In 2021, the Indonesia economy has bounced back to almost at the condition before the COVID-19 pandemic. Confdence, in general, has been strong among Indonesians with the aim to rebuild the country better. Growth is expected to accelerate to escape the middle-income trap before 2045 and, at the same time, to transform to green economy. It has been argued, nevertheless, that, to achieve these goals, Indonesia needs to improve its qualities of institutions and human capital. This book is intended to discuss these issues as well as how they influence Indonesia’s development.

The book focuses on the impact of the 1997-99 economic crisis on human development in Indonesia, especially in 1998, its worst year. Based on the definition used by the UNDP, human development is analysed as covering human capital (education and health) and purchasing power. In this book, the concept of human capital is broadened to include freedom from fear, health, education, and migration. The first part of the book discusses the economic situation in Indonesia. The second elaborates on what happened to human capital during the crisis and the third part examines its effects on purchasing power. Because human development does not occur in a vacuum, the fourth part discusses some emerging issues in Indonesia. The book concludes with some thoughts on people-centred development, which may contribute to more sustainable development than the development concept that simply pursues high economic growth. With this people-centred development, growth rates of about 3 to 4 per cent are adequate, as long as Indonesia achieves success in human development.

It pays for poor households to participate actively in local associations. At low incomes, the returns to social capital are higher than returns to human capital. At higher incomes, the reverse is true.

This edited volume examines how forces of globalization, demographic and technological change are manifested and accommodated in an emerging economy such as Indonesia, which has a large workforce pool. Using the human resource development framework, the book explains the opportunities and challenges in developing human capabilities to support current and future living standards. It looks at human development challenges across the spectrum of workforce skills and across the spectrum of formal and informal labour markets. Through the case study on Indonesia, this book presents many of the features and issues that are present in emerging economies as they grapple with human resource development in the globalized and networked era. This book will appeal to researchers and policy makers working in the areas of human resource and economic development.

Human capital—the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate over their lives—is a central driver of sustainable growth, poverty reduction, and successful societies. More human capital is associated with higher earnings for people, higher income for countries, and stronger cohesion in societies. Much of the hard-won human capital gains in many economies over the past decade is at risk of being eroded by the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic. Urgent action is needed to protect these advances, particularly among the poor and vulnerable. Designing the needed interventions, targeting them to achieve the highest effectiveness, and navigating difficult trade-offs make investing in better measurement of human capital now more important than ever. The Human Capital Index (HCI)—launched in 2018 as part of the Human Capital Project—is an international metric that benchmarks the key components of human capital across economies. The HCI is a global effort to accelerate progress toward a world where all children can achieve their full potential. Measuring the human capital that children born today can expect to attain by their 18th birthdays, the HCI highlights how current health and education outcomes shape the productivity of the next generation of workers and underscores the importance of government and societal investments in human capital. The Human Capital Index 2020 Update: Human Capital in the Time of COVID-19 presents the first update of the HCI, using health and education data available as of March 2020. It documents new evidence on trends, examples of successes, and analytical work on the utilization of human capital. The new data—collected before the global onset of COVID-19—can act as a baseline to track its effects on health and education outcomes. The report highlights how better measurement is essential for policy makers to design effective interventions and target support. In the immediate term, investments in better measurement and data use will guide pandemic containment strategies and support for those who are most affected. In the medium term, better curation and use of administrative, survey, and identification data can guide policy choices in an environment of limited fiscal space and competing priorities. In the longer term, the hope is that economies will be able to do more than simply recover lost ground. Ambitious, evidence-driven policy measures in health, education, and social protection can pave the way for today’s children to surpass the human capital achievements and quality of life of the generations that preceded them.