Comm Strategy for Poverty in East Timor, Indonesia

East Timor has been already being poor when Indonesia occupied this country in 1975. Under the occupation of the Indonesian government, East Timor was the poorest of Indonesia’s 27 provinces*. It gave negative impacts on the Timorese people, which increased hunger and disease rates. During that time, the Indonesian national development programs were mainly centralized to big cities in Java island, like Jakarta, Semarang, Bandung cities.

This decision has made many cities in the East of Indonesia become the left-behinds, including East Timor. East Timor has been struggling to develop its young population since its independence in 2002. East Timor was regularly presented as the “poorest country of Asia” and as a State that the United Nations (UN) had to construct “from scratch”*. Poverty has a tightly bound society to receive its maximum benefits from its national attributes and resources. Poverty in this country is rather caused by poor land quality and a lack of access to domestic and international markets (Booth, 2004).

After separating from Indonesia, international society argues that East Timor should stand by themselves, even from foreign aid, but to achieve that purpose may need more time. Despite the difficulties that have been faced by this country, the natural resource of oil is very substantial to keep this country alive. Even though this country has used more than 70 per cent of oil reserves to roll its economic wheels, the rate of poverty has reached 41.8 per cent of the total population in 2017*. This country is too dependent on this resource and it seems to ignore other potential resources like fishery products.

Nowadays, many Indonesian cities near East Timor, like Sumba and Kupang, have started to grow this industry. I believed that there are many potential things from this country, but this country is too fragile to start substantial action. One of the important factors to do it is by using good human capital. An educated society is important for this country. In fact, higher education is mandatory for every society in this world if a country wants to develop its truly national capability.

Sjoholm states that without adequate knowledge of the particular features of the poverty problem of East Timor, it is hardly possible to provide any meaningful discussion of how poverty can be eradicated or at least mitigated in this specific case. Poverty has a close relationship with a low level of education*. The youth generation should get the best opportunity to receive the best education, even, at this time, this country still needs other entities to support them. I see that the youth generation of East Timor seems like a national asset.

I describe it as a precious jewel for the Timorese people. If this country is eager to invest its capital in this population, it can be a good investment for itself. The international society should support them with foreign aid and policies, like bilateral and multilateral agreements, which can encourage society to see the importance of education for their country.

Figure 1. The Role of Entrepreneurship in Addressing the Current Issues.

I suggested an entrepreneurship program to address the main issues. Figure 1 shows a scheme of this concept. This program can increase national architecture/attributes, like domestic and international markets, and increase education, especially higher education levels. In the meantime, this program also can reduce the interdependence of using oil reserves and reduce the poverty level, which has reached 41.8 per cent in 2017.

This program also seemed in line with the national plans of the East Timor government, which tries to develop some youth programs at the national level. Al Jazeera published an article in 2017, which says that the current government, led by Prime Minister Mari Alkatiri, also faces increasing pressure to generate new jobs with 60 per cent of its population aged under 25*.

Regarding the news, I believe this is a good moment for the government to integrate entrepreneurship in their national plans because the main target group of this program is youth people, particularly scholars, and also this program will touch many SDGs Goals, like goal 1, goal 4, goal 8, goal 11, and goal 17.

Table 1. The Goal and Objectives.

I chose scholars of the university as the main target group because they have the basic knowledge to develop and implement entrepreneurship. The universities also have capacities to push them forward in achieving their missions. Their supervisors and/or instructors in universities will become their advisers to direct and guide them in creating entrepreneurial business plans.

The private sectors, which involve in this program, will support them by giving funds. The concept of this entrepreneurship program will use the same innovation model as UNICEF. The process will start from identifying the main issue, finding the solution, establishing a pilot test, developing packaging, building a system, scaling up the program, and handover the program to other actors.

The key message of this program is “to promote entrepreneurship among Youth generation, particularly Scholars.” This main target group will become “Change Agents” for their society. Table 1 shows the goal and four objectives of this program. Each objective will answer each issue in resources, poverty, national architecture, and education.

Table 2. The Detail Operations of C4D.

To succeed in implementing the program, the Communication for Development (C4D) will cover three main aspects as Advocacy, Social Mobilization, and Behavior Changes Communication. Table 2 shows briefly the detailed operations of the C4D. I thought that this program should use all three aspects because the situation in East Timor is urgent.

Moreover, the issues are connected to one and the others. So, this program should give positive influences on every level of society, which starts from the low level, as local communities, to the high-level society, such as the government and national institutions. Also, this program should influence many fields like education, poverty, and work. Regarding Table 2, each aspect has different target audiences, channels, materials, and purposes.

Advocacy is more focused on actors in the government and private sectors. These audiences are more prefer to use data analyses, statistics, actual information from experts and mass media. The purpose is to promote entrepreneurship in the national environment, so it can be integrated with the current policies, regulations, and national curriculum.

Behaviour Changes Communication will focus on scholars, specifically student universities.

The appropriate channels are using communities inside the university and sharing through seminars and training. The materials like animation videos, fact sheets, and posters are suitable for them. The purpose is to prepare them for becoming the “Change Agents.” Even though the university degree is not popular among Timorese people, this movement can promote higher education in the society, so the society will recognize higher education as one of the important things to elevate their life level for a better life. Social Mobilization is targeting every Timorese people, without any specific characteristic. The important channels in this strategy are radio, TV, and SNS(s).

These channels can reach far locations and are quite common among Timorese people. The materials are posters, websites, animation videos. Because this strategy is to share the goal & objectives and announce any program’s event, the contents should be attractive and easy to understand. The contents can use English, Portuguese, and Tetum languages.

Figure 2. The Implementation Framework.

This program is quite complex because there are many target audiences and activities. To make it more efficient in communication and coordination, I thought that a special unit is essential to prepare, establish, and follow up on this program. I prepared a concept of a special unit for this program, which is based on international programs like the UN and JICA. In my understanding, these organizations commonly use the concept of a task force for their communication strategy programs.

I made a similar concept as shown in Figure 2. The Task Force consists of many functional teams like the Working Group, Research Communication Group, and Technical Group. The Working Group consists of experts, such as those from UNDP and UNICEF, and country leaders from ministries. The role of this group is to monitor and evaluate the entire program. The Research Communication Group consists of a communication team. This team has the responsibility to provide guidance and coordination between the key actors and the Technical Group. The Technical Group consists of technical staff and volunteers. This unit will work closely with the target groups like scholars, youth communities, etc.

Generally, the purpose of this framework is to ensure clear communication and mandate among participants, including the Task Force Unit. If the detailed information is clear enough for every participant, it will reduce any mistakes, such as miscoordination and mismanagement, in this program. This concept is similar to the communication model by Shannon & Weaver in 1949. Encoding and decoding processes are important because national and international actors will be involved in this program.

Related to the communication model, the implementation is not only done among the main target groups, like the scholars and local communities, but also within the internal team of the Task Force Unit. The Task Force Unit should be capable of speaking in multiple languages, like English, Portuguese, and Tetum. Related to the main target groups, a promotional message is also important to attract people and promote the program.

I proposed a promotional message like “This is the moment for you, a Young Entrepreneur, to take action for East Timor!” This message can be posted in multiple languages because not many Timorese people can speak English well. Using multiple languages can make it easier for people to understand the meaning of the message.

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Booth, A. (2004). Poverty, Equity and Living Standards in East Timor: Challenges for the New Nation. Mimeo, School of Oriental and African Studies, London University

Featured image belongs to the UNICEF