Indonesia’s aid unclear without aid agency Awidya Santikajaya  ;  A PhD candidate at the Australian National University in Canberra

JAKARTA POST,  02 Desember 2014

                                                                                                                       

The G20 recently concluded its ninth summit in Brisbane, Australia. Although the Brisbane Summit, as with other G20 summits, was first and foremost dedicated to discussing the management of macroeconomic policy and global financial issues, there were also significant concerns about development cooperation. In the leaders’ communique, the G20 members agreed to commit to development and to supporting a post-2015 development agenda. In this sense, Indonesia, which has a growing economic and diplomatic profile, could contribute more to global efforts toward development by setting up a special agency which was dedicated to administering its development cooperation provided to other countries. The issue of Official Development Assistance (ODA) has been discussed intensively by G20 leaders. Tracing back to the second G20 Summit in London, members reaffirmed their commitment to meeting Millennium Development Goals and ODA pledges. It is South Korea which should be credited with more systematically adding development issues to the G20. Since the release of the Seoul Development Consensus in 2010, the leaders have agreed to expand the group’s global development agenda, to protect low-income countries from the worst impact of financial crises. Developing countries in the G20 have also risen as “emerging donors” in recent years. India for instance, has transformed itself from one of the largest recipients in the 1970s to a donor nation, providing around US$1.3 billion of foreign assistance in 2014. China has become the most important emerging donor in terms of geographical scope and financial capability. China released its Foreign Aid White Paper in 2011 which confirmed that by the end of 2009 it had provided a total of 256.9 billion yuan ($39.3 billion) in aid. Brazil disbursed around $850 million of foreign aid in 2013. Turkey has also become the fastest-growing emerging donor according to the OECD, providing $2.5 billion in 2012 of foreign aid. Indonesia is also increasingly active in providing development aid. The Finance Ministry states the national budget for south-south and triangular cooperation has risen 32.32 percent from Rp 56.588 billion ($6.08 million) in 2013 to Rp 74.879 billion in 2014. Compared to other developing countries, Indonesian ODA is still minimal. But that relatively small amount of aid could be due to poorly documented and consolidated aid activities. There are currently more than 16 government agencies in Indonesia that provide development aid to other countries. Each agency has a different approach, standards and procedures, which only makes Indonesian ODA less effective. There have been many attempts to synergize various aid projects. In recent years, the Foreign Ministry’s Directorate of Technical Cooperation has positively coordinated technical assistance provided by various Indonesian agencies. Nevertheless, Indonesia needs a more powerful body, rather than either a small directorate or ad-hoc teams assigned to consolidate its various aid programs. As an emerging donor Indonesia should establish an aid agency. India set up its Development Partnership Administration in 2012, while South Africa, which is economically smaller than Indonesia, formed the South African Development Partnership Agency last year. China does not have one, but several, ODA agencies, each closely linked with the government’s foreign policy strategy. Many non-G20 developing nations already operate foreign-aid agencies. Thailand has been operating the Thailand International Development Cooperation Agency since 2004. Chile has created the Chilean International Cooperation Agency, which delivers aid and technical assistance mainly to Latin American nations. There are at least three reasons to set up an ODA agency. First, through the ODA agency, Indonesia could consolidate its development assistance, which currently flows through various channels and agencies in an ad-hoc way. Indonesia has a strong legacy as an initiator of south-south cooperation through its role as the host of the Asia-Africa Conference in 1955. It is also an active player in triangular cooperation, which provides technical assistance to less-developed countries with funding from developed nations. Its activities range from giving tractors to farmers in Vanuatu to providing Darmasiswa scholarships. But the lack of an aid agency has resulted in unclear goals and objectives in providing aid to other countries. Any goal is hard to measure because no single institution is tasked with conducting evaluation and monitoring. Secondly, a dedicated aid agency would enable Indonesia to catch up more with development issues. Through the agency, Indonesia could offer its unique view of the current discourse and debate on global development cooperation, such as the relationship between donors and recipients, where developed and developing nations often have divergent stances. The agency would also help Indonesia learn important aspects of aid management, such as aid effectiveness, from well-established development institutions, such as Australia’s AUSAID, the American USAID, Japan’s JICA and the World Bank. The agency could also serve as a single gateway for Indonesia to cooperate with other institutions in triangular cooperation. Last but not least, to domestic constituents, the aid agency would ensure the transparency and accountability of Indonesia’s aid program. The agency could publish routine and comprehensive reports on how Indonesian money is spent on aid programs overseas. Currently, reports on Indonesia’s aid program are too scattered and difficult to account for. Despite its existing status as an aid recipient and its interminable domestic challenges, Indonesia’s current robust economic growth has provided it with the opportunity to leverage its profile as a more active donor for south-south and triangular cooperation. An aid agency would not only become a diplomatic tool to expand Indonesia’s influence, more importantly, it would enhance Indonesia’s contribution to strengthening global development as well as promoting aid effectiveness and fairness, which is consistent with Indonesia’s dynamic role in the post-2015 development agenda process in recent years. ●

