Yemris Fointuna and Elly Burhaini Faizal, Kupang/Jakarta – Women belong to a group which has thus far been frequently sidelined in human resources development in East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), one of the provinces with the lowest human development index (HDI) in Indonesia, an NGO said on Wednesday.
"Out of 2.7 million women in NTT, only 40 percent possess an elementary education. The rest are illiterate or have never attended school at all," Libby Sinlaeloe, coordinator of Women's Home, said in Kupang.
Libby, therefore, urged the government to give special attention to this fact because in difficult situations, like times of food scarcity, women were usually forced to bear the heaviest burden within families, being in charge of household management while, at the same time, helping their husbands earn a living.
Libby made the remarks in response to the recent release of the Human Development Report by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which put Indonesia in 124th place in the HDI out of 187 countries surveyed in 2011, a significant drop from the 108th ranking out of a total 169 countries surveyed last year.
HDI rankings are recalculated annually using the latest internationally comparable data for health, education and income.
Kristo Blasin, a member of the provincial legislative council, urged the regional administration to earmark a larger amount of funding from its regional budget for human resources development.
In Cimahi, West Java, a province with a much better HDI than NTT, the absence of business communities and good marketing schemes have made economic and business development in the city unable to move forward, Antara reported.
Didi Djamhir, a member of the Cimahi Legislative Council, said business communities and marketing schemes were badly needed to help improve the welfare of local businesspeople and lead to an improvement in the local HDI, which was still below ideal levels.
Enny Sri Hartati, director of the Institute for the Development of Economics and Finance Indonesia (Indef), said Tuesday that Indonesia's poor progress in human welfare, comprising health, education and livelihoods, reflected the country's real living conditions.
"Economic growth as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) is just an aggregation of domestic gains resulting from economic activities within Indonesia," she said.
Lawmaker Rieke Dyah Pitaloka said that vibrant economic growth should have been able to deliver easier access to decent jobs. The fact is, it is not in line with reality.
"It's not easy for people to obtain good schooling and health services. Although they can find jobs, whether they can get proper access to education and health remains an important question. As a result, many Indonesians go abroad to work as domestic workers to earn enough money to send their children to school. It's appalling," she said.