BIC hosts working session on international financial institutions in Indonesia

4 December 2007 | Jakarta

Working session aims to update the Indonesian civil society organizations and movements on the old and new trends in the governance and operations of the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as they relate to Indonesia.

On November 26, BIC's Mekong/South East Asia Program organized its first event in Jakarta entitled “Working Session on World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Indonesia, 2007: Trends, Questions and Openings for Civil Society”. The event was held at the Grand Kemang Hotel Jakarta and brought together around 20 representatives from non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society organizations (CSOs) working on issues related with the World Bank and ADB operations and policies concerning Indonesia. Most of the participants are based in Jakarta, but there were also participants from Bandung, Solo, Yogyakarta, and Jambi in Sumatra.

The objective of the working session was to update Indonesian CSOs and movements on the old and new trends in the governance and operations of the World Bank and the ADB as they relate to Indonesia. It also aspired to introduce BIC’s current initiatives in Indonesia and to solicit inputs from Indonesian groups on possible areas of cooperation in monitoring international financial institutions (IFIs).

Various issues concerning the IFIs operations and policies were covered in the sessions. BIC’s Indonesia Project Coordinator, Nadia Hadad, presented the Indonesia Country Update, a glance at the governance, current operations and country strategies of the IFIs in Indonesia. The session was followed by presentations and discussions on thematic issues. Jelson Garcia, the Program Coordinator for the Mekong/South East Asia Program guided participants to unpack the current reform agendas and “survival mechanism” of the Banks. These include the World Bank’s 15th International Development Association (IDA) round, WB’s new Agriculture Policy, Clean Energy Investment Framework and the International Financial Corporations’s (IFC) role in Indonesia; and the question on ADB’s relevance, its new “business models” and Safeguard Policy revision.

During the discussion sessions, participants raised many interesting questions and expressed their thoughts regarding the IFIs in Indonesia. Some were skeptical ofthe effectiveness of using the World Bank’s and ADB’s accountability mechanisms and the safeguards policies. They shared their own experience in demanding accountability form the Banks.

“It had been a very tiring effort and we did not seem to make any progress at all”, said one participant from a Sumatra-based NGO who was doing advocacy work on a pulp-mil project financed by the International Finance Corporation.

All of the participants however, were eager to be looped in to new trends and developments of the IFIs, and expected BIC to play the role of information sharing. Others also expressed their interest to work with BIC in organizing specific trainings depending on the need.