A revised ‘Bandung world’ in the making

A revised ‘Bandung world’ in the making Awidya Santikajaya ;  A Foreign Policy Observer

JAKARTA POST, 29 April 2013

“Despite revision of developing nations’ behavior and strategy, Bandung world’s core concern remain the same, which is to endorse the world’s justice and peace.” 

Fifty-eight years ago, Bandung hosted probably the most important conference in the developing world. As a summit of leaders who had suffered the humiliating affects of imperialist repression for centuries, the Asian-African Conference was full of confrontational rhetoric for equality and self-determination against colonialism. While the demand for a more egalitarian world remains relevant today, the developing world’s foreign policies have shifted from confrontational to more complex strategies.

During the course of the 1955 conference, leaders advocated alternatives to the hegemony of the superpowers. In his opening speech, president Sukarno encouraged Asian-African nations to mobilize political strength on the side of peace, in contrast to the use of force projected by colonial powers toward their colonies.

At the same time, the People’s Republic of China’s premier Zhou Enlai urged Asian-African leaders to promote friendly cooperation among them. Participants of the conference agreed to the final communiqué, namely Dasa Sila Bandung (the Ten Principles of Bandung), that was mainly concerned with advancing closer cooperation among developing nations in an effort to untie their relations with the Western colonial powers.

In the decades that followed, the spirit of “Bandung” inspired third world countries to establish the “alliance of revisionist”. They formed the Non-Alignment Movement (NAM) that aimed to reject division of the world according to ideological lines. The developing world also set up the G-77 to promote its members’ collective interests and create an enhanced joint negotiating capacity at the UN.

More significantly, they established the G33, a group to advocate special rules for developing countries at World Trade Organization (WTO) negotiations, which had been quite critical to developed countries.

The end of the Cold War — which made NAM less relevant — and a series of economic crises in developing nations in the 1990s led the developing world to embrace a more pragmatic stance on global political economy, rather than to stay in the old “North-South confrontation” framework.

Leaders from developing nations do not demand for radical change of the existing “Western-initiated” global governance. In his straightforward comment, Ravi Palat argued it should not come as a surprise because those leaders were the elites who benefited the most from economic globalization.

Most developing nations still believe in the importance of multilateralism, but they are less enthusiastic to establish coalitions. Although in some negotiations — especially those covering climate change and trade — there is intense consultation and communication, their voices are often diverse, thus, resulting in less productive outcomes. This trend of divergence foreign policy apparently can be seen from the behavior of developing countries that had recently gained the self-perceived status as “emerging powers”.

At the G20, which some emerging powers became members, they do not always pursue competition and rivalry toward the US, Europe and Japan. Instead, emerging powers, for the most part, act responsibly as part of international system. There was a brief “currency war” between the US and China during the 5th G20 Summit in Seoul in 2010. However, shortly after the discussion about accusations of currency manipulation to drive growth, the group’s leaders agreed to a “cease-fire” by promising a general “indicative guideline” to prevent trade imbalance.

