Budget Note Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

Enhancing Public Finance

for Better Child Protection
in Indonesia
2024

©UNICEF/UNI469231/Al Asad

1. Introduction

Indonesia will accelerate progress in reducing violence, abuse, exploitation, neglect and harmful
practices against children through effective and evidence-informed budgets, policies, regulations
and services.

Effectively protecting children from violence, exploitation, neglect and harmful practices requires a robust child
protection (CP) system – including in humanitarian settings – that features both prevention and responses
within a decentralized governance structure in Indonesia.1 While Indonesia has a strong legal and policy
framework to address CP – such as the Child Protection Act, Juvenile Justice Act, and inclusion of CP indicators
in the RPJMN (Medium-Term National Development Plans) – there remains implementation challenges.2

1 The Ministry of Religious Affairs may provide budget for WASH facilities or campaigns in religious schools or public buildings under its
authority, such as religious schools and Islamic centres.
2
Ibid, p.100.

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 Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

2. Key Messages

2.1. Understanding and analyzing the CP system in Indonesia is challenging due to varied definitions and
interpretations of CP. This is partially because the Government of Indonesia’s (GoI) definition is based on
the Child Protection Law No.13/2014 which enshrines protecting all rights of children, not only addressing
violence, abuse, exploitation, neglect and harmful practices. Although a wide-ranging social security system
is now in place in Indonesia to address the range of CP issues, prioritization of CP in policies, interventions
and budgets remains fragmented, inadequate and evolving. A clear definition and approach to addressing CP
using a systems approach is imperative together with more coordinated policy and programme interventions
with increased investment (see Section 3.1).

2.2. The GoI has taken various short- or medium-term initiatives related to CP at national and sub national
levels coordinated by different ministries and agencies. The planning and key performance indicators used for
these initiatives tend to use proxy statistics. The extent of coordination between ministries and departments
when implementing these programmes – such as finance, reporting arrangements and management – is
also not well coordinated or documented.3 There is also a need to strengthen data collection, monitoring and
evaluation of the CP system (see Section 3.2).

2.3. Financing is hampered by the lead ministry for CP, the Ministry of Women’s Empowerment and Child
Protection (MoWECP), having the smallest budget among all ministries and departments. The CP budget
is also spread across the MoWECP and the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA). This fragmentation and low
investment hinders the ability to track, monitor and evaluate CP quality and service delivery. There is also
the urgent need to develop a comprehensive strategy based on a systems approach to CP that ensures more
effective inter-agency coordination, synergies and focus on prevention and effective case management to
ensure quality services for children (see Section 3.3).

2.4. Indonesia has adopted a decentralized approach to governance and financing. However, varying
bureaucratic capacity, limited human resources and weak inter-agency coordination, challenge the
implementation of national level planning and budgeting on CP (see Section 3.4).

3. Overview of Child Protection in Indonesia

Box 1:
3.1. Child protection in Indonesia Select data on child protection in Indonesia5

Key child protection issues in Indonesia today include • In 2022, 53,878 child marriages were officially
recorded in Indonesia. This is 3 per cent of all
violence against children, child marriage, access to marriages recorded in 2022.
legal identity, sexual and reproductive health, access
to justice, family separation, children left behind by • On average, around 3.1 per cent of criminal cases
occurring between 2018–2022 involved juveniles.
migration, intolerance and radicalization and the However, only 8.7 per cent of those cases were
impact of humanitarian disasters.4 applicable for diversion out of the juvenile justice
system, with only 18 per cent of such cases resulting
in diversion.
The government’s Law No.23 (2002) on CP, and its
amendment in Law No.35 of 2014 and Law No.16 • Around one-in-two reported crimes in 2022 had
(2017), is the guiding national regulation on CP. children as victims of violence, and in half of those
crimes (50.9 per cent), girls were victims. In 17.4 per
However, the term ‘child protection’ in this law refers cent of these cases, children are also perpetrators of
to any service addressing children’s rights.6 This violence.
includes, for example, primary education, health • In 2022, 4.6 per cent of recently-born infants in
and social services, in addition to the more narrowly Indonesia were neglected by their parents. According
defined ‘protection’ services. Given such a broad to national statistics, such neglect is no longer related
definition of CP and the lack of clarity regarding the to economic situation of the parents.
concept of “child protection systems”, all ministries
Source: Supreme Court Annual Reports,
Indonesian Statistics, SIMFONI PPA
3 UNICEF Indonesia: Child Protection – Advocacy Brief, p.3.
4 Ibid, p.100.
5 Underage marriages are defined as of children under 19 years old, the legal consenting age of marriage in Indonesia.
6 The complete legal definition of CP in Indonesia can be found in Law No.23 (2002). It reads: “Child protection refers to all activities that

guarantee and protect children and their rights to live, grow, develop, and participate, optimally in accordance with humanity and dignity,
and be protected from violence and discrimination”.

