Indonesia’s Human Development Index was high in 2018, an achievement resulting from increasing access to basic services. However, Indonesia needs to accelerate.
By
M ZAID WAHYUDI / LARASWATI ARIADNE ANWAR
·4 minutes read
JAKARTA, KOMPAS – For the first time in history, Indonesia’s Human Development Index (HDI) has entered the category of high-scoring countries. Nevertheless, many tasks are as yet unfinished. Unequal access and disparities in basic services have remained a specter hampering faster progress for Indonesia.
The increase in Indonesia’s 2018 HDI was announced on Tuesday (10/12/2019) during the launch of the UNDP Human Development Index Report in Jakarta.
Indonesia scored 0.707 on the HDI in 2018, an increase from 0.696 the previous year. A country is categorized among the high HDI rankings if it has a minimum score of 0.700. The UNDP report indicated that Indonesia’s higher HDI score was a natural consequence of growing access to basic services like education and health.
There was indeed increased access, but this is yet to cover 100 percent of the population.
As for its ranking, Indonesia was 111th out of 189 countries, up by five ranks from 2017. But those countries that rank between 100th and 120th have no significant differences in human development.
”Inequality remains a malady. There was indeed increased access, but this is yet to cover 100 percent of the population. A condition also exists that individuals included in the service coverage could still risk being expelled in extreme circumstances,” said UNDP Indonesia chief representative Christophe Bahuet.
Indonesia still has not performed well in providing access to education, health, technology, disaster mitigation and jobs. If these areas were measured, Indonesia’s HDI score would decrease by 17.4 percent.
Contradictions
The life expectancy of Indonesians increased from 62.3 years in 1990 to 71.5 years in 2018. Yet at the same time, disease prevention efforts were not implemented optimally because of several extraordinary health incidences, such as outbreaks of diphtheria and measles.
In education, the mean years of schooling increased, although the mandatory schooling target of 12 years was not achieved. The 2016-2018 UNDP data put the mean years of schooling in Indonesia at 8 years, rising from the 2005 mean of 7.4 years. This shows some progress, albeit not rapid.
“The same was true in the economic sector. A handful of people benefited from new technology and boosted the economy of certain groups. Not all groups in society really benefited from the practical technologies that offered a comfortable life,” said Bahuet.
Furthermore, at the outset of the era when automation would replace manual and repetitive labor, Indonesia apparently had not yet created new types of jobs for its people.
Separately, Indonesian Population Coalition general chairman Sonny H.B. Harmadi said that viewing from the mean years of schooling, Indonesia’s HDI indeed appeared to improve slowly because the component only considered schooling for people over 25, which was already low.
Employment also presented many contradictions, such as being employed but underpaid.
With regard to health, life expectancy did in fact increase, but inequality was widespread. Life expectancy could be increased by shifting the health service paradigm from treatment to preventive health education, such as reducing stunting and preventing degenerative diseases.
According to Sonny, the HDI parameter that could be improved within a relatively short time was per capita income. Indonesia had great capital to achieve this, as it was now experiencing a demographic bonus with a large productive age population. But increasing per capita income required the availability of welfare services that encouraged employment.
Employment also presented many contradictions, such as being employed but underpaid, a low poor population in a particular region but also a low per capita income, and a low unemployment rate but a high poverty rate.
In order to significantly increase per capita income, said Sonny, productivity should be increased. “Productivity can increase if it is supported by technology,” he added.
Technology
Hammam Riza, the head of the Assessment and Application of Technology Agency (BPPT), said on Monday during BPPT Innovation Day at the Scientific and Technological Research Center (Puspiptek) in Serpong, South Tangerang, that science and technology (sci-tech; iptek) could benefit from its own advancement as well as be used for national development.
“There are no countries that don’t exploit sci-tech for national development,” he said. Sci-tech could also be used to realize the global vision of achieving the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) by enhancing the quality of life and welfare of the global population.
Increasing incomes could also be accelerated by using technology and innovation as a catalyst for economic growth. Technology and innovation could be used to grow the manufacturing industry to create employment and expand public welfare.
Indonesia’s experience in 1967-1997 showed that growth in manufacturing supported economic growth. But the role of manufacturing has been declining since the 1998 economic crisis, and the Indonesian economy finds it difficult to spur growth today.
The chairman of the SDGs Network at the Bandung Technological Institute, Tirto Prakoso, said that although technology could be used to promote public welfare and reach the SDG targets, the use of technology remained very low. Policymakers also lacked a strategy for exploiting technology.