Fri, 11/04/2011
Tifa Asrianti, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
Indonesia’s Human Development Index (HDI) remains the lowest among ASEAN’s founding member nations.
The 2011 Human Development Report ranked Indonesia 124th out of 187 countries surveyed.
While the nation fared better than Vietnam (128th), Laos (138th), Cambodia (139th) and Myanmar (149th), Indonesia was the poorest performer among the founding member nations of ASEAN.
Singapore led that list, ranked in 26th place, followed by Brunei (33rd), Malaysia (61st), Thailand (103rd) and the Philippines (112nd).
Gadjah Mada University economist Revrisond Baswir said that the HDI considered economic development and the quality of human resources, which were directly related to quality education and healthcare.
The poor showing meant that Indonesia’s economic marvels have not improved the people’s welfare, he said.
“Improving economic growth does not necessarily improve the index. We should work on quality development that encompasses quality human-resource building,” Revrisond said on Thursday.
However, Indonesia’s population was the largest in ASEAN and its economy was centered in Java, Revrisond said, adding that the government had to plug development gaps in the regions to improve Indonesia’s standing in the index.
“For example, the government should allocate a specific budget to build infrastructure in Kalimantan and improve the agriculture sector because many Indonesian citizens work in that sector,” he said.
Among ASEAN’s other founding member nations, also known as the ASEAN-5, Singapore recorded the fastest economic growth, between 1989 and 2009 (6.73 percent), followed by Malaysia (6.15 percent), Indonesia (5.16 percent), Thailand (5.02 percent) and the Philippines (3.79 percent).
Indonesia has been ranked at the bottom of the ASEAN-5 nations since the survey started in 1980.
Separately, climate change and environment degradation were major threats to development, according to the UNDP-sponsored report Sustainability and Equity: A Better Future for All that was released on Wednesday.
“Environmental sustainability can be most fairly and effectively achieved by addressing health, education, income, and gender disparities together with the need for global action on energy production and ecosystem protection,” the report said.
Indonesia’s HDI improved to 0.617 from 0.613 in 2010, although its ranking dropped from 108 last year to 124 in 2011.
Several Indonesian initiatives highlighted in the 2011 HDI report include a cash transfer scheme developed in late 2005 that targeted 28 percent of the population comprised of poor and near-poor households, and Indonesia’s pledge to cut emission by 25 percent by 2025.
However, the report also noted other concerns, such as inadequate water supplies and unimproved sanitation that could create an even broader array of problems and the loss of fertile topsoil that could lead to low food production, rising food prices and poverty.
Poor sanitation and hygiene has wiped 2.3 percent off of Indonesia’s GDP, according to the report. Loss of fertile topsoil has also reduced land productivity, with estimated yield losses as high as 50 percent in the most adverse scenarios.
Tomi Soetjipto, UNDP’s spokesman for Indonesia, said the nation had made progress despite its drop.
“There are more countries included in this year’s index compared to last year, therefore the drop in the ranking does not reflect a decline in Indonesia’s overall performance,” he said.
This year’s index surveyed 187 countries, up from 169 in 2010.
Tomi said UNDP Indonesia would continue to work with the government to promote human development to achieve the Millennium Development Goals by 2015.
Last year Indonesia was one of 10 countries noted for the most progress over the previous 20 year period by the HDI survey.
Indonesia’s HDI increased by 54 percent between 1980 and 2010 as a result of a leap in life expectancy from 54 to 71 years and a 180 percent increase in per capita income to US$3,957.
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