Poverty Alleviation in Indonesia: Evaluating Social Protection, Targeting Reform, and Rural–Urban Disparities Using Secondary Data

Abstract

Poverty alleviation remains a central public-policy priority in Indonesia even as the official poverty rate continues to decline. This study evaluates recent poverty-alleviation progress and policy architecture using secondary data and documentary analysis. The analysis combines official poverty statistics from BPS-Statistics Indonesia for March 2025, September 2025, and March 2026 with national planning documents, presidential instructions on poverty reduction and the National Socioeconomic Single Data (DTSEN), social-welfare regulations, World Bank assessments, and selected empirical studies of Indonesian social protection. The evaluation focuses on four dimensions: poverty trends, rural–urban disparities, targeting and data integration, and the balance between social assistance and economic empowerment. Results show that the national poverty rate declined from 8.47 percent in March 2025 to 8.07 percent in March 2026, while the number of poor people fell from 23.85 million to 22.93 million. However, rural poverty remained substantially higher than urban poverty, reaching 10.67 percent compared with 6.34 percent in March 2026. At the same time, the Gini ratio increased from 0.363 in September 2025 to 0.368 in March 2026, indicating that poverty reduction and distributional improvement do not necessarily move together. The policy framework has strengthened through the RPJMN 2025–2029, Presidential Instruction No. 8 of 2025, and DTSEN-based targeting reform. Nevertheless, evidence from prior studies shows persistent risks of inclusion and exclusion errors and heterogeneous program effects across regions and socioeconomic groups. The study concludes that effective poverty alleviation requires not only continued social protection, but also accurate targeting, productive inclusion, territorial strategies, and transparent outcome monitoring.