FRETILIN calls for rural poverty priorities in Timor-Leste budget
MPs sought annual poverty-reduction goals and questioned allocations for agriculture, basic services and healthcare.
FRETILIN lawmakers urged Timor-Leste’s government to direct its proposed 2027 budget towards rural poverty, inequality and healthcare during Parliament’s opening general debate on 9 November 2026. MP Cristina Yuri Ribeiro Costa asked how allocations would address conditions in the poorest municipalities.
Costa drew on the Timor-Leste Survey of Living Standards 2024, which INETL published in October 2026. It recorded a national poverty rate of 37 per cent, compared with 48.4 per cent in 2014. Some 522,927 people were below the national poverty line of US$2.31 per person per day.
She acknowledged the improvement but said many people still struggled to meet basic needs. Costa requested annual goals for tackling rural poverty and inequality, and asked how the government would ensure that education, healthcare, clean water, infrastructure and social programmes reached areas with the highest poverty rates.
Referring to La’o Hamutuk’s analysis presented to Parliament, Costa said agriculture, education, health and clean water together received only 18 per cent of state expenditure. She put agriculture’s share of the 2027 proposal at 2.1 per cent and argued that economic diversification needed measurable results, indicators and deadlines, rather than funding allocations alone.
Another FRETILIN MP, Nurima Ribeiro Alkatiri, called for healthcare to be central to the country’s development agenda. She sought better services, stronger professional skills among health workers, more facilities and medicines, and improvements in prevention and primary care.
