We meet today while
the world is in the grip of intertwined crises from
which we must break free if we are to ensure our long-
term survival. The most urgent of these is the economic
and financial crisis. It has put scores of millions out of
jobs, shut down tens of thousands of factories, and
pushed more than 100 million people below the
poverty line.
A few days ago, at the Group of Twenty (G-20)
summit in Pittsburgh, the 20 largest economies of the
world, both developed and developing, addressed this
crisis by agreeing to reform the global financial
architecture to meet the needs of the twenty-first
century. No longer will we depend on just a few
industrialized nations to solve the world’s economic
problems. The developing world is now part of the
solution to those problems. Through the G-20, the
voice of the developing world will be heard in
international economic and financial decision-making.
Thus, we are building today a new and
constructive power equation, increasing the sharing of
responsibilities and contributions and widening
participation in decision-making. This redistribution of
power constitutes fundamental reform that should be
replicated in other bodies, such as the Security
Council. And no more will our economies be left to the
mercy of the market. Financial institutions and
instruments will have to be regulated and closely
supervised. There will be close consultations and
mutual assessments of national economic strategies in
order to ensure coordination at the global level and to
identify potential risks to financial stability.
For our part in Indonesia we are working hard in
the G-20 to reform the mandate, mission and
governance of the International Monetary Fund and our
multilateral development banks. These banks must
deliver accelerated and concessional financing without
conditionalities to the low-income countries so as to
cushion the impact of the crisis on the most vulnerable
and the poorest.
All of this has set refreshing precedents in terms
of access to financial resources for developing
countries and in terms of transparency, and most
importantly, it reflects current global realities rather
than the world of 60 years ago. As such, it represents a
democratization of the global economy and the
international financial architecture. It has also given us
a remarkable insight: that it is not an array of disparate
crises that is confronting us. We are actually in the grip
of one systemic crisis. The economic and financial
crisis, the challenge of climate change, the food
security crisis and the energy security crisis are
problems that fed on one another and thus grew to
critical proportions. That reality materialized because
the international community failed to form an effective
global partnership to address the large bundle of
challenges that have ultimately affected all humankind.
In that sense, the root cause of this overarching
crisis is the failure to achieve multilateralism and forge
a system of democratic governance at the global level.
But we can rectify that failure through an all-
encompassing reform of the relationships between
nations in the world today.
In December in Copenhagen we can strive to
reach a new consensus on climate change that is more
effective in averting climate disaster by forging an
equitable and transparent partnership between
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developed and developing nations. As the host country
to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in
Bali, which adopted the Bali Road Map by consensus,
Indonesia fervently desires that the Copenhagen
meeting will yield a new commitment to a framework
to strengthen the Kyoto Protocol in 2012. This
framework must stipulate deep cuts in greenhouse gas
emissions and sufficient financing for adaptation to and
mitigation of climate change.
We would like to see the role of forests given the
top priority that it deserves. We look forward to ocean
issues being mainstreamed into the new climate
regime. And we cannot allow the negotiation process to
be derailed; the stakes are too high. We need not even
wait for a consensus. We are ready to forge
partnerships to carry out concrete projects like the
Indonesia Forest Carbon Partnership Facility, which by
itself is already a contribution to climate stability. In
the same spirit, Indonesia is hosting the Forest-2011
ministerial meeting in Jakarta next month.
By the same token, we can launch a more
successful and durable Green Revolution that is based
on the same kind of partnership and gives developing
countries sorely needed access to resources and
technology. That partnership can and must provide for
the massive investments required for agricultural
production and building agricultural infrastructures.
When sufficient investment is channelled to
agriculture, the result is the productivity that Indonesia
has enjoyed in the past several years. We have a
surplus production of rice and part of that surplus will
become a buffer stock for our national food security.
Part of it will be allotted as our contribution to global
food security.
Through similar reform we can involve more
nations in a coordinated quest for new sources of
renewable and clean energy, without compromising
food security. A global partnership for energy security
rather than a scattering of individual efforts will have a
much better chance of achieving a technological
breakthrough that will enormously increase the
efficiency of current fuel-burning mechanisms.
With this new spirit of reform and
multilateralism, we will be able in 2010 to break the
impasse in the Doha Round negotiations, which will
lead to an outcome that is pro-development. In that
same spirit we can tear down the barriers of
protectionism that are rising again out of fear of the
economic crisis. With trade revitalized, world gross
domestic product (GDP) could be bolstered by
$700 billion a year.
