3 March. Santi Kusumaningrum (Center on Child Protection and Wellbeing at Universitas Indonesia), Maliki & Woro S Sulistyaningrum (The Ministry of National Development Planning). Racing against time: the Covid-19 impacts on children and vulnerable persons

Bappenas, PUSKAPA, UNICEF, and KOMPAK have produced a policy paper on the prevention and handling of Covid-19 impacts on children and vulnerable individuals. In this webinar, three of the authors presented some of the highlights of the paper. Dr S Kusumaningrum discussed the adversities experienced by children and vulnerable individuals that may have been exacerbated by the pandemic. Following that, Dr Maliki and Dr WS Sulistyaningrum shared the policy responses so far. Dr Maliki will focus on poverty and social protection, and Dr WS Sulistyaningrum focused on protection for children and their families.

• Slides (Santi Kusumaningrum)

• Slides (Maliki)

• Slides (Woro Sulistyaningrum)

• Full report (English | Bahasa) and infographics (English |Bahasa)

Key Messages

• Even before the COVID-19 pandemic hit, children and vulnerable groups were prone to having less access to basic services or were excluded from life opportunities, as highlighted by the first speaker, Santi (PUSKAPA). With the pandemic, the situation has become even worse for them as they are impacted by bad initial health risks and socio-economic risks that limit the option to keep them safe.

• Children are affected both directly and indirectly:

  • Some children were working to support their families, but the pandemic has shut their livelihoods down.

  • It also affects them indirectly if their caregivers have also lost their livelihood.

  • There are also risks of limited social activity choices and safe spaces, increasing domestic violence, shifting schooling and peer-bonding practices, and changes in or loss of caregiving and social support.

• Interventions targeting these problems are problematic (even without the pandemic), mainly due to incomplete civil registration. Without legal identity documentations, they are blocked from basic services, protection, and insurance and this is associated with an initial inequality marker (DFAT-KOMPAK). Thus, interventions to tackle many social problems are not reliable if the government relies on the current civil registration data.

  • Most of the current interventions are based on a person’s Nomor Induk Kependudukan (NIK/Single Identity Number) and Kartu Keluarga (Family Card, which list the NIKs in one nuclear family).

  • However, even only in the study area (8 provinces), there are more than 1 million elderly and more than 400,000 people with disabilities without NIK, whilst there are around 6 million children without birth certificates

  • There are also large groups of children who are undocumented or invisible because they are socially stigmatised, such as:

    • those in prisons (or if the caregivers are in jail);

    • in orphanages or boarding schools;

    • homeless or refugees in transit;

    • living with perpetrator/survivor of domestic violence.

o   For the children, the situation improves as they enter elementary school.

• The Indonesian government has included policy directives to tackle social problems faced by children and vulnerable groups in the Rencana Pembangunan Jangka Menengah Nasional (RPJMN/Mid-term National Development Plan) 2020-2024, as highlighted by Woro (Bappenas). In line with Priority Agenda 2: Increasing the Quality and Competitiveness of Human Resources, interventions for children are spread across many sectors. The latter includes but is not limited to accelerating population administrative coverage, increasing equitable access to education, accelerating the implementation of 12 years compulsory education, and accelerating the strengthening of families’ economic conditions.

• Poverty, violence and discrimination problems intertwine, but relevant institutions carry out interventions in a silo; with the pandemic, this has become more obvious.

• Programs should also enhance community and family-based services to increase their resilience and enable relevant rapid responses. However, Indonesia has only three social workers for every 1 million citizens. Focusing too much on cash transfers to families, will not work without adequate care and services from social workers or community facilitators. As through their home visits, they can assist families with cash management training, and conflict resolutions.

• Maliki (Bappenas), also highlighted the importance of social protection reform. The pandemic has been a wake-up call to make social protection programs more adaptive to shocks, such as natural disasters, and pandemics. Government should consider alternative financing options for social protection programs, such as from non-government budgets.

• In conclusion, this pandemic is an opportunity to re-assess population data, service delivery, and welfare systems for children and families. Population data should be collected from birth until death and interconnected with sectoral data. Later, central and local government agencies can utilise this data/evidence in their social protection, family support, and specialized protection programs. Whilst Civil Society Organisations can produce evidence through research, translating it into policy proposals and program implementation assistance.