Human concept of growth

Human concept of growth

President Soeharto, in his annual National Day Address to the
House of Representatives, likes to cite not only economic but
also social indicators in relation to the people's welfare. In
his latest address of state, last Wednesday, the President cited
various economic indicators of the impressive achievements of the
nation's economic development over the past 25 years, such as the
increase in the gross domestic product, per-capita income and
progress in various sectors of the economy.

However, his account also detailed progress in the other
aspects of human development, such as life expectancy, school
enrollment, literacy, health and women's participation in the
labor force.

Thus the holistic development paradigm which has been promoted
by the United Nations through its annual Human Development Report
and Human Development Index and by many other multilateral
development agencies is not something new to Indonesia. In fact,
the final goal of Indonesia's national development is based on
the broadest perspective of human development; that is, a just
and materially and spiritually prosperous society. The government
plans to achieve the final goal on the basis of three pillars:
growth, equity and stability.

The formidable task, though, is how to realize the proclaimed
ideal through stages of development which in Indonesia are
divided into five-year development plans. Obviously, as the
development process has reached only the second year of the sixth
five-year development plan, there is still a wide gap between the
long-term ideal and the reality.

Having said that, we do not wish to imply that the process of
development in Indonesia has always been fully on the right path
towards the final goal. As the President himself admitted last
week, mistakes have sometimes occurred. The government, faced
with competing short and medium-term objectives, has sometimes
departed from the path towards the ideal. On occasion it has made
growth the top priority at the expense of equity. At other times,
stability has been given precedence over the other two
principles.

Indeed, it is not so easy to strike a harmonious equilibrium
between the three principles. The fact is that no sustained
improvement in human well-being is possible without economic
growth. However, high economic growth rates do not automatically
translate into higher levels of human development.

The 50th anniversary of our national independence is a good
opportunity, not only to revise upwards the targets of our sixth
five-year development plan, but also to plan more concerted
efforts towards achieving a more desirable link between economic
growth and human development.

While the government has made human resource development one
of the top priorities in development programs, its concept has
been more in the terms of human resources as an input of
production and not yet in the broadest perspective that fully
encompasses productivity, equity, sustainability and empowerment.

Human development in the broadest sense requires, not only
large investments in education and health, but also the
achievement of a more equitable distribution of income and assets
and the provision of more social services by the state.

The empowerment of the people, as certain ministers have
pronounced more than once but without clear meaning, means
enabling the people to exercise choices in the political, social
and economic spheres. These are, we think, some of the issues
which need to be mulled over in the process of revising the
targets of the current five-year development plan.