the community.



• A concern is that the current health insurance scheme for the poor does not incorporate the successes of the outreach program by village midwives. In addition, debilitating diseases often suffered by the poor, such as tuberculosis and malaria, are not attended to in health programs aimed at the poor.



• Claims have been made that discontinuation of the supplementary feeding program for infants, children, and pregnant mothers program combined with decentralization in 2001 contributed to rising malnutrition prevalence among infants. Even though the design of a future urban nutrition project by ADB funding has been completed, more speedy interventions are required.

  Lessons Identified

• An important lesson is to avoid overly optimistic assumptions on the speed of bureaucracies to react even under crisis conditions. The beneficiaries of the complementary and supplementary feeding program suffered from discontinuation and/or interruptions in their program arising from delays in procurement, which in turn was caused by delays in replenishment of the imprest account.



• Success is no guarantee of sustainability. Although successful, the highly valued independent monitoring processes and procedures of project implementation developed were not sustained. This suggests that projects should be designed to provide the possibility of sustaining those parts or components that are widely valued by its stakeholders.