Low investment in infrastructure development has left many Indonesians with no access to potable water and basic sanitation, and the problem is particularly acute in rural areas, according to a report.
The Health Ministry’s latest report on the country’s progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) shows the number of families with proper access to safe and sustainable sources of drinking water and basic sanitation facilities is far lower than the targets.
To make matters worse, infrastructure in rural areas is less developed than in cities.
The ministry’s director for infectious disease control, HM Subuh, said that infrastructure disparities in urban and rural areas remained high.
Citing the data, Subuh said that in 2010, the proportion of households with proper access to basic sanitation facilities was 71.5 percent in urban areas, and was projected to reach 76.8 percent by 2015.
“As we still have three years left, I’m sure we can achieve this target,” he said. Only 38.5 percent of households in rural areas, however, have access to basic sanitation, while it was projected to reach 55.54 percent by 2015.
Basic sanitation facilities include latrines, swan-neck closets and final disposal in a septic tank.
“It is definitely much more difficult for us to find such sanitation facilities in rural areas. Thus, we need to work harder to achieve this target,” Subuh said.
To give people greater access to sanitation, the ministry has developed several programs, including the acceleration of the development of sanitation in residential areas (PPSP) in 330 regencies and municipalities; society-based sanitation facilities (STBM) in 20,000 villages and the development of “healthy regencies and municipalities”.
“We have introduced the STBM to 60 percent of rural areas, where the people now have better awareness of proper sources of drinking water, the importance of not defecating in improper places and the need for proper sewerage,” Subuh said.
The data shows, however, that even people living in urban areas still lack access to safe drinking water. Only 41.6 percent of urban dwellers have access to safe drinking water, far lower than the target of 75.3 percent to be reached by 2015. Meanwhile, only 48.8 percent of rural dwellers have access to safe water, well short of the MDGs target of 65.8 percent.
“We may miss our MDGs target without investing more in water and sanitation infrastructure,” Subuh said.
Health Minister Endang Rahayu Sedyaningsih said earlier that giving local administrations a much larger percentage of budgetary allocations was one strategy to foster action as Indonesia looked to meet its MDGs targets.
She said that the health budget managed by the local administrations in 2012 accounted for 88.4 percent of the total budget, giving the central government only 11.6 percent of the total allocation.
“The health budget allocated for the central government continues to decrease. This is the consequence of regional autonomy in which budgeting is now the main responsibility of the local administrations, be they in provinces, regencies or municipalities,” she said.
According to the Health Ministry, the health budget allocated for the local administrations was 88 percent of the total budget in 2011, up from 84 percent in 2010.
With such large allocations, Endang said, health authorities in local administrations should be better equipped to manage finances and health human resources.
