Document
Key data, challenges, and opportunities to support children with disabilities in Indonesia
Highlights
This discussion paper highlights the key data, challenges, and opportunities to support children with disabilities in Indonesia. It was developed to trigger and support multi-stakeholder discussions around this important agenda for children with disabilities and ways of developing an inclusive society in Indonesia.
East Asia and the Pacific is home to 43.1 million children with disabilities, second only to South Asia with 64.4 million. In Indonesia, estimates of the percentage and number of children with disabilities appears to be underestimated compared to the regional and global situation.
This paper examines the situation of children with disabilities across six pillars: education, health, nutrition, water sanitation and hygiene, child protection and social protection. The analysis found that, although policies and regulations are in place to protect the rights of children with disabilities to benefit from social services, they experience inequity compared to non-disabled children in terms of both access to and use of social services.
In response, the paper identifies a number of recommendations for the inclusion of children with disabilities to benefit from essential services. This can be achieved with the enhancement of policy coordination at all levels of governmental institutions to promote a cross-sectional system approach. It is also essential to strengthen the capacity of national government ministries and local governments to coordinate policies and programme interventions to protect and support children with disabilities to thrive on an equal basis with their peers without disabilities. Limited data quality and information gaps on children with disabilities were also identified as barriers to the necessary data-driven policy formulation and programme implementation to ensure the best interests of children with disabilities in Indonesia.
Download the discussion paper.