Background Information
Indonesia has taken South-South Cooperation as one of its priorities for foreign policy. The country has also stressed the importance of triangular cooperation in similar basis of Thailand as both countries have developed important projects in this modality of cooperation with the support of Japan and its JICA – Japanese International Cooperation Agency. Indonesia has given strong support to ASEAN initiatives and actively cooperates in other regional cooperation projects. The country has been one of major spokesperson for the South on the multilateral during the current talks on Food Security. Indonesia is active member of G77 and NAM as it is a key player in the ASEAN. The country played also a role on the establishment of the NAASP together with South Africa in 2005. The NSSP is a framework to build a bridge between Asia and Africa in three major areas namely political solidarity, economic cooperation and socio-cultural relations.
Examples of Key Projects of Indonesia
| NAN CSSTC |
Together with Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia took initiative to establish the Non-Aligned Movement Centre for South-South Technical Cooperation (NAM CSSTC) located in Jakarta in 1998 with a range of initiatives and programmes to support development of the Global South. The mission of CSSTC is to “contribute to the acceleration and enhancement of national development by strengthening and expanding South-South Technical Cooperation in the context of international development cooperation”. NAM CSSTC acts as a centre for action and pooling resources as well as a forum for dialogue to attain the development objectives of both NAM member and non-member countries. |
| NASSP |
Indonesia played a major role in the establishment of the New African-Asian Strategic Partnership together with South Africa. The NAASP was formally adopted at the 2005 Asian African Summit celebrating 50 years of Bandung Conference. The NAASP aims to boost economic and technical cooperation among other issues between both continents. The NAASP has a history dating back to the 1955 Asian African Conference (popularly referred to as the Bandung Conference) held in Jakarta, Indonesia. The Bandung Conference brought together in solidarity the newly independent counties of Asia and Africa to discuss a wide range of issues. The Bandung Conference is sometimes considered to be the initial stage of the Third World movement of newly independent countries that sought to transcend their colonial histories by using the state as a means to freedom, self-determination and modernization that would unite its inhabitancy and carry them forward to development. The NAASP promotes cooperation between member states of the two continents in areas such as trade, industry, investment, finance, tourism, information and communication technology, energy, health, transportation, agriculture, water resources, enhanced capacity building, human resources development among other areas.
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| Agriculture |
Indonesia organizes a programme of apprenticeship for farmers and agricultural workers coming from neighbouring countries in Southeast Asia. The programmes use hands-on methodologies a more effective way of transferring technologies. Indonesia also sends experts to developing countries as it receives experts from other countries. Most recently, it has also announced Brazil-Indonesia programmes of cooperation in East Timor reinforcing the modalities of South-South Cooperation. The announced projects are related to agriculture and rural development of Timor East, one of the poorest countries in the world. |
| Education and training |
Indonesia has organized nearly 40 training programmes for 400 participants coming from over 40 countries from Asia-Pacific, Africa and Middle East. These focused on economic and social issues and had support of JICA and Japan ASEAN General Exchange Fund and UN ESCAP. The government of Indonesia offers annually 50 fellowships for post-graduation programmes to other developing countries in Indonesian Universities.
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Source: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Indonesia
Homepages: http://www.deplu.go.id
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