Download the Indonesia Human Development Report 2004. - UNDP

The human development approach brings together theproduction and distribution of commodities and theexpansion as well as the use of human capabilities. Itanalyses all issues in society – whether economic growth,trade, employment, political freedom or cultural values –from the perspective of people. It also encompasses thecritical issue of gender. Human development is thus notmerely the concern of the social sector. It is acomprehensive approach to all sectors.Human development has four major elements –productivity, equity, sustainability and empowerment (Box1). Through enhanced capabilities, the creativity andproductivity of people must be increased so that theybecome effective agents of growth. Economic growthmust be combined with equitable distribution of itsbenefits. Equitable opportunities must be available to bothpresent and to future generations. And all people, womenand men, must be empowered to participate in the designand implementation of key decisions that shape their lives.Human development goes beyond economic growth,but it is not anti-growth. From a human developmentperspective, economic growth is not an end in itself. Ratheris a means to an end – enlarging people’s choices. Thereis, however, no automatic link between income growthand human progress. In the short run, even in the absenceof satisfactory economic growth, countries can achievesignificant improvements in human development throughwell-structured public expenditure. However, it is wrongto suggest that economic growth is unnecessary forhuman development. In the long run, no sustainedimprovement is possible without growth. iHuman development concerns are not merely focusedon the rate of growth but also on its distribution. Thus, theissue is not only how much economic growth, but also whatkind of growth. More attention should be directed to thestructure and quality of that growth – to ensure that it isdirected to supporting the improvement of human well beingfor both present and future generations. The mainpreoccupation of development policies then should be howsuch a link can be created and reinforced.Translating the human development concept intopolicyThe incorporation of the human development conceptinto development policies does not necessarily lead to acomplete departure from earlier development strategiesthat aimed at, among others, accelerating economicgrowth, reducing absolute poverty and preventing adeterioration in the physical environment. The difference,from the human development standpoint, lies in theclustering of all the previous objectives around the centralgoal of enlarging human choices.From time to time, the HDRs have made strong policyrecommendations for both international and national agendas.The primary aim of the global proposals is to contribute to anew paradigm of sustainable human development that isbased on a new concept of human security, a new partnershipof developed and developing countries, new forms ofinternational cooperation and a new global compact.Meanwhile, the national proposals have focused on thecentrality of people in the development process, on the needfor a new partnership between the state and the market andon new forms of alliance between governments, institutionsof civil society, communities and people.The human development approach also has tremendouspotential for analysing situations and policies at the nationallevel. By 1999 – ten years after the publication of the firstHDR – more than 260 national and sub-national humandevelopment reports had been produced in 120 countries.In each country these served to bring together thefacts, influence national policy, and mobilize action. The1998 South Africa human development report, forexample, provided information on how the fast-spreadingHIV epidemics will affect human development. In India,due to its high level of regional disparities, UNDP Indiahas supported the preparation of human developmentreports by state governments.The human development concept has also caught theattention of Indonesia’s policy makers. Compared to thetraditional economic approach that primarily focuses onincreasing production and productivity, the humandevelopment approach has a closer association to theprimary objective of developing every aspect of humanityor “pembangunan manusia seutuhnya” as stated in the1993 state guidelines (GBHN). The human developmentindex also offers a more reliable and comprehensivemeasure of development progress than the single measureof growth in per capita GDP.Several attempts have been made to introduce thehuman development concept and to apply this approachto Indonesia’s development process. The first step wasto make the data set available. In 1996, the IndonesianCentral Bureau of Statistics (BPS) published the 1990 and1993 human development indices for the provincial levels,followed in 1997 by a release of the 1996 index, and thiswas continued with the 2001 publication. This interprovincialcomparison attracted a lot of attention,particularly from the high-growth provinces that happenedto rank low in human development. This controversy,however, successfully triggered greater regional awarenessof the weaknesses of the traditional economic approachto development and has focused regional attention onpeople-centred development.In 1997, to promote the adoption of the humandevelopment approach into the regional planning process,the Indonesian Government – i.e. the Directorate Generalof Regional Planning, the Ministry of Home Affairs andBPS – with the support of UNDP Indonesia initiated apilot programme that covered 9 provinces and 18 districtsiThe correlation between economic growth and human development was intensively explored in the series of HDRs since its first publication in 1990. The 1996 HDR, inparticular, is primarily focused on the discussion of this issueNational Human Development Report 2004 71