Indonesia, 2009

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

13 09-53165

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.