The prominent emergent powers of Brazil, Russia, India and China founded the BRIC Summit in 2009 (South Africa joined in 2010, and the group was renamed the BRICS) that successfully established some of the technical mechanisms for cooperation.

Nevertheless, to date, it is still hard to imagine that the BRICS could provide a solid alternative for the global system because to BRICS nations narrow national objectives, rather than legally binding commitment, remain the core of cooperation. It can be seen from the last BRICS Summit in Durban where BRICS leaders failed to launch a new development bank, to challenge Western-dominated international development cooperation, because they could not agree on key issues, such as how projects would be distributed.

Referring to the absence of developing nations’ political bloc, should we conclude that the legacy “Bandung Spirit” has gone? No. It is true that developing nations lack coherent foreign policy, but it does not necessarily mean that their role in shaping global order is diminishing.

 We must remember that from the beginning of the 1955 Conference, the leaders acknowledged the fact that Third World countries were so diverse that any effort to unify them would have been less possible. Indian prime minister Jawarhalal Nehru, for instance, warned other leaders that cooperation among newly-independent countries would have been threatened by ideology differences.

At the same time, amid the relative decline of US and European economies, the developing world gradually gained a more prominent role on the world stage. Without any structuralized design, “South-South trade” has increased significantly from 41 percent in 1995 to 55 percent in 2010. Rising the economic profile of developing nations to provide them with strategic importance in international relations.

Developing nations are now pursuing more simultaneous elements of foreign policy maneuver, ranging from balancing to bandwagoning, that are intended to leverage their position in interaction with more developed countries. Different from their behavior in previous decades, developing nations are more confident and independent. With economic and political potentials, they do not want to just become proxies of world’s major powers.

These nations expressed their dissatisfaction with their global order —not through hostilely dissociating themselves from the system as idealized by the 1955 leaders — rather; they pursued intense engagement with developed nations and among themselves, with a view to revise the current structure. In this regard, Bandung has a pivotal legacy, which is to prioritize negotiation and peaceful means and to respect justice and international obligation, or more shortly to consistently advocate for a plural world.

Finally, Bandung’s most important legacy is not in the form of integration of developing nations’ foreign policy as many people perceive. It is all about building norms and moral guidance in global governance, which are relevant to all countries in the world, no matter their power and economic status.

More and more contemporary global problems now clearly need to be solved through more constructive, equal and trustful dialogue and cooperation between both developed and developing nations, something that leaders at 1995 Bandung actually dreamed of. Despite the obvious revision of developing nations’ behavior and strategy, Bandung world’s core concern remain the same, which is to endorse the world’s justice and peace. ●

ASEAN’s potential roles in intra-state conflict resolution

ASEAN’s potential roles in intra-state conflict resolution Awidya Santikajaya ;  The writer is a PhD scholar at Australian National University’s Asia Pacific College of Diplomacy (ANU-APCD), Canberra

