Good is not good enough

Good is not good enough

Indonesia has been making some progress in the human
development front, according to the new Human Development Report
2003. Admittedly, it is not a lot of progress, but it would be
wrong to completely dismiss its significance, especially given
the economic predicaments that we have been in these last five
years.

The report by the UN Development Program says that Indonesia's
Human Development Index, based on 2001 figures, was 0.682 (1.0
being a perfect score and zero the worst). This compares
favorably with Indonesia's score of 0.659 in 1995, and 0.619 in
1990.

Needless to say, the index is an aggregation of many facets of
human development. In poverty eradication and children's health,
Indonesia saw significant progress. In school enrollment and
environmental protection, we saw a reversal of fortune. In
maternal fatality and promoting gender equality, we seem to have
neither progressed nor regressed, according to the report.

The report puts Indonesia 112th of the 175 countries listed,
below all the other Southeast Asian countries except Myanmar,
Cambodia and Laos. Even Vietnam has a higher ranking. Compared
with other large Asian countries, China ranks higher, but India
is below Indonesia. Indonesia's position dropped from 110th in
last year's ranking because of the entry of Bosnia Herzegovina
and Palestine, two countries still mired in violent conflicts.

The report also measures countries in terms of their
performance in fulfilling what the UN calls Millennium
Development Goals. These are lofty and ambitious (but not
unattainable) goals for improving the lot of the people in areas
of poverty, hunger, education, health and the environment,
through concerted global efforts that require the assistance and
benevolence of the wealthier countries. They are measurable goals
with clear schedules, like halving poverty and eliminating
AIDS/HIV, malaria and other major diseases by 2015.

Measured against these goals, Indonesia, like most other large
Asian countries, seems to have done well. Many African countries
are moving further away from the goals that world leaders pledged
to attain during their summit before the turn of the millennium.

But it is hardly time for us to pat ourselves in the back.

For a country that prides itself on being blessed with an
abundance of natural resources, being 112th on the list is not
something to brag about. We are trailing behind many countries
that are not as well-endowed as ours.

This is one of those occasions when we feel that being good is
not good enough. As one UNDP staffer in Jakarta has stated,
"Indonesia is on track, but it needs to do more to achieve the
Millennium Development Goals."

Statistics, being the science of aggregation, hide the real
tragic stories of the millions of individuals who are unfortunate
to be on the bottom rung of development.

The 7 percent of the population who are in abject poverty
(defined as living on less than US$1 a day), for example,
translates into 15 million people. Each of these individuals has
a tragic story to tell about their fate.

The statistics also hide the tragedy of mothers who have lost
their lives after giving birth, of children being deprived of
school because their parents are too poor, girls unable to go to
school because their brothers have priority, of people who are
dying because they have no access to decent and affordable health
care, and of the consequences on our lives because of our own
neglect of the environment.

The challenge for Indonesia, and for its leaders, is so
immense that it would be completely wrong for us to be complacent
at what we have achieved thus far.

The sad reality about Indonesia is that no government official
or politician today is talking about Millennium Development
Goals, or what Indonesia should be doing to achieve them. With
just about every official and politician in the country
concentrating on next year's general election, it appears that
everything in Indonesia will stop in 2004. Even the poverty
eradication program, and the five-yearly National Development
Program (Propenas), both stop at 2004. No one, it seems, is
looking beyond 2004, let alone to 2015 when most of the
Millennium Development Goals should be achieved.