RI urgently needs to build new social consensus

RI urgently needs to build new social consensus

Kurniawan Hari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

A new social consensus is urgently needed so as to bring about
systematic transformation in Indonesian politics, the economy,
and society amid the prolonged multidimensional crisis that has
led the nation struggling through a difficult transition period,
a minister said on Friday.

State Minister for Development Planning Kwik Kian Gie
underlined the importance of a social consensus, saying the
transition could not be made solely on the basis of a technical,
economic or business approach.

"It requires the building of a new social consensus at the
heart of which lies a socially just way of sharing the costs and
burdens of the economic and political restructuring necessary to
bring about a convincing recovery," Kwik said at the launching of
a report on the Indonesian Human Development Report 2001 here.

The report, the first to ever be produced in Indonesia, was
jointly prepared by the National Development Planning Board
(Bappenas), Central Bureau of Statistics (BPS), and the United
Nations Development Program (UNDP).

Kwik said that a social consensus designed to ensure that
decentralization works in favor of all Indonesians, comprised an
agreement that all Indonesians were entitled to nationally
mandated standards of human development.

They were entitled to be literate, to be healthy and to live
as one nation in peace and security, he said.

Kwik added the preconditions for a revised vision of future
priorities included consolidation of democratic institutions that
were based on citizens' rights.

Because a severe economic crisis is by nature socially
divisive, democracy is needed as the most effective way of
creating an institutional framework for containing disagreement
peacefully.

The report says that the policy of devolving power to the
regions will make government even more complex.

The economic structure which made Indonesia one of East Asia's
"miracle economies" until the 1997 crisis was, in any case,
starting to become outdated, the report says.

Rekindling economic and human development will involve
"stepping up the technology ladder to produce goods that embody
higher levels of productivity" within a stable social and
political environment.

According to the report, Indonesia must put people first with
major investment in education and health care if it wants to
recreate the economic miracle of past decades.

The report demands much greater investment in education,
noting that Indonesia spends only around 1.4 percent of gross
national product compared to a global average of 4.5 percent.
Health spending should also become a priority.

Without a more highly qualified workforce, Indonesia will be
unable to benefit even from the lower level spin-off effects of
higher technology production. And without delivering better
standards of health and other social services, social unrest is
likely to persist.

"Indonesia faces enormous and diverse challenges --
consolidating democracy, addressing regional conflicts and
regenerating the economy," says the report.

"Indonesia now has to pursue human development while deep in
debt, restructuring its economy and coping with a more
competitive and unstable economic environment.

"The key, however, is to recognize how all these issues
connect -- the social, the economic and the political -- and to
bring this recognition to the forefront of public consciousness."

Head of the BPS Soedarti Surbakti, meanwhile, said the report
not only showed the level of human development Indonesia had
attained, but also progresses in democracy, economic growth and
the relationships between these three aspects.

"Although it is said to be the first report, efforts to
compose such an indicator have been underway for a long time,"
Soedarti said.

Commenting on the launching of the report, UNDP Resident
Representative Bo Asplund said that the report was much more than
an advocacy tool. "It contains many insightful policy
suggestions," he said.

He further said a compact on human development had the obvious
potential of contributing to national cohesion while
simultaneously deepening Indonesia's commitment to human
development.