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 Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

and agencies are engaged in efforts to protect children’s rights. Instead, what is required is clarity on the
understanding and use of the CP system framework as described in Figure 1.

UNICEF defines a CP system7 as the “formal and informal structures, functions and capacities that have been
assembled to prevent and respond to violence, abuse, neglect, and exploitation of children”. A CP system is
generally agreed to consist of the following elements: human resources, finance, laws and policies, governance,
monitoring and data collection as well as protection and response services and care management. It also
includes different actors – children, families, communities, those working at sub-national or national levels
and internationally. Most important are the relationships and interactions between and among these actors
within the system.

Figure 1.
UNICEF: Child Protection System Classification Framework

Child Protection
(CP)

Thematic Prevention of Mental Health & Violence Grave Violations

Legal Identity Access to Harmful
Family Psycho-social Against Girls, in Armed
Priorities Justice
Separation Wellbeing Practices Boys, Women Conflict

Core CP
Birth Juvenile Migrant Drug Abuse Child Sexual
Service Registration Justice Displaced and Labor Exploitation
Area Children Rehabilitation
Child
Children Social Care Gender
Marriage
Living Violence
Outside of
Neglect
Parental Bullying
Care (including
Child cyber)
Disaster & Trafficking
Emergency
Events Physical
and
Social Emotional
Conflict Abuse

Source: UNICEF, Child Protection Advocacy Brief

It is extremely challenging to paint a complete picture of CP activities and associated budgets in Indonesia
as the latter are linked to family, youth or women’s issues and interventions across many ministries and
departments. To derive a complete financial overview of all CP activities, information across all relevant
ministries and departments relating to CP and authorized budgets with detailed disaggregated data/
information on the purpose of budget lines would be required.

Recommendations
Clarity on the framework and definition of the CP system is urgent
and imperative given the complexity of the context and range of child
rights issues in the country. Work on CP in Indonesia also needs to be
more effectively coordinated for policy formulation with programme
interventions based on precise indicators on prevention and violence to
focus attention on CP issues, with increased investment at national and
sub-national levels.

7 UNICEF Child Protection Strategy 2021-2030. [Link] (accessed 20 July 2022).

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 Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

3.2. Child protection policies and initiatives in Indonesia

The CP system in Indonesia continues to evolve. This evidenced by the numerous CP-related policies and
initiatives developed in the past five years. This diverse range of CP initiatives also points to the fact that
despite the need for an effective CP system is increasing and even critical, the level of budget allocation
for this important sector for children remains inadequate and fragmented.

Box 2: CP service delivery in Indonesia is highly

The following is a list of key policies and initiatives fragmented. The financing and delivery of
undertaken by the GoI in recent years services to prevent and respond to children at
risk or as survivors is divided between central,
provincial, district, and village levels. Furthermore,
1. Roadmap to Strengthen the Juvenile responsibility for CP activities within individual
Criminal System 2023 – 2027 Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs)
2. National Action Plan for Child Protection is distributed across various programmes and
2015–2019 central-level MDA directorates (see a non-
3. Local Action Plan for Protection and exhaustive list in Figure 1). This fragmentation of
Empowerment of Women and Children CP service delivery may be triggered by an issue-
in Social Conflict 2020–2025 based delivery and funding strategy. Apart from
4. National Strategy to Prevent Child
fragmentation challenges, such an approach has
Marriage 2020 and the toolkit for
the potential to be inefficient and lead to more
the implementation at sub-national level
2024
unmet needs given the total volume of available
5. National Strategy to Eliminate Violence resources.8
Against Children 2022
6. Introduction to the Roadmap for the Furthermore, CP issues are commonly not addressed
Protection of Indonesian Children Online individually and are often conflated with more general
2024 issues affecting youth, women, mothers and families,
7. National Action Plan on the Elimination among others. This drives fragmentation and budget
of the Worst Forms of Child Labour 2002 prioritization challenges at all levels. For example, in
8. Child Protection Index (IPA) the national government, the lead ministry handling
9. Child Rights Fulfilment Index (IPHA) CP policy, strategy and implementation (MoWECP)
10. Child Special Protection Index (IPKA) is often treated as part of family-related issues and
cannot identify CP specific spending. The same
situation occurs at the sub-national level, as many
local agencies on children are combined with either women or family issues. This challenge also causes
significant deviations when analyzing CP budgets, even when budget tagging for CP is developed, as further
analysis is required at the apportioning stage before arriving at the correct figures and data. Evaluating CP
services is further complicated by agencies in Indonesia using the term ‘child protection’ to refer to all services
that aim to realize children’s rights including, for example, primary education and health services in addition
to protection services.

