Indonesia: When women control their own investments

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Flickr-photo "Scale" by deepchi1

Indonesia managed to weather the latest economic crisis and is now even a contender for the BRIC nations ^[2]. What exactly was the secret of the world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation? More than half of Indonesia’s 230 million people are women.

The majority of Indonesian women still adhere to their principal societal roles of being a wife and becoming mother. Although the trend is changing, most of the time women are still not included in decision-making nor are they demanded to contribute to the family’s well being; working is an option but not compulsory – thus financial independence is not absolute.

In the villages, parents marry off their daughters in hopes of securing their future. This practice leads many women poorly educated and left with few options in life. Women are often classified as “unskilled laborers” – working in the factories or sent abroad to work as maids – but their contributions to the state’s coffers have been overlooked and their rights haven’t been properly acknowledged.

In the past years, Indonesian women have inspired one another and showed that they too can ace in areas mostly governed by their male counterparts. One of Indonesia’s inspirational women is the former Finance Minister Sri Mulyani Indrawati, who is currently the Managing Director of the World Bank.

A 2008 report published ^[3] by the Indonesian Bureau of Statistics said that there are 46-49 million Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSME) in Indonesia, and 60_80% of them are owned by women. Those MSMEs represent 97.1% of the country’s labor force.

Similar to women in Africa ^[4] or South Asia ^[5], Indonesian women also face challenges, like taking a bank loan without male guarantor, or if they fail to demonstrate that they are creditworthy.

Fortunately women do stick together in this country, and a strong presence of camaraderie among women can be felt in rural or urban communities.

On his blog, Son Haji Ujaji ^[6] [id], an activist based in Tangerang, West Java, highlights how women have the capacities to increase the family’s income:

Perempuan akan mengambil peran-peran penting dalam kapasitasnya sebagai makhluk sosial, terutama dalam rangka peningkatan kualitas pendapatan keluarga. Lembaga-lembaga local yang ada lebih tepat bila diperankan secara langsung oleh kaum perempuan, baik yang bergerak dalam bidang sosial maupun ekonomi. Sesungguhnya kultur perempuan yang ada pada sebagian masyarakat Indoensia adalah bersifat guyub (komunal). Kuatanya daya komunalitas ini tercermin dari masih eksisnya lembaga-lembaga yang bergerak dalam bidang kewanitaan, seperti PKK, Posyandu, bentuk-bentuk arisan warga dan sejenisnya.

[…]

PKK mempunyai prioritas program berupa Usaha Peningkatan Pendapatan Keluarga (UP2K). […] Potensi, daya, dan karakter perempuan yang tidak kalah penting dan bobotnya dengan laki-laki dapat menjadikan program UP2K-PKK sebuah program unggulan dalam tataran program social safety net (jaring pengaman social), sebagai salah satu upaya menolong masyarakat dari keterpurukan ekonomi dengan jalan memberdayakan dan membangun masyarakat menjadi individu atau keluarga yang mandiri.

Generating income online and offline

Koperasi (cooperatives ^[7]), a business institution founded by a group of people, governed democratically and aimed for mutual benefits, is regarded as one of the cornerstones of Indonesian economy.

Over the years, the basic principles of Koperasi are pretty much ingrained in the people’s mind. Although Multi Level Marketing (MLM ^[8]), doesn't have identical values as Koperasi in acknowledging the importance of community and network, it is also considered as a great way to generate alternative incomes. People don’t necessarily go to MLM meetings to buy; they come to network, to find new opportunities or business partners over gossip, tea and cakes.

After presentations and catalogues for MLM came blogs and Facebook. The ladies quickly found a new place to market their crafts, imported Korean sundresses, or even last season’s Jimmy Choo heels and other luxury goods at discounted prices. Generating extra income is becoming as easy as tagging pictures.

Does microcredit work in Indonesia?

Microcredit, in practice, is not always a silver bullet against poverty in Indonesia, on the other hand new jobs would be.

International micro-credit organizations like Kiva aim to empower impoverished women and their communities through lending; this, however is not a simple task.

A netter nicknamed salman_taufik ^[9] made a comment on a post appeared on Stanford Social Innovation Review ^[10]. He has an excellent insight about why micro-finance is not quite a success story in Indonesia:

I have similar finding in macro level for Indonesian cases. During last decade after crisis 1988 – 2009, poverty only slightly downed from 21% into 14.15% by 2009, despite controversy over this statistic. Meanwhile, the credit growth into micro entrepreneurs increase 7 times during 2000-2009, much more higher than overall banking industry which only twice for the same periods. Contrasting of both figures bring me into question the effectiveness of microfinance to alleviate poverty. Since some the credit flows into micro entrepreneurs are consumer loans, I suspect that the rapid growth just showed how success capitalism sell their consumer goods into the poor such motor cycle, cellular phone, home appliances, etc, and the poor sell their land and cut illegal tree to pay all those stuffs. Furthermore, even though micro finance give access for poor people to have capital or liquidity but they have to pay almost twice than corporation. I just think that there have been money slavery over the poor. So somehow I agree with you unless they don’t charge the money, let it as working capital to save their lives.

In a country where many still earn less than US$ 2 a day, foreign financial aid is often misunderstood by poor communities.

Anna Antoni ^[11], a Kiva fellow based in Bali explains: