Harnessing the international Funding for Indonesian Health System Resilience

The development of Indonesia’s human resources in the health sector has faced increasingly heavy challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic and its various mutations. Yet, one of the five targets in achieving governmental vision of Indonesia Emas 2025 is to improve the competitiveness of human resources. The health of Indonesia’s human resources, which is a fundamental asset to achieve the Indonesia Emas vision, experienced a significant decline due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Indonesia’s Human Development Index (HDI) dropped during the pandemic period, from 0.718 in 2019 to 0.707 in 2021, and the latest data shows that in 2022 Indonesia’s HDI remains below the pre-pandemic figure (0.713) (UNDP 2024). Among ASEAN countries, Indonesia’s HDI ranking in 2022 was below Singapore (0.909), Brunei (0.823), Malaysia (0.807), Thailand (0.803), and Vietnam (0.726) (UNDP 2024).

Indonesia was one of the epicenters of the pandemic’s spread in 2021. Not only were the availability of medicines and hospitals limited, but also the ratio of medical and health personnel was low compared to Indonesia’s population. Furthermore, the infrastructure for health services nationally was highly constrained, particularly in terms of laboratory capacity and the provision of medications. The COVID-19 pandemic has made us aware of the numerous problems within the national healthcare system and the urgency of addressing them.

This Policy Brief is one of the research outcomes of PRIME Social Universitas Indonesia for the term 2023/2024, focusing on the efforts of Asian countries in addressing the COVID-19 pandemic. The purpose of this Policy Brief is to support the development of a resilient health system in Indonesia to prepare for future pandemics. The experience during the COVID-19 pandemic revealed various issues within Indonesia’s healthcare system, while domestic funding for healthcare remains very limited. This study focuses on the availability of international funding for health development (global health finance) within bilateral, regional, and global frameworks that can be utilized by the Indonesian government—specifically relevant agencies and ministries—to develop a resilient national healthcare system capable of addressing future health crises.

Read and download the Policy Brief in Indonesian here.