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Indonesia needs more accessible services: UN

Jakarta Post - July 25, 2014

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Margareth S. Aritonang, Jakarta – Indonesia must improve access to quality social services and to jobs to reduce the widening inequality gap that has left the country's growing middle class vulnerable to poverty, the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) says in its latest report.

The UNDP's 2014 Human Development Report stated that Indonesia had recorded a sizable increase in its inequality gap, rising from 0.31 to 0.414, with 1 being completely unequal in a scale from 0 to 1.

UNDP Indonesia's country director Beate Trankmann said that the country was now facing the challenge of rising inequality, particularly in education. "We know from the data that rising inequality is a challenge for Indonesia. The highest inequality is in education," she said.

Trankmann urged the Indonesian government to invest more in education to improve quality as well as to ensure equally distributed growth in income per capita. "Provide universal social services and access to employment," Trankmann said.

In its report, the UNDP found that Indonesian only saw a sluggish increase in its overall human development index (HDI) of 0.003, to 0.684. Indonesian remains unchanged at 108th out of 187 countries surveyed, which is in the medium human development category globally.

According to the 2014 report, Indonesia's HDI was boosted by a slightly higher life expectancy of 70.8 years, along with mean years of schooling of 7.5 years. Expected years in schooling in Indonesia is 12.9.

This year's, albeit slight, HDI rise was mostly accounted for by a sizable jump in gross national income (GNI) per capita, to Rp 8,970 (77 US cents) this year from last year's Rp 8,601.

"You do have a movement but it's not enough to get to the next rank. You see upward movement in all composite indicators. You see a big jump in GNI per capita, which basically drives the human development improvement for Indonesia currently," Trankmann said.

"But you see the expected years of schooling in particular is flattening because it's already very high," she added, referring to the same figure Indonesia obtained last year.

In last year's report, Indonesia recorded a HDI of 0.681, which consisted of a life expectancy of 70.6 years along with a mean years of schooling of 7.5 years and an expected years in schooling of 12.7 years.

Although Indonesia's GNI has increased, Trankmann said that the flat expected years of schooling and the moderate growth in life expectancy of 0.2 years had put Indonesia, along with most countries globally, at risk due to rising inequality.

UNDP Indonesia researcher Harry Seldadyo encouraged the government to provide accessible social services, particularly education, for those in the country's remoter areas, such as Indonesia's easternmost province Papua.

Source: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2014/07/25/ri-needs-more-accessible-services-un.html.