Sulawesi - GIS

The increase in the HDI corresponds to improvements in most social indicators. Average adult literacy, for example, continues to rise in response to the increase in school enrolment: by 2002, 89.5% of the population aged 15 or over could read and write. North Sulawesi shows the fastest improvement and has the highest score in the island with 98.8% (up from 97.2% in 1999) while South Sulawesi is slowest with 83.5% (up from 83.2%).

Other indicators have also registered progress. Thus the infant mortality rate continues to fall. North Sulawesi is most fortunate, with an infant mortality rate of 25.2 per 1000 while Central Sulawesi has most deaths (57.8 per 1000). Birth delivery assisted by medical personnel is also highest in North Sulawesi (85.2%) while it is lowest (34%) in South-East Sulawesi.

Average child malnutrition has also declined - from 35% in 1996 to 27% in 2002, but terrible figures can still be found in Gorontalo (42%) while North Sulawesi remains best off (improving from 25,8% to 21,9%). Unfortunately this late June 2005 malnutrition case is found in South Sulawesi and South-East Sulawesi

Improvement in the HDI has been accompanied by reductions in poverty. Between 1999 and 2002 the proportion of people living in income poverty fell from 23% to 18%. Unfortunately, Sulawesi is still an area where the distribution of poverty is highly concentrated, along with Java (highest in central and east Java), Lamung and most of the eastern Islands. Deprivation can also be found sporadically in some areas such as southern, south-eastern and western Sulawesi.

Disparities between poor and better-off districts in Sulawesi vary. There is a similar phenomenon in some islands, where the poverty distribution gap is huge within districts, but not between regions. In Sulawesi only 2% of urban areas have high poverty rates, as opposed to more than 14% of villages.

In term of per capita GRDP in 2002, Central Sulawesi [GRDP=2,053] grabs the highest rank (ranking 12 among other regions in Indonesia), followed by North Sulawesi [1,695] (rank 17), South Sulawesi [1,340] (rank 21), Gorontalo [1,117] (rank 25) and last South-East Sulawesi [948] (rank 29). Meanwhile in terms of HDI, North Sulawesi has the highest score [1,695) (ranking 17 among other regions in Indonesia) and South-East Sulawesi again has the lowest rank of 29 [948].

These facts show us that rich regions do not automatically achieve overall prosperity. The HDI reveals this by showing the overall non-economic performance of a country (or region) in three basic dimensions of human development: longevity, knowledge and a decent standard of living. It is measured by life expectancy, educational attainment and adjusted income.

Improvement in HDI also reflects progress for the population as a whole. And the poorest have also benefited from this progress to some extent. Ranked by the poverty index, once again North Sulawesi comes off best, improving almost 5 points from rank 5 (1999) [HPI=22.7] to 4 (2002) [17.8, lower is better], while South-East Sulawesi shows a sad decline with rank 20 (from 6) [falling to 25.8 from 22.9). Meanwhile Gorontalo, as the youngest region when these statistics were compiled was at rank 29 with an HPI of 32.4. At this compilation, the average score for Indonesia was 22.7 and the best score was 13.2 for DKI Jaya.

The figures revealing this sad situation and the high gap are certainly not good news for Sulawesi whose land is so rich and whose people deserve better than what they have now.

References:

BPS-Statistics Indonesia et al., “Human Development in Indonesia: the Economic Arithmetic of Democracy”, Jakarta: UNSFIR, 2004

BPS-Statistics Indonesia et al., “The Economics of Democracy: financing human development in Indonesia”, Jakarta: BPS-Statistics Indonesia, Bappenas and UNDP Indonesia, 2004

Suryahadi, Asep et al., Developing a Poverty Map for Indonesia (A Tool for Better Targeting in Poverty Reduction and Social Protection Programs) Book1: Technical Report, Jakarta, SMERU, February 2005

This entry was posted on Monday, July 04, 2005 at 4:22 AM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.