UNFPA Indonesia released its five-part monograph series on the country’s current and emerging population and development issues in Jakarta on Friday.

UNFPA Indonesia Representative Mr. Jose Ferraris officially launched the five monographs among a group of academics, experts and representatives from development partners and relevant ministries. Participants included Prof. Emil Salim, Sri Sunarti Purwaningsih from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) and Dr. Sonny HB Harmadi, Chairperson of the Population Coalition.

“To ensure that Indonesia’s development planning is evidence based and includes population dynamics, UNFPA has supported the Government of Indonesia in utilizing the 2010 Population Census and other official statistics to inform discussion and debate,” explained Mr. Ferraris.

“One of these activities is to support the production of five thematic mongoraphs, which highlights an important field of population dynamics within the context of Indonesia.

The five monographs are: Indonesia in the Threshold of Ageing by Prof. Sri Moertiningsih Adioetomo and Dr. Ghazy Mujahid, which describes the size and structure of the elderly population and how it has changed over time; Youth in Indonesia by Dr. Sri Moertiningsih Adioetomo, Mr. Horst Posselt and Dr. Ariane Utomo, which provides a profile of the country’s youth; Internal Migration in Indonesia by Dr. Sukamdi and Dr. Ghazy Mujahid, outlines the trends, volume and direction of migration; Urbanization in Indonesia by Prof. Gavin Jones and Wahyu Mulyana, which analyzes urbanization trends and highlights the inter-relationship between demographic and social change and pilicies; and Women and Girls in Indonesia by Dr. Soedarti Sorbakti and Dr. Theresa Devasahayam, highlights how gender inequaliies still exist.

Speaking on behalf of the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), Mr. Hadiat praised the release of the Fund’s monographs.

“Our expectation and hope is that these monographs can be used optimally for further studies,” he told the room. “So when we do proceed with making policies we can use real data and we can improve our planning.”