The 2019 Presidential Election and the BRI’s Prospects in Indonesia

Indonesia’s 2019 presidential election was the latest testament to the popularity of Joko Widodo and his economy-focused domestic agenda. With a stronger popular mandate and a team of rivals standing united behind him, President Jokowi is now in a better position than five years ago to push his reform and revival plans focusing on infrastructure upgrading, human capital development, poverty reduction, and deregulation. Jokowi’s re-election also augurs well for China-Indonesia relations in general and bilateral BRI cooperation in particular, as he will continue to welcome more foreign investment in mega-projects to bring about an infrastructural facelift for Indonesia. A pragmatic Jokowi will not allow long-running thorny issues like territorial disputes, anti-Chinese discrimination and xenophobia to stand in the way of addressing more immediate domestic priorities, such as maintaining high growth rates, pushing for pro-business regulatory reforms, and promoting higher levels of industrialization. The three years from 2020 to 2022 will be the most crucial period for vigorously advancing BRI cooperation between Beijing and Jakarta because in the lead-up to the 2024 general election, President Jokowi will increasingly find himself a “lame duck” president as factions in his governing coalition begin to splinter to jostle for advantageous positions. He will also be more likely to face growing resistance, backlash, and scrutiny with regard to some of his China-related policies.

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India, China and the East Asian Miracle: a human capital development path to high growth rates and declining inequalities

Cambridge Journal of Regions Economy and Society ◽

10.1093/cjres/rsq013 ◽

2010 ◽

Vol 4 (1) ◽

pp. 29-48 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

A. Charles ◽

G. Fontana ◽

A. Srivastava

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Growth Rates ◽

East Asian ◽

High Growth ◽

Human Capital Development ◽

Development Path ◽

Capital Development

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The Nigerian e-Government Strategies (NeGST)

Handbook of Research on E-Services in the Public Sector ◽

10.4018/978-1-61520-789-3.ch009 ◽

2011 ◽

pp. 93-105

Author(s):

Charles K. Ayo ◽

I.T. Fatudimu

Keyword(s):

Human Capital ◽

Poverty Reduction ◽

Information And Communications Technology ◽

Economic Empowerment ◽

Vision 2020 ◽

Human Capital Development ◽

Average Percentage ◽

The World ◽

The One ◽

Capital Development

Nigeria has made frantic efforts towards achieving the millennium development goals (MDGs) as spelt out in the United Nations’ Agenda for the world. A critical assessment of the e-Government strategies in Nigeria is important being responsible for 20% of the population of the entire African continent. This paper presents a review of the e-Government strategies in Nigeria; the human capital development initiatives; the information and communications technology (ICT) diffusion and e-Inclusion. The global and continental ranking of the country is presented as well as recommendations to accelerate developments towards achieving the MDGs. Findings revealed that there are ongoing efforts in Nigeria to address the issue of poverty. The various initiatives of government include: the National/State Economic Empowerment Strategies (NEEDS/SEEDS), the Vision 2020, the National e-Government Strategy (NeGST) and a well-formulated National IT policy to mention a few. The little hindrance encountered in the research is that the available data was only up to the year 2005 and 2006 in some cases. However, based on the human capital development indices such as: economic empowerment and poverty reduction, education, health, employment generation, etc, it was observed that the adult literacy level of 64.2% is satisfactory and better results are expected before 2015. The life expectancy level is constant (54 years) from 2002 to 2007, which is the one of the lowest in Africa. On school enrolment, the major problem is access and poverty. It was observed that only 25% of primary school leavers made it to the secondary school level, while about 14% of the students at this level made it to the tertiary level. Similarly, the average percentage of female enrolment in schools is 45%. The health facilities are under-funded and are grossly inadequate both in quality and quantity. There is an average of 1,700 persons per hospital bed and the ratio of physicians to the populace is about 1:6000. This calls for a state of emergency in this sector. One major sector of the economy that is experiencing a boost is the ICT and Telecoms. The sector had brought about a teledensity growth of 0.73 to 37.05 from 2001 to 2007. Consequently, Nigeria has been named the fastest growing Telecoms nation in Africa and the third in the world, with a number of direct and indirect jobs created. Similarly, the rate of Internet diffusion is encouraging bearing in mind that the level was almost nonexistent in 1999. It is obvious that Nigeria would be able to bridge the divide by 2015. Generally, there are some meaningful developments in the country arising from the various poverty eradication schemes but the resultant effect has not imparted positively on unemployment. This is the opinion of the populace and hence the need for government to restrategize, otherwise, fulfilling MDGs by 2015 may not be realistic.

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