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The Millennium Development Goals, a series of eight time-bound goals to improve lives around the globe, were globally adopted by world leaders following a United Nations summit just over a decade ago.

This year has a particular significance, marking as it does the beginning of the third and final five-year period to achieve the goals by 2015.

Indonesia has much to be proud of — and concerned about.

The country has reduced the poverty rate from the MDG’s 1990 baseline of 15 percent to 13 percent in 2010.

But this is still double the 7.5 percent rate the country has targeted for 2015.

Almost all of our nation’s children — boys and girls — are able to enter primary school.

Yet, the fact is that about a quarter of them do not actually graduate, and that children in rural areas are less likely to enroll and stay in school than their urban peers.

Women’s share in wage employment and political participation has improved, though a lot more needs to be done.

On others goals such as reducing the proportion of underweight children and reducing child mortality, there has been significant progress and the country is on track to achieve the targets by 2015.

On the other hand, very little progress has been made on access to both potable water and proper sanitation.

And although maternal mortality rates have dropped, the country’s rate of 228 per 100,000 live births is still among the highest in Asia.

The problem of HIV and AIDS is quickly spreading among some vulnerable groups and in some remote regions.

Indonesia faces considerable disparities among provinces and districts and across rural and urban areas on many of the targets and indicators.

For instance, the incidence of poverty in Papua and Maluku is more than double the national average, whereas in Jakarta, Bali and South Kalimantan, poverty is less than half the national average.

The extent of rural poverty, at a rate of 16.6 percent, is significantly higher than the 9.9 percent urban poverty.

The poorest 20 percent of the population accounts for less than 10 percent of total consumption, suggesting a worsening income distribution.

Given all this, what needs to be done to cope with all the mixed news?

One solution is to bring the MDGs home and localize them within the Indonesian context. The MDGs are global goals.

But in many ways they can and should be adapted to domestic conditions. In reality, for many of the goals, most of the responsibility lies with the provincial and district authorities.

This is to say that many of the most critical decisions that influence the country’s MDG achievements are made at the local level.

Since the onset of decentralization, local government authorities, particularly at the district and city level, have steadily taken over more of the government’s routine expenditures.

In 2006, for example, provincial and district governments spent a total of 40 percent of all public funds — a level of fiscal decentralization that is among the highest in Asia.

Fiscal decentralization offers the potential to improve the provision of public services and thus to accelerate poverty reduction.

However, a capacity deficit at the local level to plan, budget, implement and monitor pro-poor policies and programs has hindered this potential.

Provinces and districts — and even individual villages and communities — should think about what they can do to accelerate the MDG achievements.

If they are concerned about malnutrition, for example, perhaps the local health centers could ensure they are weighing all the children and checking for any discernible malnutrition trends.

And more important, they could agree on what to do about the problem.

The MDG-based poverty mapping and score-carding, as successfully exercised in many districts in East and West Nusa Tenggara and Southeast Sulawesi, could instrumentally help localize the goals.

Issues related to planning and budgeting can be addressed by these tools.

They can help development planners analyze which communities are most in need and what can be done to address their particular problems.

These simple tools are seen as useful in developing appropriate budgets and providing an opportunity to share and develop plans through open dialogue within communities.

For example, Wakatobi, in Southeast Sulawesi, has aired the entire planning process on local television since 2010.

In using these tools, people can analyze poverty in a more meaningful way to develop plans and budgets that address poverty more accurately and effectively.

Through this analysis, regional development plans and improvements in systems of budgeting and monitoring at the local level can ensure that the needs of the poor and vulnerable are addressed.

As a result, budget allocations for MDG-related sectors have increased by an average of 17 percent, and the share of “direct” development expenditure (versus the “indirect” mainly for administrative expenses) in 2010 averaged 60 percent compared with 48 percent the previous year, leading to the hope that this budget boost will help meet the MDG targets by 2015.

If individual districts or communities start thinking in creative ways and taking their own action, then all this will soon add up.

True, 2015 is only five years away, but we can do a lot in five years.


Abdurrahman Syebubakar is a socio-political observer in Jakarta.