| Summary: | Commodity windfalls and private consumption have sustained Indonesia's growth despite a difficult global environment, but signs of normalizing domestic demand are emerging. Inflation is easing at a faster pace than markets anticipated. Indonesia's external vulnerabilities remain moderate. The fiscal stance has normalized reflecting faster fiscal consolidation, anchored by a broad-based rise in revenues and prudent public spending. Softening inflation and resilient capital flows have led Bank Indonesia (BI) to ease its pace of monetary tightening. The outlook remains stable as the economy normalizes following the post-pandemic recovery. While this is a robust outcome given levels of global uncertainty, Indonesia still faces declining productivity growth like other emerging market economies. Policy makers are encouraged to build on recent reforms and adopt further market-friendly policies and reduce constraints to competition to accelerate productivity growth. The Government of Indonesia (GoI) has put tremendous efforts into mitigating the learning disruption caused by COVID-19. This study provides new evidence of learning loss in math and language, comparing data on grade 4 student learning before and after the COVID-19 pandemic-induced school closures across Indonesia. In line with international literature on COVID-19 - induced learning losses, students' future earnings and Indonesia's future productivity will be negatively affected if no action is taken. This study highlights the urgency of addressing learning loss by stimulating political commitment for learning recovery and prompting deliberate actions, with adequate resources to complete them
|
|---|