TECHNICAL FORUM

COURSE 1 | DEVELOPING SOCIAL PROTECTION STRATEGIES AND

POLICIES

Please complete the technical forum of course 1.

This activity is worth 5 points. It is mandatory and is part of the activities which will be
considered to obtain the course certificate.

Please reply to the following question writing between 150 and 200 words, then post it in the
forum: 

Imagine you were tasked to develop a national social protection strategy in your country or
revise/update the existing strategy. How would you organize this process? Indicate, which
stakeholders from your country you would involve, in which roles and why. Also elaborate,
what information/data you would use, how you would collect this information and how you
would identify priority actions.

In addition to writing your post, you may also consider replying to other participants'
contributions. However, please be reminded that the key task to complete is to write your
reply to the question above and that you post it in the forum. 

Please note that the deadline to complete this exercise is Monday, 27 September 2021
at 23:59 (GMT+2) Italy time.

-Yuli-

Reforming social protection strategies and policies in Indonesia

Indonesia’s social protection system consists of contributory schemes (health and

employment insurance) and non-contributory schemes (social assistance finances by the
government). In 2020, coverage of Indonesia’s social protection programs across the life
cycle only 40% across the entire population. Many citizens still have limited government
support to ensure their basic economic security. I recommend social protection system that
protect poor and vulnerable citizens, particularly stunting in early childhood, low enrolment
in secondary level education, disability and old age poverty, through social safety net
schemes designed across the life cycle. Stakeholders who will be involved in are:
- National Development Planning Board, Ministry of Social Affairs, Ministry of
Manpower for raising awareness, sharing perspectives, building ownership,
transparency, trust, and developing policies;
- Statistics Indonesia for providing data/information;
- Indonesian Administering Body of Social Security for Employment and Health for
administering social protection.
The data/information that will be used is socioeconomic data such as age, gender, marital
status, disabilities, chronic illnesses, pregnancy status, school attendance, level of education,
duration of schooling, in possession of social security card, work status, work type, etc. These
data carried out by Statistics Indonesia through survey and consultation with households.
These data can be used to analyse the proverty characteristics, evaluate program targeting
effectiveness, and identify the program participants/beneficiaries.

-Nanda-

Updating Social Protection Strategy in Indonesia

Before revising the existing social security strategy, I think, we need to conduct an evaluation
study first. We need to know what the weaknesses of the current social security program are.

In conducting evaluation studies, of course, we need data and information. For that, we need
the cooperation of various stakeholders. For example, to evaluate the level of coverage, we
need data on the number of participants from the social security institution and the number
of workers from the ministry of labor. If we want to know the adequacy of benefits, we may
also need data from the ministry of social welfare to know the needs of a decent living for
the community.

After conducting an evaluation assessment, we will find out the weaknesses of some of the
weaknesses of the current social security program. For the employment social security
program in Indonesia, I think the biggest weakness is in terms of coverage. 60% of workers
or 78 million work in the informal sector, but only about 2 million workers are covered by the
employee social security program. In other words, coverage in the informal sector is only
2.5%.

To increase coverage, a collaboration between the ministry of manpower, the ministry of

social welfare, perhaps even local governments is needed. Since our country is an
archipelagic country, maybe the local government can better record informal workers.