Another issue facing service delivery is the recording of CP-related data. For example, a low prevalence
of violence against children9 does not necessarily mean a geographical area has a better CP system, as
it may indicate CP services lack capacitated ‘identifiers’ and ‘frontline responders’ to gather and process
data and information. Besides agency underfunding, this situation can also be caused by the lack of
child-sensitive service providers and weak implementation of gender policies in MDAs.

Finally, vast ethnic and cultural diversity and differences across Indonesia regarding the rights of
children hampers CP prevention and delivery services. These differences and sensitivities affect policy
and decision-making as to whether the State should intervene to safeguard and protect children’s rights
– especially related to child marriage or birth registration.

8 UNICEF, Child Protection Systems Strengthening, 2020 [Link]

Strengthening%[Link]
9 VAC Survey (Survei Nasional Pengalaman Hidup Anak dan REmaja or National Survey on the Life Experiences of Children and Adolescents

– SNHPHAR) in 2018 and 2021.

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 Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

Recommendations
Streamline and strengthen the coordination of the CP system by the
lead ministry (MoWECP) and across the various government ministries and
departments, including police and law enforcement agencies and local
governments.

Increase the level of funding for child protection system strengthening

not only for MoWECP itself, but also relevant ministries and agencies with
CP-related responsibilities, such as for legal services to enable swift agency
responses in cases of reported violence towards children.

Strengthen the system of data collection, monitoring and evaluation

to better track adherence of services to national standards, thereby
identifying gaps for policy implications and budget allocations.

3.3. Financing child protection

The GoI is spending a small portion of budget on CP. A 2015 pilot study on Child Protection Financial
Benchmark10 estimated that, on average, the Indonesian Government spent 0.072 per cent of its budget on
CP. This means that for every IDR1,000 spent per person at central level, 72 cents per child was focused on
CP. Another way of estimating CP spending is comparing it with total central government spending, minus
debt servicing. This calculation method resulted in 0.027 per cent of budget spent on CP, or 27 cents for every
IDR1,000 spent on goods and services.11 This spending was mostly on support services (85 per cent) rather
than on direct services (15 per cent) for CP.

The GoI does not provide programme/budget tracking on CP, making such a benchmarking study difficult
to repeat. The only CP budget marker relates to sub-functions of the social protection budget functional
unit called ‘Protection and Services for Children and Families’. However, this sub-function only pertains to
expenditures within the MoSA and MoWECP. Moreover, many CP issues according to definitions used for this
budget brief, are handled by other ministries and agencies, but are not tracked or categorized into a specific
CP functional/sub-functional categories.

A review of CP as a sub-function of social protection in Indonesia provides an indication of how the GoI
prioritizes CP in terms of budgeting – although this is only a partial picture of the overall government budget.

Figure 2.
Budget for protection and services for children and families 2018–2022

600 Ministry of Women

Empowerment and
Ministry of Women
Child Protection
Empowerment and
Child Protection
400

Ministry
Ministry
of Social Affairs

200 of Social Affairs

Ministry of Women
Empowerment and
Child Protection
Ministry of Women
2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 Empowerment and
Child Protection

Source: Ministry of Finance

10Folscher, Alta, Stephanie Allan. UNICEF Child Protection Financial Benchmark Pilot in Indonesia – Benchmark Report. 2014–2015.
11This includes direct services: financing of child welfare institutions, shelters, social and education services and the provision of child
units in prisons and detective services for crimes against children. Spending on support functions is also included, such as on policy
development, coordination, capacity building, monitoring and evaluation of CP services. Services for which spending is not included (due
to data tracking difficulties) are central expenditure on birth registration services, and expenditure of the labour ministry and judiciary.
The calculated spending does not include provincial or local level (city and district) expenditure.

