Riwanto Tirtosudarmo JAKARTA It takes only common sense to understand the pressure of population dynamics on this country. As urban areas and cities grow people are increasingly competing for jobs and shelter and causing congestion in public transport; and all are complaining that their grievances need to be heard by the authorities. Being an archipelago with an unbalanced population distribution between Java and the other islands continues to haunt the national government. Moving people from Java under the state-sponsored transmigration program is understandably always in the governments mind. The worry is perhaps the increasing economic inequality among the haves and the have-nots while the population is growing. Attempts to control population growth through a family planning program therefore continue to be on the states agenda. Managing population pressures is no doubt imperative if we want to achieve sustainable development-Yet, how can we manage the population pressure if the dynamics of population are illusive and encompass almost all our life dimensions? The elusiveness of population dynamics allows no single discipline to conceive population issues. Population has so many dimensions and each dimension is firmly embedded within the fabric of the social, economic and political aspects of society. In retrospect we remember how population issues came up in the presidential campaign debate. Then candidates Joko “Jokowi” Widodo and Prabowo Subianto promised to pay serious attention to curbing population problems. Jokowi, when elected as president, even hinted he would have a population ministry which did not materialize. The failure of Jokowi to establish a ministry of population, according to some sources, is related to the politics of population inside Jokowis circles. One source says there is a lack of consensus among major state institutions with regard to population matters, most notably between an increasingly powerful Directorate General for Population Administration under the Home Ministry on the one hand, and on the other hand, government agencies such as the Central Statistics Agency (BPS) and the National Population and Family Planning Board (BKKBN). Growing tensions apparently exist on population, which has become an increasingly important policy issue. The stakes are high as managing the sheer magnitude of Indonesias population involves a huge share of the state budget. The contest therefore represents bureaucratic rivalry in the politics of population within Jokowis government circle. The increasing interest in population matters within the Home Ministry is related to the need to provide population data for the elections, which should be regularly updated at least every five years. After the demise of Soehartos authoritarian regime Indonesia emerged into a democratic political regime in which the main legal basis is representative electoral politics. Data on eligible voters should be available during the elections. A possible overlap could occur between the Home Ministry and the BPS simply because the latter agency is also responsible for collecting national population data. At present both agencies seem to be working separately and unless reconciliation is reached, the contest for controlling the budget and managing population data will continue and this will lead to a waste of both energy and money that in turn is counter-productive for Jokowis government. Another issue at stake is related to the policies for controlling population growth through the family planning program. In the current democratic political regime the government no longer has the power to implement a family planning program by repressive means as occurred during the Soeharto regime. Regional autonomy has also hampered a top-down approach and centralists management despite the relative freedom that society now enjoys to choose their family size preferences. While the country needs a new persuasive family planning approach, the Jokowi administration apparently is still plagued by bureaucratic rivalry between the Health Ministry and the BKKBN with regard to which agencies have the highest authority in family planning policies. The failure in managing population growth will have a long term effect on the age structure of the population and in turn on the future dependency ratio and the much awaited demographic dividend. Finally, the problem arising from rapid urbanization represents a complex dynamic between population and various aspects of social change in which knowledge on migration and youth bulges, among other things, should be integrated within a coherent government policy. In the absence of a population ministry, managing population problems should be given high priority and the rivalries between different state institutions in charge of population matters should be minimized. In the current situation, logically, the National Development Planning Board (Bappenas) should be the leading agency in managing population issues. The writer is a researcher at the Indonesian Instituteof Sciences (LIPI). ยป Sumber : The Jakarta Post, edisi 25 Juni 2015. Hal: 7
