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to meet the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). Therights approach is also particularly appropriate for supportingIndonesia’s radical process of decentralization: at the nationallevel much of the debate about economic and social rightshas to be pitched in a general way, but at the local level therecan be a much more dynamic interaction between providersof services and users. So while the central government canmandate minimum service standards the achievement of thesestandards can best be monitored at the local level.Counting the costWhat would it take to fulfil these rights and in particularto ensure that everyone received essential health care, had agood basic education, had enough to eat, and felt safe andsecure?HealthGood health is the outcome of many different factors,including poverty, environmental circumstances, and mattersof personal behaviour. But it also depends on the availabilityof effective health services, particularly at the communitylevel. Nowadays the public health network is extensive andwell distributed across the country, however the quality isoften low – one of the reasons why many people opt forprivate care.Costing the required state investment in health is difficultsince funds could usefully be directed to many different areas– from building better infrastructure for water and sanitation,to improving the environment, to limiting vector-bornediseases. Funds could also be productively invested in healtheducation – both for preventive measures and also toencourage better ‘health-seeking behaviour’ so that peoplemade the right choices when faced with health problems.Probably the simplest way to estimate the costs is toconcentrate on the health needs of the poor. The World Bankhas estimated that a basic health package for everyone in thecountry would cost Rp. 10.7 trillion. However this does notinclude hospital or in-patient care. The Ministry of Healthhas therefore made a proposal for extra funds to cover this inthe form of a ‘poverty health grant’ which could be distributedto districts on the basis of their individual needs. This wouldadd Rp. 2.9 trillion, making a total of Rp. 13.6 trillion. Currentexpenditure on primary care is Rp. 8.4 trillion suggesting thatthe required increase to guarantee basic health rights is Rp.5.2 trillion.EducationThe best estimates of what it would cost to fulfil the rightsto basic education have been produced by the Ministry ofNational Education in its National Plan of Action: Indonesia’sEducation for All. This report estimates what it would take tooffer equal access for all boys and girls to high qualityeducation. This concludes that the annual ‘ideal’ expenditureper pupil should be Rp 1.17 million at the primary level andRp. 2.28 million at the junior secondary level. On this basis, tofulfil the right to basic education would require an increasefrom Rp. 33 trillion to Rp 58 trillion. This may seem a dramaticrise but in fact Indonesia’s Constitution already commits thecountry to spending more than this.Poverty and the right to foodThe cost of guaranteeing food security can be estimatedfrom the numbers of those living in poverty. Someone isconsidered as living below the poverty line if they do nothave sufficient resources to consume 2,100 calories per dayand also to purchase essential non-food items such as clothingand shelter. In 2002 to afford the basic minimum foodrequirement they would have needed Rp. 82,328 per personper month while for the non-food items they would haveneeded Rp. 28,957. Since both food and non-food items areconsidered essential, effectively everyone who falls belowthis poverty line is food insecure – 18% of the population, 38million people.The most direct way to eliminate poverty now would be togive the poor sufficient funds to purchase both food andessential non-food items. This would cost around Rp. 8.4trillion. However, if the health and education investmentsindicated above had been made, this in itself would havealready reduced poverty by reducing the cost of the nonfooditems. One way of accounting for this would be toguarantee food security only to the 4.4% of the populationwho fall below the Rp. 82,328 food poverty line. The totalannual cost of distributing food to this group would be Rp.3.68 trillion. This is Rp. 1.09 trillion less than the existing Raskinfood subsidy programme, largely because it aims to cover asmaller group of people.Physical securityImproving physical security would demand wide-rangingreforms – in the justice system and in the police force. If theaim were to improve the quality and effectiveness of policingin addition to better training and supervision this would requireadequate numbers of police personnel who were sufficientlywell paid that they did not resort so readily to corruption.How much would it cost to offer more reasonable policesalaries? Currently the annual budget for the police is Rp. 7.5trillion. Setting the wages according to Malaysian orSingaporean standards, for example, would mean that currentwages would have to be roughly quadrupled, increasing thetotal budget to Rp. 26.7 trillion. This sum would be even largerif there were more police: if the ratio of police to populationwere improved from the current level of 1:798 to the ASEANstandard of 1:400 then the cost would increase to Rp. 53.3trillion. An alternative would be to choose the current ratio inJakarta of one 1:750 and set this as the national target. In thatcase, the estimated annual cost of providing physical securityby increasing police salaries and numbers becomes Rp. 28.4trillion – an increase of Rp. 20.9 trillion.The total costThese estimates for fulfilling rights to food security, tohealth, to education and physical security, can only give ageneral indication of requirements. And it should beemphasized that they largely refer to routine costs rather thanto development or capital costs. Contrary to the conventionalassumption, however, they do show that in both political andfinancial terms meeting these rights should be well withinIndonesia’s reach. The totals are indicated in the table below,suggesting that public expenditure on these sectors wouldneed to increase from 3% of GDP to 6%.National Human Development Report 2004 3