In 2010 the Gross Domestic Regional Product (GRDP) of West Papua was rupiah 114,656,188 million or US$12.616 billion[1]. The population of West Papua in the 2010 census was 3,593,803, of which slightly more than half are now non-Melanesian Indonesian settlers and their offspring. Most official statistics do not differentiate between the indigenous Melanesian and settler populations; this results in distortion due to the fact most settlers reside in urban and coastal areas while the mountainous interior is predominantly inhabited by traditional Melanesian people. Most GRDP accrues to urban (settler) residents. Overall the per capita GDRP of West Papua was US$3,510 in 2010.

This is substantially more than the average Indonesian GDP per capita of US$2,452 in 2010 for its 237.6 million people[2]. It is more than twice that of neighbouring PNG, which in 2010 had a GDP per capita of US$1,521[3]. However the indigenous Papuan people do not enjoy a higher standard of living than their counterparts in PNG: on the contrary many indicators place them in a significantly worse position. Papuans also comprise the poorest sector of Indonesian society despite having a higher regional income than the national average. Papua province has a poverty rate (rural and urban) of 30.66% in 2012, the highest in Indonesia and far above the national average of 11.66%[4]. Rural poverty was even more pronounced, being 39.39% against a national rural average of 14.70%. Papua Barat hardly fared any better at 36.33%. Clearly the West Papuan people are not receiving the benefits of a high regional income. Which begs the question: who is?

Literacy is also very poor – the worst in Indonesia. In the 15-44 years age group Papua province had an illiteracy rate of 34.83% in 2011, the latest figures available. This is against a national average of just 2.30%. The next worst province was Sulawesi Barat which had an illiteracy rate of 6.49%. The 15 plus years age group fared no better; again the worst in the nation by a huge margin which is still growing: in 2003 the illiteracy rate was 25.54 but by 2011 it had leapt up to 35.92%. This clearly indicates that the Indonesian educational system is failing the West Papuans. Without education and basic literacy individuals are doomed to entrenched poverty.

Health statistics are likewise grim. The infant mortality rate for Papua in 1999 (the most recent BPS figure) is 6.85%, seemingly not so far above the national average of 5.95%. However recent research by Stella Roos Peters, a Dutch scholar who worked in Papua Barat, reveals the terrible level of structural violence that West Papuan people suffer. Peters found that there is an enormous difference in the infant mortality rate for Melanesian babies and for non-Melanesian settler children. The infant mortality rate for settlers in the urban areas was only 3.6%, considerably below the national average, while for Papuans living in the rural areas she studied it was 18.4%, more than three times the national average[5].  This compares to an infant mortality rate in PNG in 2010 of 4.70%[6].

The comparison of a basic health statistic, like the rate of infant mortality between Melanesians living in PNG and those in Indonesian-controlled West Papua, is very stark. While PNG has serious problems in providing health services to its population, some 80% of whom live in rural and remote areas, it delivers a far better outcome that the Indonesian government just across the border, even though the GRDP per capita of West Papua is over twice that of PNG. As Stella Roos Peters notes:

These statistics indicate a vast inequality in society. The group-interviews held amongst the different groups confirmed that discrimination is anchored in society and systematically disadvantages the Papuans[7].

This paper briefly shows that while overall economic outcomes in West Papua are better than the Indonesian averages the Papuan people suffer conditions far worse that the average Indonesian, and worse even than their counterparts in PNG. They are poorer, less educated and deprived of even the most basic health services, leading to structural discrimination and further marginalisation. It is obvious that, besides a small Papuan elite in the civil service, the fruits of West Papua’s rapid economic growth are going to non-Papuans and foreign entities, including Jakarta.

Main points: 

Jim Elmslie (Ph.D. Econ. Syd. Univ.) is the co-convener of the West Papua Project at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, the University of Sydney. His Ph.D. thesis entitled, Irian Jaya Under the Gun: Indonesian Economic Development versus West Papuan Nationalism, was published by the University of Hawaii Press in 2002.