Strategy to support Indonesia's digital skills development

Indonesia’s 2020-2024 National Mid-Term Development Plan emphasises the role digital skills development can play in assisting the economy in delivering its development objectives. Being a highly populated economy, Indonesia has the opportunity to leverage digitally literate citizens and a digitally competent workforce to spur the country’s broader goals of economic growth and job creation.

However, this opportunity has yet to be captured by the Government of Indonesia, necessitating the development of a digital skills development strategy.

Genesis Analytics’ Centre of Digital Excellence (C0DE) team partnered with Digital Pathways at Oxford University and the SMERU Research Institute to develop a strategy focusing on accelerating digital skills development in Indonesia. The strategy provides the government of Indonesia’s Ministry of Communications and Informatics with clarity on the channels and enablers that must be in place for the country to elevate the digital skills of its population and realise its broader development objectives.

C0DE collaborated with SMERU to identify the existing challenges in each of the enablers and channels and ideate on strategic interventions that can unlock opportunities for citizens to participate in the digital economy. Identifying these challenges and solutions involved rigorous desktop research and leveraging the findings from the multiple policy dialogue workshops facilitated by SMERU as well as the diagnostic report previously formulated by SMERU. 

The C0DE team combined its expertise in problem-solving in the digital economy with SMERU’s local-market knowledge to identify the key blockages to mass digital skilling in Indonesia and to identify concrete actions to address these blockages.

The strategy will support the government in developing a holistic policy framework to develop digital skills. It provides a detailed roadmap of how accelerated digital skills development can be achieved through three key channels: formal education, vocational training and on-the-job training. These are supported by critical foundational enablers: digital infrastructure and electricity, investment in education and innovation, and an enabling policy environment.