Restoring Social and Human Capital Values: Indonesia as a Multicultural Nation

Abstract

As one of the fastest-growing, with annual GDP growth of 6.5 percent in 2012 in the SouthEast Asia region, Indonesia has committed to promoting sustainable development. With a population approaching 250 million, Indonesia has a large domestic market for its goods and services, as its abundant natural resources. Since the Human Development Index (HDI), produced by the United Nations, becomes a summary measure of national well-being, Indonesia's HDI is 0.63, which is currently ranked 121 out of 186 countries and is below the regional average of 0.68 for East Asia and the Pacific nations. However, when the New Economics Foundation (NEF) places this nation in the 14th position of the Happy Planet Index, exploring and developing sustainable well-being measures will become attractive to be discussed. Hence, the aim's study is to understand the other well-being measurement. Further, this study uses literature reviews and statistical data analysis. Therefore, we can conclude that Indonesia can't rely on GDP as an absolute indicator for forecasting their well-being. Other measurements such as social and human capital values can describe a nation more deeply to make a more comprehensive planning and better future. Although this concept yet has a challenge, i.e., such as any formal accounting task, this requires answers to core questions about how the idea can be defined and measured precisely.