Transmigration in Indonesia: An evaluation of a population redistribution policy

In this article an attempt is made to evaluate Indonesia's population redistribution policy—transmigration—from 1969 onwards. In addition to population redistribution, transmigration also has socio-economic and political objectives. In spite of the fact that in monetary terms transmigration has become one of Indonesia's main development programmes and the budget per transmigration family has increased enormously since 1969, it is established that for several years the ambitious targets could not be realized. In addition, studies show that in several cases the many promises of the transmigration authorities could not be met. With respect to the objective of population redistribution, it is concluded that so far transmigration has hardly influenced Indonesia's population distribution; only in specific receiving areas have the effects of transmigration been significant. Furthermore, it is shown that there is reason to doubt the role which the agriculturally-oriented transmigration programmes can play in the regional development process. In addition, there is evidence that in some cases the schemes have also been used as an instrument to serve (implicit) political aims.This is a revised version of NIDI Working Paper No. 43, An Evaluation of Recent Indonesian Transmigration Programmes, November 1983.The author would like to thank Dr. Ir. Frans Willekens for his valuable advice and stimulating comments. Thanks are also due to Lieneke Hoeksma for editing.