INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION TECHNOLOGIES FOR DEVELOPMENT IN INDONESIA
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of fieldwork conducted by the author in Kebumen district, Central Java. The fieldwork in Kebumen consisted of interviews and focus group discussions FGDs with government officials, local NGOs,
village government members, returned migrant workers, parents of migrant workers and youth looking for work. The fieldwork took place in the city of Kebumen, as well as three sample villages in the district,
and also incorporated a survey of 15-30 year-olds in two of the villages.
Main Findings
1. On Past and Current Trends of ICT and ICT4D Uptake in Indonesia
Over 80 of the Indonesian population has access to mobile phones and according to The Wall Street Journal
the market is nearly saturated. At the same time, telecommunications infrastructure remains largely focused on Java, Bali and urban hubs while signals in less densely populated and more
remote areas of Indonesia remain weak or non-existent. The Internet has been used for social purposes since commercial Internet access became available in the late 1990s—assisting with the organization
of political activists and thus indirectly contributing to the resignation of Suharto in 1998 after 31- years of authoritarian rule. While the Internet was initially accessed primarily through WarNets Internet
cafes, mobile Internet access is now taking off with nearly half of Internet access in Indonesia currently occurring via mobile phone. Similarly, the initial popularity of instant message IM programs has been
largely replaced with the ubiquitous use of Facebook and other social media sites among Indonesian Internet users.
ICT4D advocates around the world have thus far largely focused on the use of mobile phones and argued that Internet is not an effective means of reaching the marginalized and poor since too few have
Internet access. However, at least in Indonesia, this trend seems to be changing. Internet access has doubled from 10 to over 20 from 2010-2012 and will likely continue to grow rapidly as access to applications
such as Facebook become increasingly available and affordable on even the cheapest mobile phone models. Many new Internet users, however, are likely to only, or primarily, access Facebook and thus may still have
a limited understanding of the wider range of ways in which the Internet can be used.
Thus far, ICT4D programs in Indonesia have been initiated in areas such as mobile banking, disaster relief and alert systems, maternal health, the development of microfranchise models as income generation
for the underemployed, and the provision of market commodity price information for farmers and job information for job seekers and employers. In each of these areas, with the exception of disaster relief
and alert systems, mobile phones appear to be the only type of ICT being utilized. In the case of disaster relief and alert systems, however, the Internet and specifically social media tools such as Twitter have
been used to improve the effectiveness of information sharing systems.
2. On the Successes of and Challenges Facing Current ICT4D Programs
