Another post from my task for applying Korean Scholarship, but i didn’t make it 
ICT Support for achieving Millennium Development Goals in Republic of Indonesia
By Panji Gautama Asmawarman (Gadjah Mada University)
Indonesian and ICT
In the year 2000, 189 countries gather for a meeting, they are coming from poor countries to rich countries, who then agreed on a declaration named by the Millenium Declaration. In this millenium declaration, there are 8 points that must be met before the year 2015. The eight points are called Millenium Development Goals (MDGs). Indonesia, as one of the countries that participated on that meeting, then immediately take a quick measures to develop policy anda strategic documents about the road map to ensure the achievement of the MDGs by 2015. The important role of ICT for country development has been widely recognized in almost every countries. The world summit on the information society, first phase in geneva and second phase in Tunis, has raised this issue of the Millenium Developments Goals. They are discussed about how the role ICT is very important to support country for achieving the Millenium Development Goals.
This 21th nowadays referred as information age, where science and technology became the main driving force for the development of mankind. Indonesia, as one of developing country that growing rapidly, also acknowledge the important role of ICT to take part in boost te effort to achieve goals and objectives of national development in Indonesia.
Millenium Goals and ICT support
In early 2003, the market for the ICT Sector in Indonesia, contributing about USD 1.3 billion, and in the year 2007 growing rapidly up to USD 2.2 trillion. The rapid development of ICT is growing very substantially and create a multiply effect for the other sectors. Indonesian goverment later admitted that ICT could become the epicenter for the transformation in various sectors of development in Indonesia.
The first point in the Millenium Development Goals is eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. Indonesia can not be denied is one of the country with a high poverty rate. However, poverty eradication programs from year to year provided a fairly obvious result, from year to year the poverty levels is declining. ICT sector in Indonesia, has contributed a large numbers to foreign exchange. Indonesia later takes concentration to develop ICT-Based industries, so the efficiency of industry, competitive rates and market access will become even better with the support of ICT. The rapid-growing ICT Sector is able to absorb a large quantities employment, and then lowering the unemployment rate in Indonesia.
Achieve universal primary education is the second goal in the MDGs. Quality of education in Indonesia can be considered quite low, but Indonesian is able to send the students who can compete internationally. ICT in the education sector in Indonesia is began to adopt win implementing the schools network and university networks so the cooperation and information sharing between schools and universities can be handle efficiently and effectively. In many schools, they are provided with a multimedia laboratory that are connected to the Internet for ease of the students to find literature and information. Several university in Indonesia make a deal with a carious IT vendors to implemented the ICT instrument for ease of access and the students can be experimented with the tools. ICT support in education sector has proved to able to improving the quality level of education in Indonesia.
Promote gender equality and empower women as the third goal, for Indonesia as the eastern country has a strong culture within the norms of life, so the rate of gender equality is quite high. However, gender equality movement in Indonesia continues to be better and better. ICT in its application is permit the ease of information exchange and deliver and easy access so people can get the information quickly and easily. The non-governmental organization that works with gender equality movement can be provided with an efficient way to communication with other with the support of ICT.
Combat HIV / AIDS, malaria and other diseases, Reduce Child Mortality, and Maternal Health is the 4th, 5th, and 6th goals which the main concentration is health issues. Many various product of ICT such as clinical information system or drugs online database that can improve the efficiency and boost the hospital and doctors performances. With an easy access to the medical literature, or drugs information, many doctors are helped with the support of ICT. ICT facilities also provided the patients or public to find the information about the disease and how to prevent it, so the health services can be handle very easily. The Indonesian government currenlty improving the access to monitoring and sharing the medical information and also promote the integrated digital-based medical records, and disseminate a variety of medical information such as how to prevent from AIDS, getting reproductive health, and many mores.
Ensure environmental sustainability as the 7th goals in MSGs is a hot issue that being discussed today, how environmental sustainability becomes something that very important in prevent earth from global warming. In Indonesia, we can easily find the forum in the internet that discussed about how we can contributed to keep our earth green. With the support of ICT, we can get a transparent information and access to information about the environment becomes easier, and monitoring the industry or government project can be fulfilled with more efficient and effective without any distance issue.
The latest goals in MDGs is develop a global partnership for development, this is a key element in improving the performance of the various development sectors in a country. Indonesia itself currently acctively exist in the international meeting, so a cooperation with a rich country will impact a good opportunity to Indonesia. With the support of ICT, Indonesia can be incorporated in global market and can be fully integrated with world economy. A developed countries that are adopting ICT may spread the great potential investment to the other country, Indonesia has a great potential in the field of tourism, education, industry and economy. It is possible that ICT can attract a big investor to invest their funds in Indonesia.
