Elly Burhaini Faizal, Jakarta – Government agencies say that several provinces in eastern Indonesia cannot provide basic public services – despite rich natural resources and trillions of rupiah in government assistance.
Although Papua, West Papua, Maluku and East Nusa Tenggara are among 16 provinces that have made significant progress in reducing poverty over the last five years, local administrations have registered slow progress in providing healthcare to residents.
The latest Community Health Development Index (IPKM) named Papua and West Papua as the provinces with the worst performance, based on health-related indicators.
According to the annual report, released on Wednesday by the Health Ministry, at least 50 percent of the regencies and municipalities in 10 provinces, including Papua and West Papua, faced serious public health problems, ranging frowm high levels of malnutrition, higher-than-average child and maternal mortality rates, low immunization rates, higher levels of disease and poor access to clean water, sanitation and trained healthcare workers.
Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said that the provinces faced tough challenges in providing healthcare to residents due to the scale of their social and economic provinces.
"Several provinces, such as Aceh, are affected by conflicts that hamper their development; while some provinces in the eastern part of the country are disaster-prone areas," Endang told reporters at a press conference at the Health Ministry to deliver reports on healthcare improvements for 2011.
The 10 provinces identified as lagging in healthcare were East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), Gorontalo, Maluku, Aceh, North Maluku, Papua, Southeast Sulawesi, West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), West Sulawesi, and West Papua.
In Papua and West Papua, the areas of Mappi, Asmat, Yahukimo, Paniai, Puncak Jaya and Pegunungan Bintang scored dismally on the IPKM's healthcare ranking.
According to a report from the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), Papua, West Papua, West Nusa Tenggara, East Nusa Tenggara, Aceh were regions with high numbers of poor people.
Papua was ranked the nation's poorest province by Bappenas, with 32 percent of its residents considered "poor", far above the national poverty rate of 12.49 percent.
West Papua was second with 31.9 percent and Maluku was in third place with 23 percent. Jakarta was the nation's wealthiest province, with only 3.7 percent of its population considered poor.
The resort island of Bali also fared well, with 4.2 percent of its residents living in poverty, according to the report.
Papua, however, remains poor – despite the fact that it is awash in cash. Despite experts who claimed that Papua's special autonomy funds were "unproductive" in improving the welfare of local residents, the government recently approved a 23 percent increase in the funds.
In the 2012 state budget, West Papua is slated to receive Rp 1.64 trillion (US$186.96 million), up significantly from Rp 1.33 trillion in 2011, while Papua will get Rp 3.8 trillion, up from Rp 3.1 trillion.
The reports also showed a disparity between the western and eastern parts of the nation.
In a report released last year, the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) said that Java was home to 57 percent of the economy, with scant signs of a shift to other regions, despite President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono's repeated pledges to shrink the developmental gap between the provinces.
As of the third quarter of 2011, Java and Sumatra together comprised 81.3 percent of the nation's gross domestic product (GDP).
The agency also reported a slight GDP shift in favor of Sumatra and Kalimantan, which experienced booms in crude palm oil (CPO) and coal production in recent years. Indonesia is the world's largest exporter of both commodities.
Sumatra's share of GDP grew to 23.6 percent, up from 23.1 percent in 2010, according to the BPS, while Kalimantan's share increased to 9.5 percent, up from 9.2 percent.
With Java responsible for the lion's share of Indonesia's GDP, it is no surprise that talented people from the other regions flock to the island, which is now home to 58 percent of the country's 237 million people.
The island is now one of the world's most densely populated areas. Many poor people from as far as Maluku and East Nusa Tenggara – among the nation's most underdeveloped provinces – are also coming to Java in droves.
Analysts have also said that the nation's developmental discrepancies contributed to conflicts in Papua and other regions in eastern Indonesia, where the poverty rate remains high, despite huge amounts of natural resources.