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which made Indonesia one of East Asia's "miracle economies" until the 1997 crisis was, in any case, starting to become outdated, the report says.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