Indonesia's Kampung Improvement Program improves informal neighborhoods with basic infrastructure (1969–1998)

In Indonesia, kampungs are primarily low-income, informal, and densely populated neighborhoods. From 1969 to 1998, in response to Indonesia’s rapid urbanization in its major cities, the government implemented the Kampung Improvement Program (KIP) to provide basic infrastructure and essential services to people living in kampungs across 800 cities (approximately 30 million people).

Indonesia began to rapidly urbanize from the 1950s. The two largest cities grew by about 50 percent during the 1960s.¹ As cities expanded to include kampungs, these areas lacked basic infrastructure and services, including roads and sanitation. The unplanned nature of kampungs meant that there was little space for roads, and their mixture of lot sizes and tenure arrangements complicated improvements on infrastructure, which increased the risk of leaving low-income populations behind.² 

The KIP Unit, composed of assigned officials from different municipal departments, would select the kampungs for intervention based on their social, economic, and physical conditions—notably areas lacking in public infrastructure. The proposed list of kampungs was submitted yearly to the governor of the metropolitan area for ratification, followed by the development of an implementation plan and budget. Interventions covered eight key areas: 

• improving roads; 
• paving footpaths; 
• installing stormwater drainage; 
• providing garbage receptacles (temporary waste containers) and collection services; 
• establishing  safe drinking water fountains; 
• building communal washing areas and public toilets; 
• neighborhood clinics; and
• primary schools.³ 

In the early 2000s, the Comprehensive KIP shifted its focus towards investments in local economic development as a more comprehensive strategy, including supporting households performing economic activity in their homes and working with community-based cooperatives and self-help groups to provide job training and microfinancing.⁴ 

Implementation

The KIP was first implemented in 1969 by the metropolitan government of Jakarta. In 1974, funding from the World Bank allowed it to expand both in scope and geographically to other cities, notably Surabaya. KIP Units, composed of seconded public servants from municipal departments, and their site managers were in charge of coordinating the improvements,⁵ with infrastructure development companies selected via a public tender process. 

Cost

Studies showed that the cost of the KIP ranged from USD 118 per person in Jakarta, to USD 23 in smaller cities (in 1993 dollars).⁶  Between 1970 and 1988, the World Bank provided USD 438.3 million in loans to the Indonesian government (in 1993 dollars) for the Urban Development I-IV programs, of which the KIP was the major component.⁷ As the KIP evolved, it incorporated the participation of the communities themselves, who would provide from a third to more than half of the project costs and coordinated the maintenance of the new infrastructure. Households also followed self-help and incremental housing processes to upgrade their own housing structures as part of the program.⁸ 

Assessment

By the 1990s, KIP had expanded to 800 cities across the country, targeting around 30 million people⁹ and operating in up to 70 percent of cities’ kampungs.¹⁰ 

Evaluations of the KIP demonstrated increased quality of life for kampung residents through better pathways, lighting, social facilities, and access to safe drinking water.¹¹ By 1976, surveys in Jakarta demonstrated that two-thirds of residents in project areas expressed improvements in their infrastructure due to KIP.¹² In Surabaya alone between 1984 and 1990, 70 km of access roads and 150 km of footpaths were improved, 93 km of drains and culverts were constructed, and 56,000 meters of water pipe laid.¹³ 

Studies have also pointed to lower densities in KIP areas.¹⁴ Kampungs under the program also experienced greater investment by residents in housing upkeep, as well as lower homeowner turnover, taken by some evaluations as an indicator of sustained affordability.¹⁵ Criticisms, however, have pointed to the program’s inability to address existing issues of land tenure in the kampungs and to improve access to economic opportunity for their residents.¹⁶

Kampung Warna-Warni Jodipan, the Village of Color in Malang, Indonesia. ©Adobe Stock/Leonid Andronov

Tags

• Asia & Pacific
• Housing
• Indonesia
• Infrastructure
• Local Economic Development
• Low-Income Groups
• Spatial Inequality
• Transportation
• Urban Development
• Water & Sanitation