In Reply to: What changes for the better? posted by Ben Chong on Thursday, 5. April 2012 at 10:59 Bali Time:
I'm often highly critical of the changes for the bad in Bali, mostly to do with rampant, uncontrolled tourism, over-reliance on personal transport (and the resulting decline in public transport), pollution, and the selling off of food producing land to foreigners to plonk villas on.
However, there are undoubtedly spin off benefits for the Balinese, and Indonesians living in Bali, and more generally to Indonesia as money flows out of Bali into the other parts of the country.
- Fee free education to year 6. In 1992 you had to pay every day for your child to attend school and many went without even a basic education and were illiterate. Not the case for much of the population today.
- Access to more trained doctors and medical facilities that did not previously exist.
- Access to electricity to a good deal of the population. In 1992 many still had no electricity, or a single globe for the entire residence; no refrigeration, no TV, etc.
- Access to clean water to a good deal of the population.
- Raised standard of living in general, including improved housing, and communications through the mobile network
- higher rate of employment. With work comes money, and with money comes choice.
- Lower infant mortality rate. Lower number of women dying in child-birth.
I could go on, but you get the gist. All of these are spin-off effects of the money that flows into Bali and Indonesia through tourism that allows Indonesia to progress out of the third world into the modern world that you and I enjoy.