Children
in Indonesia can experience vastly different realities.
Imagine a
Jakarta boy named Budi, just born in the Bantar Gebang slum. With a healthy
start in life, he could reach age 5 in 2020 and be a successful high school
student by 2030.
Grace, a young girl from rural Papua would be turning 13 today
and coming of age with a high school diploma in 2020. She could head a green
technology start-up by 2030 on her way to becoming one of the leaders of her
country.
This can
be the future of a growing number of children in a prosperous 2030 high-income
Indonesia. This reality can endow Indonesia with its future teachers,
entrepreneurs, doctors, social workers, engineers, CEOs and religious leaders.
Both born
to poor parents, they actually may have low chances of evading poverty. Today,
14 million Indonesian children live under the national poverty line of around
Rp 10,000 ( 75 US cents ) per day and some 48 million live with less than Rp
20,000 per day limiting their opportunities of becoming healthy, educated,
happy and successful citizens.
Budi
faces a one in 25 chance of dying before age 5, and a one in three chance of
becoming stunted which will affect his brain capacity, future skills and
earning prospects. Grace has a 1 in 6 change of being married before age 18 to
then drop out of school and become a child bride and mother.
Both
children’s exposure to poverty, malnutrition, poor health, low quality
education, and violence have costs to their bodies, brains, and to Indonesia’s
economy now, and in the future.
These
costs are staggering. An estimated 2 to 3 percent of the East Asia and Pacific
region’s GDP is lost every year to violence against children and 1.7 percent of
GDP to child marriage in Indonesia, according to the latest research by UNICEF
and academic experts. In a context of increasing inequalities, all these
drivers also increase the risks of disenfranchisement and social detachment
that could threaten the stability of the Indonesian society. But these numbers
can be turned around. It is proven that placing children front and center is a
smart investment in a country’s economic growth, which yields high rates of
return.
The
government has forged a new pathway to prosperity by integrating the
Sustainable Development Goals ( SDGs ) in the National Medium-Term Strategic
Plan 2015-2019.
This plan
invokes the new international goals for the people and the planet — that all
countries have pledged to achieve by 2030. The government is now working to
draft a new presidential decree outlining steps to “localize” these promises,
including critical indicators for measuring success.
Opportunities
to implement such a decree with real budgetary allocations exist, for example
through the village funds. These are managed by the Villages, Disadvantaged
Regions and Transmigration Ministry. Platforms to engage civil society,
academia and the private sector are being put in place to monitor
accountability and progress to achieve the SDGs.
Children
must be at the heart of these bold reforms. Age and gender disaggregated data
should be routinely collected on each of the SDG indicators, for example.
Children’s views must be solicited in reporting against targets through
participatory mechanisms. And no indicator can be forgotten.
At least
50 of the SDG indicators directly impact on children and they must be reflected
in national and local planning in their entirety.
There
must be no poverty, no child out of school and no family without clean water or
quality health services. When the world takes stock of progress towards the
SDGs in 2030, Indonesia’s advances will be significant. With the growth of its
population and its economy, Indonesia’s progress will also move the needle
regionally and globally.
Equipped
with an ambitious roadmap for children, Indonesia’s footprint will matter even
more for global progress towards the international goals. It could position
Indonesia as the global powerhouse for change China was for the Millennium
Development Goals. Budi, Grace and millions of children depend on it.
Gunilla
Olsson
The writer is Representative of UN Children’s
Emergency Fund ( UNICEF ) Indonesia.
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