Jakarta – Indonesia has raised its Human Development Index (HDI) ranking through improvements in a number of key sectors, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) announced Tuesday.
The Human Development Report for 2007/2008, Fighting Climate Change: Human Solidarity in a Divided World ranks Indonesia 107th out of 177 countries, with its overall index rising from 0.711 to 0.728 this year.
"The HDI report looks back at a measure of health, education and income... the standard of living among 177 countries and Indonesia is number 107 this year, one step further than last year," Hakan Bjorkman, UNDP country director for Indonesia, said.
"The change is related to other countries which are improving more. But, slowly, slowly, Indonesia is improving in these areas, but maybe not fast enough," he told The Jakarta Post upon the launch of the Human Development Report.
"The improvement is not as fast as in Vietnam, but Cambodia and Myanmar are much slower than Indonesia," he added.
In the key sectors of life expectancy at birth and gross domestic product per capita, Indonesia rose respectively from 67.2 to 69.7 and from US$3,609 to $3,843.
This year, the UNDP especially focused its report on climate change issues in the lead-up to the global climate change conference in Bali in December.
"Since 1990 we have published the annual Human Development Report, but this year's report differs from last year's in that it is not from a narrow economic point of view, but from the climate change point of view," said Bjorkman.
"This report is a good reference for climate change issues." he added. "The impact will be serious on the poor countries. If we don't do the right things right now, climate change will sabotage the Millennium Development (Goals)," said Bjorkman.
Bjorkman also said that most of the climate change has been caused by carbon emissions in developed countries over the past hundred years. "As a good example of global solidarity between rich and poor countries, it's a big responsibility for rich countries to support the countries that are most affected, which are the poor countries, in terms of mitigating, fighting climate change or transplanting technology," Bjorkman said.
Indonesia should also be able to rely on international support. At a Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) in 2001, governments established some funding mechanisms, including the Special Climate Change Fund to support adaptation activities and to improve monitoring of diseases, early warning systems and responses, disaster planning and preparedness for droughts and floods. (rff)