African century, the new frontier of the global economy
Indonesia preparing a Roadmap for cooperation with Africa; needs broader participation, benchmarking
Riza V. Tjahjadi
Can inter-state cooperation in bilateral, or trilateral offset (as counter discourse) against the regime AGRA, the Alliance for Green Revolution in Africa? How is the view among bureaucrats, and agricultural analyst for AGRA? To AGRA, how we react to it? Is regarded as competitors or as partners? In the context of how? How is the performance of cooperation between Indonesia and Africa, when viewed within the framework of south-south cooperation?
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Makarim Wibisono, a former president of G77 at the United Nations (UN) in 1998, former permanent representative to the RI at the United Nations, and former Director General of the Asia & Pacific, in his presentation also in its presentation of HS. Dillon & MS. Dillon of Center for Agriculture Policy Studies in his presentation: Towards MDGs, Indonesia-African Cooperation in Food Security did not put dimensions AGRA and its maneuvers. But responding to question potential funding for RI and African cooperation, according Makarim will not be referring to the sources of funds AGRA. This can be seen, that the RI-Africa cooperation in parallel with AGRA. Instead of M.S. Dillon suggest the need for cooperation with AGRA, but in the context of Indonesia needs to learn how to manage funding, and so forth. My impression, these two resource persons failed to identify AGRA and its maneuvers in the context of Africa - while among international civil society Organisations (CSOs) AGRA has been criticized since 2002 ago.
Makarim stated Indonesia-Africa cooperation has good prospects, because the 21st century is the African Century, the new frontier of the global economy. Besides Indonesia, Africa will have experience dealing with the monetary crisis Indonesia and Africa are part of the system, namely the Non-Aligned Movement, the G-77, OIC, the South Summit. Moreover the export and import relationships have had already established in the trade.
Citing data UNTACD, Makarim declare investment to developing and transition economies surged, increasing in on their share in the global FDI flows to 63% in 2008. Partly this was due to a concurrent large decline in FDI to developed countries (29%). For example, Malaysian plantation companies, namely Sime Darby has been invested this year in
Obstacles in Indonesia-Africa cooperation is to export the same products, same destination, different business systems, and different payment schemes - Africa, Europe-oriented system. Equation agricultural export products include Commodities, fishery products, mining and handicraft. The export destinations are the United States, Europe, Japan and China.
Technical cooperation of Indonesia and African countries started when Indonesia achieved self-sufficiency in rice in 1984. African countries at the moment there are still millions of people living in poverty and food shortages. According a special staff of minister of agriculture for overseeing the inter-institutions cooperation and foreign affair, Indonesia was pioneered by the Indonesian Agricultural Society (or Yampi, Indonesian Farmers' Society Charitable Foundation) from 27 provinces which formed the Indonesia Farmer’s Fund (IFF) move to give a donation of food - which is symbolically given by President Soeharto to the director general of FAO at its annual session XXIII, which coincides with the anniversary of the UN-FAO to-40 on 14 November 1984. As to remember, President Suharto and the
According Syamsuddyn Abbas of Yampi total IFF collected from the Indonesian farmers reached Rp 16,964,710,410 by 30 July 1994, and more than half of the fund has had submitted to Edouard Souma, director general FAO amounted U.S. $ 7 billion. Yampi listed around 72 projects within 24 countries - almost half of total the countries in Africa - received technical assistance by the Indonesian farmers between 1987 and 2003; see, also: Daniel Shallon et all (2003) Lesson Learned From The Activities of The Indonesian Farmer’s Fund in Africa, 1985-2003. FAO.
According a special staff of minister of agriculture for overseeing the inter-institutions cooperation and foreign affair, the agricultural cooperation with African countries since 1985 until today covers 15 countries:
Indonesia, then, also developed two training centers as Rural Agricultural Development Training Center (P4S) with funds of Yampi (Indonesian Farmers' Society Charitable Foundation) in Gambia to provide a facility to farmers in the west region of Africa and in Morogoro Tanzania for for farmers in eastern Africa. P4S is a set of multipurpose building, provided with motor vehicles, means of education and training, and pump water.
Other forms, was the assistance of agricultural equipment since 1995 until 2007 is a hand tractors, hoes, rice milling machines, scythes, and seeds of rice to Gambia. Tanzania: hand tractor and water pumps, Sudan: Hand tractors and water pumps. Joint Research and technology was supporting R&D in the technical development of natural pararubber for Ethiopia (R & D of the ministry of agriculture of Indonesia and the privatisation and public enterprises, supervising Authority, the National Nucleus Project), exchange of germplasm of coconut palm with Cameroon, and which in on-going process is the exchange palm germplasm with Angola. Stages in the joint R & D since 2006, namely comparative studies, technical training, and joint exploration.
