PRIORITISING HUMAN CAPITAL DEVELOPMENT
The proposals mainly address one key challenge: That Indonesia’s demographic bonus will soon end, which justifies the prioritising of the development of human capital.
Human capital development is seen as the key to escape from Indonesia’s middle-income trap. There are at least five critical development issues facing Indonesia: Health, education, social protection, research and innovation, and job creation.
On health, Team AMIN’s plans include creating non-discriminatory, reliable and efficient health services; universal health coverage; and mental health services. Team Ganjar-Mahfud summarises its plan as “One village, one primary health service, one doctor”.
Team Prabowo-Gibran has seven proposals, mostly continuing Jokowi’s initiatives with one addition: Health insurance for the elderly and a populist “free milk and free lunch for pupils” flagship programme.
For childhood stunting, Team AMIN aspires to reduce its prevalence to 11 to 12.5 per cent, which is quite realistic. Team Ganjar-Mahfud ambitiously hopes for below nine per cent, while Team Prabowo-Gibran targets 80 million beneficiaries for their stunting prevention programme. Currently, the prevalence of stunting in Indonesia is 21.6 per cent, with 14 per cent as the target for 2024.
On education, Mr Baswedan’s background as an academic and a former minister of education likely explains his team’s 37 detailed priorities. These far outnumber Team Ganjar-Mahfud’s five and Team Prabowo-Gibran’s six points but in terms of substance, they do not differ much.
The proposals focus on free education services including the expansion of scholarships and education funds, improving teacher quality and welfare, and revisiting the national curriculum.
On social protection, all, especially Team Prabowo-Gibran, seem eager to continue but to expand and improve on what Mr Widodo has started. Team Prabowo-Gibran believes it can push the poverty rate to below six per cent and extreme poverty to zero in the first two years if elected, which Jokowi has not achieved.
Team AMIN aims to cut poverty to 4 to 5 per cent, while Team Ganjar-Mahfud targets an ambitious 2.5 per cent through increasing recipients for cash transfers to 15 million families. However, these bolder targets will remain empty promises without the improved delivery of services.
On research and innovation, Team Prabowo-Gibran aims for the highest research and development (R&D) spending at 1.5 to 2 per cent of GDP by 2029 against Ganjar-Mahfud’s 1 per cent and AMIN’s 0.4 to 0.6 per cent.
Assuming Indonesia’s GDP could reach US$3.32 trillion by 2029, all three pairs’ R&D targets lie within a range of US$13.3 billion to $66.5 billion (between five to 23 times the 2021 figure). Team Prabowo-Gibran provides no details while the other two pairs will rely on incentivising the private sector.
Finally, all three teams promise to provide more jobs. Team Prabowo-Gibran again lacks clear explanations of how they will achieve this, while Team Ganjar-Mahfud aims to launch 17 million new jobs, including through MSMEs and start-ups. Team AMIN targets 15 million jobs, to reduce unemployment to 3.5 to 4 per cent.
Source: CNA
