Currently, equal development is an utopian ideal that not only developing countries are trying to realize, but also several advanced nations.
They still struggle to eliminate the inequality that exist in their respective nations in order to realize a more harmonic civic living.
The motivation to eliminate inequality drove the creation of 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Various nations across the world help one another to realize a world without inequality.
Ever since Joko Widodo became President of the Republic of Indonesia, he has conducted various concrete efforts to eliminate inequality.
Infrastructure development happening in various remote regions serves as a realization of the government’s commitment to improve connectivity.
As written by the economic expert Claudia Berg, roads are the arteries through which the economy pulses.
The president’s capability in realizing infrastructure development in remote regions shows how strong the central government’s authority is when it comes to managing outermost, remote, and underdeveloped regions.
However, despite the various innovations unveiled by the central government, the improvement of prosperity in Indonesia’s outermost, remote, and underdeveloped has not been significant.
According to the data from Poverty Severity Index (P2) Based On Province and Region published by Statistics Indonesia (BPS) on January 17, 2022, there were five provinces with the highest poverty severity.
These five provinces comprise West Papua (2.18 percent), Papua (2.05 percent), East Nusa Tenggara (1.44 percent), Maluku (1.06 percent), and Aceh (0.81 percent).
The poverty severity percentage within these five provinces increases as compared to the previous semester.
For instance, in the previous semester (March 2021) West Papua was at 1.96 percent. However, in the next semester (September 2021), the figure rose to 2.18 percent.
Observing prosperity inequality in Indonesia’s outermost, remote, and underdeveloped regions, Research Professor from the National Research and Innovation Agency (BRIN) Siti Zuhro opined that this due to the regional governments’ reliance on the central government.
Regional government authority
Law No. 43 of 2008 on the Nation’s Territory results in the regional governments’ dependency on the central government, Zuhro said.
The law granted expansive authority to the central government to manage the border areas.
This condition is mirrored in the Law’s Article 10 point (1) letter a-j which outlines the various authorities of the central government in managing the state’s territory and border areas.
According to Zuhro, the law causes the regional governments to have limited or inadequate authorities to manage their regions.
The central government’s authority aims to develop the border areas in a balanced, integrated, and comprehensive manner for the prosperity of the people as well as to ensure harmony between regions.
However, there are problems that should be handled by the regional governments without having to go through a complicated bureaucracy.
This is important especially in dealing with the complexity of the problems that border areas face.
These problems require a comprehensive resolution that encompasses several aspects such as the nation’s border, social, culture, defense, security, natural resource and environment, institutions, and capacity development.
The complexity of the problems necessitates a quick and accurate response, Zuhro noted.
Since regional governments are far away from the reach of the central government, it will certainly be hard for the central to provide a response necessary to handle these problems.
To this end, she believed that it is important for the regional governments to have the authority that is just as powerful as the central government’s in managing their regions.
Regulation harmonization
To advance outermost, remote, and underdeveloped regions, especially for border areas, simply having the central government increase the budget and undertake development is not enough.
The central government should ensure regulation certainty that became the technical umbrella and reference in carrying out the issues that became the authority of border areas.
Hence, harmonization of regulations became what Indonesia needs. Harmonization of regulations will provide clarification and certainty for regional governments in carrying out their job.
There are two main laws that become references, namely Law No. 43 of 2008 on the Nation’s Territory, and Law No. 23 of 2014 on Regional Government.
According to Zuhro, one of the matters that has to be enforced is regulation on the status of border areas as the affair of the general government that involves ministries and institutions.
This is also vertical in nature between the central, provinces, districts, and cities.
The suggestion is also related with the Article 9 of Law 43/2008 which states that the government and regional governments have the authority to manage and utilize the border and restricted areas.
When it comes to funding, Zuhro said that it needs to involve the regional budget (APBD) from each border areas in addition to the state budget (APBN) and the village budget (APBDesa).
Moreover, she proposed that there should be a change in the regional law products as well as refocusing to carry out general government affairs, especially in the handling of border areas’ crucial problems.
The other recommendation involved additional material for the regional governments concerning people empowerment, national outlook, good governance, regional competitiveness, public service innovation, and bureaucracy digitalization dissemination.
By strengthening the capacity of the people and regional governments, Zuhro believes that Indonesia’s outermost, remote, and underdeveloped regions can develop.
The independence of a regional government and its people is the key for the advancement of a region, especially for regions that are far away from the reach of the central government, she opined.
However as, as a unitary state, the principle of decentralization and regional autonomy must still consider the unity of the nation.
Indonesia, as a unitary state, does not have a clear cut regional division such as in a federal nation.
Regions in Indonesia are united with one another. Hence, regions in Indonesia cannot be divided and are inseparable part of Indonesia, Zuhro said.
With this, collectivity and harmony in action between the central government and regional governments is a very important element to prevent overdependency.
However, coordination between the central government and regional governments remains crucial.
Source: Antara News
