Counting for democracy: Development of national statistical systems decentralised Indonesia

Underlying the hopes and plans for democratic decentralisation are a series of assumptions about the availability, adequacy and use of statistical data, both locally and nationally. While the government does not question the need for data to define welfare needs, it has yet to clarify the mechanisms by which information can be generated and transmitted to relevant decision makers in a democratic and decentralised Indonesia. This paper argues the need to reconstructure and strengthen national statistical collections. At the outset of decentralisation the major statistical organisations were seriously under-funded, and most line departments were burdened with contradictory and inefficient approaches to the collections of operational and financial information for planning and monitoring. Without significant and immediate reform, the information Indonesia needs to develop the economy and the new democratic polity will deteriorate in quantity and quality.