Until now, there are five of the MOUs, namely the countries of Ethiopia, Gambia, Cameroon, Tanzania, and South Africa. MOU on agriculture in general were the Gambia, Tanzania, and South Africa. MOU on oil palm, especially the exchange of germplasm with Cameroon, the MOU on the rubber with Ethiopia. Meanwhile, about agricultural MOU have been agreed together with Nigeria, scheduled to be signed by the minister of agriculture of both countries at the D8 Summit in September 2010. Other agricultural MOU with Namibia – the legal text has been submitted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to the Government of Namibia.
Cooperation within the framework of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) / South-South cooperation since the 1980s has been realized by the Indonesian government, especially Yampi and the Ministry of Agriculture which endorsed by the state secretariat, and the ministry of foreign affairs as well as donor country, such as JICA. This cooperation now covering 50 countries in the Asia-Africa, among them 15 African countries, 20 countries in Asia, the Middle East four countries, eight Pacific countries, and three countries in the region America.
Agricultural situation in Africa is widely known as a dry climate, but actually a very big agricultural potential of Africa to meet the food needs of its inhabitants - which amounts to 823 million people. According to Director of Food Industry Ministry of Industry RI, less advanced in the agricultural sector in Africa due to lack of skilled skill labor, and only 7 percent of the total paddy fields that have irrigation, the remaining 93 percent rely on rainfall for irrigation. He added that in 2003 Indonesia's total exports to Africa reached U.S. $ 1 billion, and in 2007 reached U.S. $ 2.3 billion. Indonesia's import from Africa - without the year and the value of imports - consisting of cotton, aluminum, copper, cotton, pulp, chemicals, tobacco, and organic acids.
Dr. RM Dewabroto, Director for Multilateral Foreign Funding of the National Planning Board (Bappenas) is necessary shortening import chain. Cotton, for example, imports from Africa to
Africa is a huge market potential - with the huge population - have an interest in consumer taste products that are almost similar to the basic needs of Indonesian people. Some brands which are already well known by the Africans is the product of Wings, Indofood, and others. Potential of Indonesia's exports to Egypt are palm oil, and rice. Egypt was ranked 27 countries on the export destination of Indonesia. Potential of the Indonesian market to South Africa - which has close ethnic and Moslem community since 100 years ago - including the oil industry, agro-industry (coffee, tea, soaps, etc.), crude palm oil, canned food products and other processed food. The export products: Indonesia's exports to Algeria is mainly agricultural commodities: coffee, palm oil, and other agricultural products. Nigeria is the largest export market in west region of Africa, consisting of instant noodles, processed foods and beverages, and butter. Indonesian instant noodle product in Nigeria has 30 million consumers. This is Indonesia's largest investment in west part of Africa.
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Makarim Wibisono suggest - as the key word - for the development of Indonesia-Africa cooperation is to develop a road map. Road map to the RI-strong African Agricultural Cooperation Covers seminars, discussions and symposiums Engaging all stakeholders, identification of strategic Steps to be taken Poor 'business links, Also the second track approach. He added planning and a focused program in enhancing bilateral relations beyond agricultural sector in
Within the broader framework according to Dr. RM Dewabroto Director for Multilateral Foreign Funding of Bappenas there was a road map of South-South Cooperation with timeline 2009 until 2014. Historically marked by the participation of the Government of Indonesia in South-South Cooperation has been started in Asia-Africa Conference in Bandung (1955), then, Non-Alignment Movement in Jakarta with the recommendation to established Non-Alignment Movement Centre (1992), and Host of Bali D-8 Conference (2006), and other several projects and activities related to South-South Cooperation both through bilateral or triangular cooperation.
Furthermore, Makarim Wibisono emphasised a few things, namely the need of a formal statement from RI-1 or RI-2 (meaning an official statement from the President or Vice President of
Regarding South-South technical cooperation Non-Aligned Movement (KSS-KTNB) Fahrul Rozi, a staff of technical Cooperation Bureau for Foreign Affairs of the Secretariat of State Indonesia has received funds from
He suggested also some other thing, that Indonesia will strengthen burden-sharing mechanism (the State grantee share in the cost of implementation of cooperation activities), needed to do mapping needs of African countries which will be designed by representatives of Indonesia cooperation in the country, and the private sector and state mapping (state enterprises) which have and will invest, and engage Kadin (the Indonesian chamber of commerce& Industry). Finally, he suggested that
Discussing aid or grants, a woman former RI ambassador to the Scandinavian region suggests that African countries have already overloaded with international assistance related to the MDGs. Scandinavian countries are forming more strategic partnerships to allocate greater funds to Africa, and impact aid for Indonesia is greatly reduced. So, we should be careful in the matter of funding for foreign cooperation. The reason is because
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