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Strategic RI-US partnership
The Indonesia-US relationship is on the most positive track ever in its long history
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T
he Indonesia-US relationship is on the most positive track ever in its long history. Though we are used to ups and downs in the relationship, we are now into new upside territory.
We wouldn't have dared to imagine we would ever see a US President who lived in Indonesia, in the same year as a comprehensive US-Indonesia bilateral partnership, proposed by a President of Indonesia. This rare moment reflects historic changes in both countries. We must seize it.
The two governments are moving at a rapid pace. President Yudhoyono's proposal of a comprehensive partnership was publicly accepted by Secretary Clinton right after she took office, followed by early her trip to Indonesia to agree on concrete areas of cooperation.
President Obama has several times expressed his commitment to the partnership - most recently in a call to President SBY in which he emphasized the importance of education, democracy, and climate change as areas of concentration for the partnership.
But the two governments cannot do it all. As originally proposed by Indonesia last November, the partnership "has to be for the long-term, and have strong people-to-people content." It requires the oxygen of public involvement in both countries - particularly over this summer, while the partnership content is still under discussion, and the scope for public input is greatest.
USINDO held a landmark April conference in Washington that strengthened the public input aspects of the partnership, particularly from American audiences. Now the scene shifts to Indonesia.
The focus of the upcoming week in Indonesia -- July 26-31 -- is how to expand US- Indonesia educational exchanges under the partnership and make sure it produces results. Of all the sectors in the partnership, education is the one that most depends on non-government actions --- it's hard even to imagine governments directing the formation of university-to-university linkages.
As recommended by the April conference, USINDO has organized and is co-chairing, along with the Institute for International Education, the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities, and the East-West Center, a mission to Indonesia of 20 senior US university presidents and leaders. This mission is welcomed by both governments, and will feature opportunities for interaction and input from Indonesian universities, students, and the public
To put the task into perspective, the number of Indonesians engaging in long-term study in the US has fallen from 13,000 in 1997 to about 7,700. Only 130 Americans currently study in Indonesia compared to over 200 a decade ago. The reasons for these trends are a complex mix of factors, including insufficient marketing by US and Indonesian universities and travel restrictions, but they do not reflect a lack of interest by Indonesians in study in the US, historically a key source of education for Indonesians, as for other countries.
The new partnership offers the perfect opportunity to restore US-Indonesia educational exchanges to levels that better reflect the potential for the exchange of knowledge between the countries. Such exchanges have also proved to strengthen the foundations of our bilateral relationship, making them especially appropriate for a partnership.
Our Educational Leaders' Mission wants to find ways to double the number of Indonesians studying in the US and Americans studying in Indonesia; expand university-to-university partnerships; strengthen academic centers in each country that promote study about the other, and promote understanding of fruitful areas for academic exchanges. We want Indonesians to hear about US universities seeking Indonesian students, and for Americans to look at Indonesia not just for traditional fields of research such as political science and anthropology, but for such subjects as climate change, food production, and coastal zone management.
The team will meet both government educational institutions and private universities. There will be a special USINDO Open Forum this week to provide an opportunity for public dissemination of the draft findings of the educators' visit, and for comments and questions from the Indonesian public. USINDO also plans a major conference in Jakarta in early October to provide for Indonesian input to other sectors of the partnership
It is a signal of commitment that this week's senior education mission has proceeded despite the horrific events of last week. But those events remind us how important it is to rededicate ourselves to the role of education. Education leads to jobs and broad based economic growth opportunities, which extinguish the breeding grounds for whatever appeal terrorist acts may have for a few. Let's re-invigorate our educational partnership, and may it develop deep roots.
The writer, the president of the US-Indonesia Society, was Ambassador to Bangladesh and Director of USAID in Indonesia.
