Overview
The Republic of Indonesia is a vast archipelagic nation set on about 18,000 islands across three time zones between the Indian and Pacific oceans. It is the world’s fourth most populous country, with an estimated 240 million people - a figure that grows by about 3 million each year. Urban population growth is especially rapid, straining the capacity of Indonesia’s cities to provide people with adequate housing and social services. The country continues to suffer from the effects of a prolonged monetary crisis that began in 1997, and has only recently begun to stabilize as an emerging democracy after years of economic uncertainty and political upheaval. Natural disasters frequently affect Indonesia, which sits along an active tectonic plate and is prone to high levels of seismic activity. The massive December 2004 earthquake and tsunami devastated large parts of the country’s Aceh province in Northern Sumatra, leaving around 200,000 Indonesian’s dead or missing and hundreds of thousands without a home. An ethnically diverse country, Indonesia is also plagued by recurring political and inter-communal conflict, particularly in the outlying regions of Kalimantan (Borneo), Central Sulawesi, Aceh and Papua. Conflicts in these areas have left tens of thousands dead and have traumatized and displaced populations on a massive scale. The vast majority of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) are women and children, thought to number around 1.4 million. Current national challenges include alleviating widespread poverty, cracking down on terrorism, ensuring a continued transition to democratic governance after four decades of authoritarianism, implementing reforms in the banking and justice sectors, eradicating rampant corruption and resolving the country’s lingering political and inter-communal conflicts.
|