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 Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

Between 2018 and 2022, the Protection and Services for Children and Families sub-function (CP budget)
declined from IDR423.6 billion to IDR200.6 billion, including during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic
in 2020 and 2021.

Figure 3.
Ratio of child protection against social protection and national budget 2018–2022

1,2%

1,0%
Ratio of CP sub-function
against Social Protection
0,8%

0,6% Ratio of CP sub-function

against Central Government
Budget
0,4%

0,2%

0,0%
2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Source: Ministry of Finance

The CP sub-function is one of the smallest segments of the social protection budget, accounting for less than
0.1 per cent during the pandemic in 2020–2022 (see Figure 3). It was one of budgets that decreased to make
way for COVID-19 response programmes. As COVID-19 abated as a public health emergency in 2022, the CP
sub-function experienced a modest recovery, but expenditure remained below 2019’s levels as a share of
central government budget and relative to total social protection expenditure.

The MoWECP is the lead CP ministry in Indonesia, responsible for coordination between ministries and
departments, drafting relevant laws and policies, service provision, and generating data in the CP system.12
However, the budget for MoWECP is one of the smallest of all ministries and agencies. Even during the
pandemic, its budget was reduced in favour of other ministries with direct social assistance programmes.
This is despite children being exposed to increased violence and online risks during the pandemic.13

Figure 4.
MoWECP budget, 2018–2022

600,0 0,06%

500,0 0,05%
Ministry of Women Empowerment
and Child Protection
400,0 0,04%

300,0 0,03% Ministry of Women Empowerment

and Child Protection Budget (real)

200,0 0,02%
Ratio of MoWECP against
Central Government Budget
100,0 0,01%

0,0 0,00%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Source: Ministry of Finance

12 This mandate is based on Presidential Regulation No.65 (2020), and its addendum in Presidential Regulation No.7 (2023),
specifically in Article 3.
13 References to the need for Online Child Protection in UNICEF’s Child Protection Advocacy Brief.

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 Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

Furthermore, CP budget and programmes are not independent and are invariably combined with funding
for other issues, such as the protection and service delivery to women as the ministry is also mandated for
women’s empowerment. Prioritization between the two issues within the ministry itself is not balanced as the
CP budget is much lower than for women’s empowerment and is shrinking (Figure 5). Whereas expenditures
for women’s empowerment could be positive for CP, the CP budget should not be made secondary as it
prevents adequate support services directly targeted at children.

Figure 5.
Ratio of “Social Protection and Services for Children and Families”,
and “Women Empowerment” sub function within MoWECP 2018–2022

100%

80%

60% Women Empowerment

40%

Social Protection and Services

20% for Children and Families

0%

2018 2019 2020 2021 2022

Source: Ministry of Finance

In 2022, funding for core CP issues within the three departments14 under MoWECP focused on children’s
issues comprised only 42.5 per cent of departmental spending. While this share increased compared to 2021
(29 per cent), it was mostly allocated to drafting laws and policies.

Figure 6.
Funding for core child protection issues within three sub-ministries
under MoWECP handling children’s issues in 2022

18% 42%
Core CP Issues

11%
Law Drafting

14%
42% Indonesian Commission
15%
for Child Protection

15%%
Others (family issues, events,
trainings, meetings, etc.)

18%
14% Institution Management

11%

Source: Ministry of Finance

Core CP issues included in the 2022 budget were: children in special conditions, children as victims of
violence, children’s rights for care and environment, children’s rights for birth registration, nationality,
information and participation, and children’s rights for health and education. The breakdown of these
budgets is displayed in Figure 7.

14
The three MoWECP departments handling children’s issues are: Department of Children’s Rights Fulfilments, Department of Children’s
Special Protection, and the Indonesian Commission for Child Protection.

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 Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

Figure 7.
Breakdown of child protection core budget in 2022

13% 38%
Children in special conditions

19%
Child victims of violence
13%
38% 17%
Children’s rights
for care and environment

13%%
Children’s rights
for civil, information, and participation
17%
13%
Children’s rights
for health and education
19%

Source: Ministry of Finance

Recommendations
The Government of Indonesia is encouraged to develop a comprehensive
strategy for using a systems approach to invest in CP that strengthens
coordination and synergies. It should be focused on the prevention of
vulnerabilities of children and ensure effective case management to
provide quality services. There is an urgent need to streamline coordination
and collaboration across two key ministries (MoSA and MoWECP) to align
budget formulation and execution including targeting, tracking, monitoring
and reporting on CP spending.