A global partnership that reforms the
international financial architecture, works for climate
stability, food security and energy security and brings a
successful conclusion to the Doha Development Round
should also bring about the fulfilment of the Monterrey
Consensus. This will ensure the attainment of the
Millennium Development Goals.
If this new spirit of multilateralism and reform can
pervade international socio-economic affairs, there is no
reason why it should not also find its way into the
politico-security field. It can resuscitate the
disarmament agenda — especially nuclear disarmament,
which has been lying moribund for decades. In a truly
democratic world order, the nuclear Powers would fulfil
their commitment to the Non-Proliferation Treaty by
slashing their nuclear arsenals and abiding by the
Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty. In turn, we
non-nuclear countries will continue to refrain from
developing nuclear weapons.
This is no longer an impossible dream. A window
of opportunity has been opened with the adoption of
Security Council resolution 1887 (2009) on the
maintenance of international peace and security leading
to a nuclear-weapon-free world, and with the current
process between the United States and the Russian
Federation towards deeper cuts in their respective
nuclear arsenals. Thus, the disarmament agenda is
being revived.
Even the persistent Middle East conflict, with the
question of Palestine at its core, could be more
expeditiously resolved, if the task of promoting the
peace process involved a wider base of stakeholders.
The main problem in reviving the peace process at the
moment is the intransigence of Israel on the issue of
illegal settlements. But the early engagement of the
Obama Administration in the peace effort and its even-
handed multilateral approach to the problem brings
hope for an eventual two-State solution.
Let us therefore respond to President Obama’s
call for partnering for peace. Likewise, the challenge of
terrorism demands the broadest possible coalition of
nations to put an end to it — not only through sheer
force of arms but also and mainly through a dialogue
of faiths, cultures and civilizations that will put the
merchants of hate out of business.
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Every major problem in the world today calls for
the concerted efforts of many nations to work out its
solution. This includes transnational challenges like
piracy, irregular migration, money-laundering, human
rights violations, the threat of a pandemic and natural
disasters. All these problems demand reform and
strengthening of international cooperation. A clamour
for reform that must be heeded now is the call for the
overhaul of the composition and workings of the
Security Council. For by no means does the Council
reflect the realities of our time — it is a throwback to
the world at the end of the Second World War.
In the same way that the Group of Eight can no
longer solve the economic problems of the world, a
Security Council paralysed by its undemocratic
composition and the veto system can no longer
guarantee our collective security. It needs to be more
democratic, transparent and accountable. It needs new
sources of strength that the developing world and their
ancient civilizations can help provide in the same
manner as the inclusivity of the G-20.
We in Indonesia are great believers in democratic
reform, because that is what saved us from being
totally crushed by the Asian financial crisis of 1997.
Over the years until then, we had focused too much on
the market and on our GDP growth and thus neglected
our political development. The only way out of the
crisis was reform — reform of every aspect of our
national life. And so we made the transition from a
highly centralized authoritarian regime to a
decentralized, more fully democratic system. We
reformed our military, our bureaucracy and our justice
system. We modernized our economic infrastructure.
And since October 2004, the administration of
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been
consolidating and fine-tuning earlier reforms. Now,
having won re-election in only the second direct
presidential election in our history, he is ready to
launch a second wave of reform, which will lay the
foundations for Indonesia’s becoming a developed
country by 2025. Meanwhile, we have come to be
known as the world’s third largest democracy, the land
where democracy, Islam and modernization not only go
hand in hand but thrive together. We intend to keep on
earning and deserving that recognition — by, among
other ways, learning from others and sharing with them
our experiences in political development.
That is why, last December, we organized the
Bali Democracy Forum, Asia’s first intergovernmental
forum on democracy. We are making this an annual
affair. And it is our hope that the world, as it reforms
its economic governance, will learn a truth that we
came upon during our crisis some 12 years ago: that
prosperity without democracy is but a bubble. And
democracy that does not deliver development will not
endure. Economic and political development must
march hand in hand. As it is with a country such as
Indonesia, so it is with the world. It is not enough for
the world to get its economics right. It must also get its
politics right. For man does not live by bread alone. He
must also have his freedom.