3 results
9 - COVID-19 and Health Systems Challenges of non-Communicable Diseases
- Edited by Blane D. Lewis, Firman Witoelar
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- Book:
- Economic Dimensions of Covid-19 in Indonesia
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 09 October 2021
- Print publication:
- 17 March 2021, pp 150-169
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Summary
Abstract
Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Indonesia's health system was already facing some daunting challenges: the increasing burden of non-communicable diseases (NCDs), including mental disorders, that threatens to drain the financial sustainability of the universal health system, and the persistent problems of maternal health, and infectious and nutritional diseases. Health and economic costs of NCDs from labour supply and productivity loss are likely to be high and increasing. This chapter discusses the channels through which the COVID-19 pandemic may have medium- and long-term impacts on NCDs and their risk factors. The immediate and long-term effects of the disruption of services, the ‘long-haul’ effects and the effects on mental health may further increase the burden that NCDs place on the Indonesian health system. Indirect effects through income loss and job loss, and long-term tolls on health workers, present challenges for those with NCDs to access services. The effects of the pandemic on NCDs are likely to be heterogeneous across socioeconomic gradients and may exacerbate the existing health inequities.
Introduction
At the end of August 2020, Indonesia was in the midst of a health crisis, with the COVID-19 pandemic showing no clear sign of slowing down. Official figures reported the number of positive cases had surpassed 120,000, with more than 7400 confirmed deaths. Several key economic indicators have also shown that the crisis has hit the economy in full force. By the first quarter of 2020, gross domestic product (GDP) growth had slowed markedly, and official poverty numbers had risen from 9.2 per cent in September 2019 to 9.8 per cent in March 2020 (Olivia et al. 2020). A number of non-representative rapid surveys have suggested that the employment shocks have been severe (Windya 2020; Purnamasari and Sjahrir 2020).
But the pandemic was first and foremost a health crisis. It has challenged the resilience of health systems in countries around the world, including Indonesia. By many accounts, the Indonesian government's immediate health response in dealing with the pandemic has been inadequate (Djalante et al. 2020; Olivia et al. 2020). The delayed response, lack of data transparency and logistical bottlenecks surrounding protective equipment and testing plagued the initial response and continued to be a problem even until August 2020.
16 - The Yudhoyono legacy on jobs, poverty and income distribution: a mixed record
- from PART 4 THE ECONOMY AND SOCIAL POLICIES
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- By Chris Manning, Australian National University, Canberra, Riyana Miranti, University of Canberra, Canberra
- Edited by Edward Aspinall, Marcus Mietzner, Dirk Tomsa
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- Book:
- The Yudhoyono Presidency
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 19 May 2017
- Print publication:
- 13 May 2015, pp 303-324
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Summary
Outcomes in the general area of job creation, poverty and income distribution were ambiguous during the Yudhoyono years. Jobs growth flip-flopped between rapid expansion of informal jobs in President Yudhoyono's first term, and then of formal employment during the resources boom in his second term. On the positive side, rates of poverty declined almost continuously throughout his period in office, and policy in this area was one of the big achievements of his presidency. But these improvements for the poor were not reflected in a better distribution of income. In fact, inequality worsened strikingly during Yudhoyono's second term of government.
Although strong and sustainable jobs growth can be associated with both declining poverty and improvements in income distribution, in Southeast Asia rapid economic growth has quite often been associated with rising inequality (Booth 1999). Indonesia appeared to be the exception during the Suharto period but there are good reasons to expect that this may not be the case now. While poverty alleviation is widely accepted as a legitimate focus of government policy, middle-class interests have more influence in a democratic polity, and these will not always favour rapid employment growth or more equitable fiscal arrangements. Moreover, organised labour did not support policies that could have achieved a more rapid expansion of blue-collar jobs in Indonesia in the early reformasi period, and subsidised energy and other fiscal arrangements have mainly benefited the better-off, facilitating growing inequality (Manning 2010; Dartanto 2013).
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono projected a greater concern for and a deeper knowledge of policy alternatives in areas affecting the welfare of the poor than any of Indonesia's first three reformasi presidents, B.J. Habibie, Abdurrahman Wahid and Megawati Sukarnoputri.1 This chapter will show that he oversaw considerable progress in social programs oriented towards overcoming poverty, and that he personally supported some major innovations in this field. At the same time, the president's extreme caution in policy-making in areas affecting the poor, his aversion to conflict and his need to take political calculations into account all meant that his government avoided making some difficult decisions that could have benefited lower-income groups much more.
5 - Regional Patterns of Poverty: Why Do Some Provinces Perform Better than Others?
- from PART 1 - Economic Transformation and Trends in Poverty: National and International Experience
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- By Riyana Miranti, University of Canberra, Canberra
- Edited by Chris Manning, Sudarno Sumarto
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- Book:
- Employment, Living Standards and Poverty in Contemporary Indonesia
- Published by:
- ISEAS–Yusof Ishak Institute
- Published online:
- 21 October 2015
- Print publication:
- 30 May 2011, pp 90-110
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Summary
Indonesia's falling absolute poverty rates have been very impressive, particularly in the period before the Asian financial crisis in 1997–98. There was a significant reduction in the proportion of the population below the poverty line, from 40.1 per cent in 1976 to 11.3 per cent just before the crisis in 1996. This dramatic decline occurred in both urban and rural areas. But although the record has been impressive nationally, the regional statistics reveal a more varied picture of stubbornly high poverty rates in some areas but low rates in others. In 2009, for example, the poverty rate for the national capital, Jakarta, was about one-eighth that in Papua and one-sixth that in East Nusa Tenggara. The gap between South Kalimantan and Bali, both low-poverty provinces, and Papua, Aceh, and East and West Nusa Tenggara, all high-poverty provinces, was almost as large.
What determines the differences in both levels of poverty and rates of change in poverty across the archipelago? We would expect poverty rates to be closely related to levels of regional development, given the differences in resource endowments across regions and the persistence of socio-economic differences over time (Hill 1989). But at the same time, we would expect a tendency towards convergence in poverty rates over time as capital moves into and labour out of the poorer, low-wage provinces and districts.
This chapter discusses regional disparities in poverty rates and attempts to link them with socio-economic or development indicators known to be associated with poverty. It relies heavily on the regional poverty data for 1984–2002 presented in Miranti (2007). Most of the data discussed in this study therefore relate to the period before decentralisation was implemented in 2001. The development indicators used in the chapter are income, human capital and infrastructure. Knowing which indicators matter most for poverty in particular regions should help policy makers propose more suitable poverty alleviation strategies.
In discussing the relationship between regional poverty rates and development indicators, initial conditions in each region can be expected to play an important role. In addition to discussing those initial conditions – in this case, referring to the situation in 1984 – this chapter describes the state of development in 2002 and, briefly, in 2009. The 2009 data show that decentralisation has advanced development in most provinces since 2002, the end year of the analysis in Miranti (2007).