JAKARTA POST, 05 November 2012

Many deem the territorial dispute in the South China Sea as the most prominent issue in the upcoming ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, which is understandable because the event will be followed by the East Asian Summit, where big powers in the Pacific, most notably China and the United States, will take part. While the South China Sea is obviously “hot”, there is another important development to watch. In the November summit, ASEAN leaders are scheduled to inaugurate the ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation (AIPR). Proposed by Indonesia while hosting last year’s summit, the AIPR aims to contribute to research on and policy recommendations for conflict resolution. The institute will also enhance existing cooperation among ASEAN think tanks and hold workshops or share experiences in conflict resolution. The establishment of the AIPR is a clear indication that the long-standing principle of non-interference has adapted to the changing situation. ASEAN members now are less reluctant to talk about conflicts, although doing so potentially creates tension and embarrassment. Among other conflicts, intra-state conflicts remain difficult issues to completely and comprehensively solve. Around the world, there has been slow and steady progress in resolving intra-state conflicts. According to Croissant and Trinn (2009), domestic conflicts in Asia have increased significantly, while inter-state conflicts have become less significant. In Southeast Asia, intra-state conflicts still persist until now. According to a report by Human Rights Watch, between 2004 and 2007 at least 2,400 people were killed and 4,000 others injured in Southern Thailand. Recently, conflicts in Myanmar’s Rakhine state have also claimed many lives. Clearly, the number of causalities provides a rationale for prioritizing efforts to searching for resolution to intra-state conflicts. To address intra-state conflicts, Southeast Asian nations usually prefer to exercise domestic policies that focus more on security. For the sake of sovereignty, integrity and national dignity, they do not seem eager to give up on the core of their national sovereignty in exchange for international involvement. Intra-state conflicts are so sensitive that countries in the region usually avoid discussing the conflicts in any international mechanism. In this sense, the “ASEAN way”, characterized by an attitude of non-interference in the internal affairs of one another, has been widely criticized for prolonging intra-state tensions in Southeast Asia. The situation has changed in recent years, although there is still a lot of work to do. An adaptation of the non-interference principle, especially in dealing with intra-state conflicts can be observed from two channels: Cross-border democracy and regionalism. Governments are now more careful in handling intra-state conflicts to avoid criticism from the international community, the media and neighboring countries. This was the case when ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Myanmar Caucus (AIPMC) repeatedly sent messages condemning political repression in Myanmar. A government cannot simply say that intra-state insurgencies are not our business because cross-border civil society groups are now aware and concerned about what is happening in other countries. At the same time, the countries of Southeast Asia have been fostering deeper and closer levels cooperation by working toward the creation of the ASEAN Community in 2015. That development, to a certain degree, has transformed perceptions of Southeast Asian states toward security norms and the political culture in the region. The ASEAN Charter, for example, clearly mentions that the purpose of the association is to promote democracy, good governance, rule of law, human rights and freedom (article 1, paragraph 7, the ASEAN Charter). In that regard, intra-state conflicts may be considered a common concern among Southeast Asian nations because unresolved conflicts can endanger regional and global stability. In the case of the peace process in Aceh, for instance, military observers from ASEAN countries took part in a ceasefire monitoring mission. Learning from ongoing changes in the “non-interference” principle, the AIPR has modalities and opportunities to contribute to intra-state conflict management, although it is not exclusively designed for intra-state conflicts. The institute should look beyond research and advisory roles with little power to influence policies. Instead, the AIPR should be involved in policymaking and implementation. In this regard, nevertheless, it should not ambitiously focus on conflict resolution, but on creating suitable conditions for resolution. One area that the AIPR can work on conflict management is by promoting socioeconomic development in conflict areas, which are mostly economically underdeveloped. There are subregional initiatives, such as the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) and the Brunei-Indonesia-Malaysia-the Philippines Economic East ASEAN Growth Area (BIMP EAGA), but their roles in improving economic conditions and contributing to peace must be greatly advanced and focused. The AIPR could initiate a “trust fund” from ASEAN members and donors that would epecially be used to direct financing to infrastructure projects in regions, such as Southern Thailand, Papua, Mindanao and Kayin state. Joint investment promotion, empowerment of small and medium enterprises, capacity building and development of centers of excellence in those regions could also be seriously considered. Another potential project is to promote more people-to-people contacts and exchanges of scholars and local NGO leaders. In the early stages, focusing on those areas will help the AIPR build important credibility. The recent signing of the initial peace agreement between the Philippine government and the MILF rebel group is a wake up call for ASEAN leaders to revisit their approach to dealing with intra-state conflicts. In this sense, the AIPR has a lot of opportunities to play a role in contributing to long-lasting peace. The role of the AIPR, however, can only be beefed up if there is strong political will from ASEAN leaders. ASEAN Secretary-General-designate Le Luong Minh will certainly play a pivotal role in transforming the AIPR into a valuable vehicle for peace and reconciliation in the region. ●