Given the large share of children in the country’s population and the plan
to include CP in the Final Draft of the Long Term Development Plan 2025–
2045, a budget coding system should be adopted for children’s issues
with specific codes for children as part of the classification system.

3.4. Decentralization of child protection funding and delivery

Although Indonesia has a highly decentralized governance and administrative system under the Law
on Decentralization UU/23/2014 compared to ASEAN peer countries, challenges remain in prioritizing
and financing CP across government agencies at national and sub-national levels. Yet, this also provides
opportunities where about one-third of the central budget (IDR856.9 trillion) is spent at the sub-national level,
with many planning and budgeting decisions taking place at the decentralized levels.15

15 UNICEF Indonesia: Programme Strategy Note, April 2020, p.114.

16 Summary of decentralization and fiscal decentralization laws: Law No.23 of 2014, and Law No.1 of 2022

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 Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

Both national and sub-national governments have the responsibility and authority to allocate and spend
budgets on CP. Sub-national budgets are primarily financed by a combination of locally generated revenues,
intergovernmental transfers, and grants. Sub-national authorities can borrow to finance spending, but only
with central government permission, and funding is restricted to financing certain categories of expenditure.16

This system of fiscal decentralization has been in place since 1999. However, due to fiscal capacity problems
and limited capacity in managing an independent budget, most sub-national governments rely on
intergovernmental transfers from central government to implement CP programmes, such as Child-Friendly
Cities/Districts initiatives. Governments with higher fiscal capacity and more freedom to spend tend to have
fiscal management challenges, such as mismanagement and budget delivery issues.

Box 3:
MDA arrangements for financing centralized CP services

Some aspects of CP implemented at national and sub-national areas, such as juvenile

justice, are handled by ministries and departments with centralized budget systems, or
‘vertical’ systems. These include, among others:

• National Police, which handles the budget for sub-national police

• Attorney General’s Office which handles the budget for sub-national Attorney
General offices
• Supreme Court, which handles the budget for local courts.

Local frontline responders and specialized service delivery offices are mostly financed by
central government ministries and departments to which its service is attached to, such as
the UPTDPPA (not to be confused with the Police’s PPA Unit). Although local government
should also contribute to finance these offices, many sub-national governments do not
have the budget to do so. Funding from the central government uses Dana Alokasi Khusus/
DAK (an earmarked intergovernmental transfer scheme).

Decentralized budgets provide opportunities to increase investment in CP prevention and responses, but also
require substantive efforts to engage more than 500 districts across the Indonesian archipelago. At the same
time, ministries and departments at provincial, district and local levels have limited human resources and
capacity to deliver effectively on CP.

Recommendations
Invest in strengthening the human resources and capacity of ministries
and departments at provincial, district and local levels on CP to provide
timely, quality and effective services to vulnerable children and adolescents.

Leverage the benefits and opportunities of decentralization to leverage

more resources and investment for CP.

Establish mechanisms to strengthen the evidence, policy, budgetary

and regulatory frameworks for decentralized and risk-informed service
delivery in CP.

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 Budget Note: Enhancing Public Finance for Better Child Protection in Indonesia

4. Conclusions

©UNICEF/UNI489862/Chair

Indonesia needs to urgently accelerate progress in CP through evidence-based policies, budgets and
enforcement to enable all girls and boys to access equitable, gender-responsive, quality CP prevention and
services and access legal identity and justice, especially for marginalized children and adolescents. This
requires CP system strengthening, capacity building and improving efficiency of services as well as enhancing
prevention efforts. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure effective implementation of CP laws and policies
that exist and leverage opportunities for innovative financing, private sector and development partners’
investments for tracking budget expenditures at national and sub-national levels.

Acknowledgement

This Budget Note was prepared by the team at UNICEF Indonesia (Yoshimi Nishino, Milen Kidane, Ali Moechtar,
Ignatius Setiawan Cahyo Nugroho, Astrid Gonzaga Dionisio, and Sakti Herliansyah). Special thanks also go to
the consultants (MOKORO and Victor Karunan), for their invaluable contributions and expertise

We extend our sincere thanks to the Ministry of Finance of the Republic of Indonesia for their substantial
inputs and insightful comments throughout the development and finalization of this budget note.

For further information, please contact UNICEF Indonesia Country Office:

• Yoshimi Nishino | Chief Social Policy | UNICEF Indonesia: ynishino@[Link]

• Ali Moechtar | Social Policy Specialist | UNICEF Indonesia: amoechtar@[Link]

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