By: Yasin Diasmoro *
During the 4 years of President Joko Widodo’s and Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s reigns, Indonesia turned into a country with a fairly rapid development and began to be taken into account in the eyes of the international community. The Nawacita program initiated by President Jokowi succeeded in improving the national economy and impacting the growing prosperity of the Indonesian people. Equitable equality which is the government’s priority as a response to poverty and social inequality has begun to materialize.
If viewed from a macro perspective, there is a drastic achievement in the field of Human Development Index (HDI), which includes the education, health and welfare sectors, the Gini Index, and the Government’s Social Assistance Program. During the four years of President Joko Widodo’s and Vice President Jusuf Kalla’s Government, the People’s Welfare Index increased. Based on data in 2018, Indonesia’s HDI continues to increase, from 68.9 in 2014 to 70.1 in 2017. With this achievement, for the first time Indonesia has become a country with the category of High Human Development. Development equality efforts have also shown results with growth of more than 2% in 2018, especially in disadvantaged areas.
The education sector noted, Kartu Indonesia Pintar (KIP) has been distributed precisely to more than 17.9 million students. The government has rehabilitated 67,253 study rooms, building 1,250 new school units and 27,982 new classroom units. For the health sector, it is known that 1,643 puskesmas units have been accredited in 2018. In the sector of public purchasing power, increased welfare occurs along with the increase in people’s purchasing power from the bottom 40% of society.
For four years, the Government was able to reduce poverty, down from around 11.25% at the start of the Government to 10.64% in 2018. In terms of percentage, the poor population by region began to shrink. This success was achieved by increasing the scope of social assistance programs, improving the accuracy of program targets through better utilization of PBDT data. The government also managed to reduce the income inequality of the people. The Gini coefficient fell from 0.414 in September 2014 to 0.393 in 2017 and continued to decline to 0.393 in 2018.
In the Rice for Prosperous People (Rastra) Program it is known that the capacity of short-term consumption expenditure for the poor is supported by the Rastra and BPNT programs that reach more than 15.5 million beneficiary families. Whereas the fulfillment of basic housing needs underpinned by the housing access program includes facilitation of improving the quality of inadequate housing which has increased from around 64,489 housing units (2015) to 108,000 housing units (2018).
For village development issues, as many as 32,711 clean water units, 21,357 PAUD, 13,937 integrated service post units, and 6,041 village maternity hospitals have been built. The Community Empowerment Program carried out by the government, namely increasing the Bidik Misi scholarship recipients continues to increase to 340 thousand students (2017), revitalizing vocational education, where since 2015, the orientation of Vocational Schools has been changed to demand-driven. The curriculum and syllabus have also been harmonized according to the needs of the manufacturing industry and the preparation of learning modules for 25 competency skills.
The government has also certified 395,394 workers and built 22 science and technology parks until 2018. As for village development, the government has built 21,811 BUMDes units. Regarding children, the number of child-worthy districts / cities has risen to 342. This number has increased from 2014 which only amounted to 307. The government also ensures that there are 30,000 elderly people, 16,290 street children, and 22,500 severely disabled people.
President Jokowi’s government has shown very good performance in the economic field, especially those oriented to social welfare, economic justice and price stability. Much of the government’s success has succeeded in bringing progress to Indonesia. The community is greatly helped by Nawacita programs that are just and Indonesian centric. So, it is not surprising if the public appreciates President Jokowi’s performance and asks to continue his leadership.
*) Student of Diponegoro University